I booked times to meet with a lot of great teams during E3 2018, but on of my most anticipated meetings was with Deep Silver. Finally, I’d be able to put my hands on the upcoming survival first-person-shooter hybrid, Metro Exodus. The third installment in the Metro 2033 video game franchise based on Dmitry Glukhovsky’s series of novels is one of our most anticipated games.

One of the most noticeable differences between Metro Exodus and its predecessors is its size and scale. Gone are the endless dark and tight corridors. Metro Exodus takes advantage of this current generation of consoles to create much larger environments. According to the developers Metro Exodus‘ maps will be much larger than all other games combined, making up for countless ways to beat each level, while maintaining a linear story structure.

The demo began in an armored train, but it didn’t take long for me to get ambushed by some local rebels. After getting rid of those easy foes, I was told to start investigating the surroundings for equipment and any possible threats. A short time later I discovered a boat and found my way into a flooded church occupied by anti-electricity cultists. Despite being “friendly” at first, they quickly trapped me inside their church and started hunting me down. That’s when the real fun started.

Metro Exodus allows you to either go full guns blazing or get rid of your enemies with a stealthier approach. Like always, I started killing my foes in the most quiet and professional way I could. But once I was spotted, I unleashed my inner Slavic Rambo. If you’re too effective taking down your enemy, they will actually stop attacking you. In Metro Exodus, your targets will surrender and beg for mercy. Slavic Leo knows no mercy. Slavic Leo killed them all. They would have done the same to me. Probably.

After barely escaping with my life from a bunch of tech-hating, but AK-loving maniacs, I was thrown into the wild and forced to fight a bunch of mutated creatures… with like three bullets and a bunch of scrap. I tried to craft more ammo to my guns, but since the crafting process is done in real-time, I still got killed. Shortly after that, I ran out of gaming time. I had to call a day, but I had a smile on my face.

I played Metro Exodus on an Xbox One X and I have to say that despite a few glitches, some long loading times, and one crash, I was incredibly impressed with the game’s visuals and scope. The Russian landscape I could play on was gorgeous, with beautiful graphics, dynamic lighting and impressive amounts of detail. Every character has many lines of dialogue, with developer 4A Games promising twice as many lines of dialogue in Metro Exodus than the previous games combined. The game is far from being finished, so I expect those issues to be gone by the time the game finally comes out.

Metro Exodus still needs a bit of tinkering and polishing, but it’s still a very impressive title that aims to take the franchise to brand new heights. It’s a lot more ambitious, with impressive graphics and a nice mixture of linear and open gameplay. If properly developed, 4A Games and Deep Silver might have a potential blockbuster on their hands. Initially announced during Microsoft’s E3 2017 conference, Metro Exodus is currently slated for a 2019 release. If it’s this much fun in its current state, I’ll most certainly be looking forward to it.