4A Games and Deep Silver have officially revealed Metro 2039, the fourth mainline entry in the Metro series of post-apocalyptic first-person shooters. The announcement came with an extended video presentation showcasing the game’s story, gameplay, and visuals which you can check out down below.

Metro 2039 is set six years after the events of the original Metro 2033 and was written in collaboration with series author Dmitry Glukhovsky. Where Metro Exodus took players out of Moscow and into the open world, 2039 is going back underground. Back to the tunnels. Back to what made Metro feel like Metro in the first place.

The setup is grim. The Moscow Metro’s factions and station communities have been unified under a single authoritarian regime called the Novoreich, led by a new Fuhrer: the legendary Spartan known as Hunter. On the surface, he promises a new life for the people. In reality, the Metro is drowning in propaganda, misinformation, and fear. The regime operates under one brutal principle: if it’s hostile, you kill it.

Players take on the role of a new voiced protagonist called The Stranger, a recluse plagued by violent nightmares who is forced to return to the Metro despite swearing he never would. The reveal trailer pulled players through one of those nightmares, layering increasingly disturbing imagery before dropping The Stranger into the real nightmare of post-apocalyptic Moscow and a mission tied to his past.

The gameplay tease showed off what 4A is calling “frozen stories,” which is their approach to environmental storytelling through level design. Each area is staged with items, bodies, and props that tell their own micro-narratives if you’re paying attention. The tease included a close encounter with a Nosalis mutant before The Stranger escapes into a populated station, giving a look at the kinds of bleak underground settlements players will move through.

On the tech side, 4A Games is once again using their custom engine, the same one they’ve been building on since the beginning of the series. They were early adopters of ray tracing with Metro Exodus, and for 2039 they’ve rebuilt their implementation of the technology from the ground up for better performance without sacrificing visual quality. The studio says PS5 players can expect the game to look stunning.

No release date was announced, but Metro 2039 is confirmed for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. The return to the claustrophobic tunnels after the open-world approach of Exodus is the right call. Metro was always at its best when you could feel the walls closing in, and leaning back into that psychological horror identity is exactly what the series needs.

Are you excited for Metro 2039? Drop a comment below or come talk about it in the Vortex Effect forums.