Metro: Exodus [Enhanced Edition]
An excellent action adventure game. It's open-world-ish in that there are a few very large and diverse areas to explore, but the treatment feels more organic than formulaic in that it still follows a plotline (a.k.a "linear"). And these big areas are a delight. There's an obvious comparison to be made to Last of Us in that it's fascinating to rummage through beautifully rendered tidbits in post-apocalyptic ruins. All in all, this is one of those rare games that rises to be a bit more than the sum of its parts. The total package is immersive and exciting.
Fortunately, it's a significant departure from the previous two Metro games, shedding many of their flaws while doubling down on what made them exciting. Combat, for example, is even more tense and "realistic" here. Even on normal difficulty a single hit can cause you significant damage and poor aim is unforgiving. The survival genre leanings mean that you can easily run out of bullets, so every shot counts. You'll be constantly on your toes and carefully considering your tactics, always looking for opportunities to craft resources and clean your weapons to avoid jams.
Exodus also, at long last, realizes the potential of exploration. You're no longer on a frustratingly short timer due to always-depleting gas mask filters, and you're not punished for taking wrong turns. You can, at your own pace, go to any location on the map (within the current narrative area) and find something cool, interesting, or useful.
However, stealth is a bit disappointing here. Enemies seem to have X-ray vision, detecting you even when there's no clear line of sight and they are very far away. A related frustration is the anemic save system, which offers only a few slots, and the automatic saves can easily overrun them. Thus a mistake in an attempt at stealth may turn irreversible and you'll just have to shoot your way out. Which, to be honest, feels properly consequential. So, yeah, it's tense.
This new format for the series is truly a relief. The story can finally breathe. Characters, which previously were mostly forgettable narrative devices, now feel more rounded and important. You get to know and care about them. Alas, the dialog quality has not improved much, and neither has the voice acting. It's either long and rambling or stilted and forced. It doesn't help that they maintained the same awful decision to have everyone speak English with a Russian-ish accent. I guess it's just part of the DNA of Metro at this point, but that fact doesn't lessen the cringe. At least children are no longer as hideous as they were in the previous two games. Unfortunately, too, as in the previous games we again can have characters talking over each other so that you miss what everybody saying.
Oh, and after going way overboard in Last Light, they finally got rid of the adolescent gratuitous sex scenes. There's a splash of nudity, but it's well integrated into the story. Metro finally ditches the camp and this attitude pays off in spades.
Of course Exodus: Enhanced Edition is also famously gorgeous: the superb level design is perfectly married to recent advances in rendering technology. Playing it in 4K HDR with ray tracing is ... astonishing. Note, though, that you'll probably have to rely on built-in DLSS to achieve that with >60 framerates, even with a very high-end GPU (as of 2021).
Play this game.
But should you play the previous two games first? I think that's unnecessary, unless you're really keen on seeing the concept evolve. The first two are disappointing in many ways, and—without spoilers—I'll just say that there are significant breaks and changes to the storyline, such that Exodus can be played as a reboot. So, maybe start here and treat those two as weird and optional prequels to play afterwards.