The Metro Franchise, an Interesting Universe of Games and Novels 

By ISAAC SERRATO 

Staff Writer  

Dmitry Glukhovsky is a Russian-Israeli author, a former journalist for Sky News, and Russian Insider. Glukhovsky was born in 1979 in Moscow, Russia, born in an elite intellectual family with a Jewish father. Glukovsky showed a talent for reading, writing, languages at an early age, getting his talent recognized by his family with the school picking it up too. During his childhood years, Glukovosky attended an elite French school in Moscow, where he created games, stories for his classmates. At the age of 17 Glukovsky was sent to Jerusalem, Israel to study during the collapse of the Soviet Union, dual majoring in journalism, foreign relations. Glukovsky was sent to the Hebrew University because it was cheaper than western education, with his father being Jewish Glikovsky could fit in Judaism circles. It was probably a better option to study in Israel as the collapse of the Soviet Union was chaotic, deadly, messy, bloody, overall a total disaster with resources running low, high crime, instability running rampant.  

Glukovsky was a talented journalist speaking out against state-controlled media in Russia, being honest about politicians in Russia, breaking out of the safe zone in Chernobyl to show Russians the truth of the nuclear accident, Glukovsky was also the first reporter to report live from the North Pole. 

But Glukovsky found journalism boring with too much repeating the same tasks, seeking something different he decided to write Metro 2033. An ideal he had since his college years but could never write due to his studies. In 2002, Glukovsky decided to write his book, seeking to publish it when he finished his project, but he was rejected 9 times by publishers. Glukhovsky, becoming frustrated that no one would publish it, made his own website, publishing the book there for everyone to read, review/critique.  Glukovsky would read the comments/reviews so as to rewrite the book in order to improve it. This system worked as readers would point out flaws, with Glukovsky picking up feedback, improving chapter by chapter creating a better book. The book was a success, with 1,000,000 copies sold, 4,000,000 readers online. The book was decent, sometimes boring but the dark, gritty, nihilistic world was recently paired with philosophical analysis of modern-day Russia on how it was impacted by WW2 with politics about the Cold War. The novel was printed out in 2005 becoming a best-selling book in Russian contemporary literature. 

The concept for Metro was that in the year 2013, two middle eastern countries went to war bombing each other with nukes, this cause a domino effect with allies firing at the enemy country, then the enemy allies join to fire their missiles, then NATO joined firing their missiles, with the Eastern world joining in to take out the West. WW3 only lasted 24 hours with 90% of the world dying from the blast, radiation poisoning, nuclear winter. The radiation has poisoned the air, water, with the animals of the surface changing into large, brutal monsters that rip apart humans like it’s nothing. Humans no longer rule the surface, the last major pocket of humanity is seeking shelter in the Moscow metro train stations. The Moscow metro was built in the 1930s to survive gas attacks, air raids, nuclear attacks, the stations are built deep underground with air purification. It also has self-sealing doors, a water supply, a Metro-2 being built, and an even deeper metro system that has special train stations, tunnels, links directly to the Kremlin, with railways to government and military bunkers. Keep in mind the Moscow metro actually has all these features, with the Metro-2 even being widely known by the everyday person in Moscow. 20 years later humanity’s population is barely larger than 500,000. Stations have split from the provisional Russian government, becoming city-states or alliances. Humanity has become savage, with cannibals, raiders, communists, neo-nazis, Satanists, strict born-again Christian theocracy, cultists, rebels, or an empire spawning. But there are also supernatural threats with ghosts, beasts, entities that eat at your subconscious, or strange deaths, cursed tunnels, voices in the pipes. But one character Artyom, a young adult from a small nation who tries to save the metro from the dark ones, with other characters like the awesome Spartan Ranger faction. Former special forces, or men who fight brutally, precise, despite being small they are heavily feared. They are so feared that raiders run away from when they spotted them, rival factions have direct orders to not engage them but to retreat fearing mass casualties. 

(Spartan Ranger dog tag)

Glukhovsky then wrote the sequel to his hit novel Metro 2034 taking place after one year of the first book with different main characters. The book was even a bigger hit, creating a fictional universe by professional, amateur writers. The fictional universe takes place all over the world being prequels, sequels, spinoffs, or even stand-alone novels. The sequel was doing so well commercially, a video game adaptation was spawned for the franchise. 

Metro 2033 was adapted into a video game developed by THQ, by Ukrainian developers. It was a moderate success despite its problems; it was enough of a success to spawn a franchise, even gaining the attention of Glukhovsky. 

Metro Last Light was the sequel to Metro 2033, it gained more popularity, more money, with a way better storyline, acting, voice acting, gameplay, better budget, better animations, with the storyline being closely written with Glukovksy. The original storyline for Metro: Last Light was rejected, which Glukhovsky later adapted to his last novel for the Metro franchise Metro 2035.  

Glukhovsky with the adapted storyline wrote Metro 2035 for the final installment for the written franchise. Metro 2035 is Glukhovsky’s most successful work ever translated into over 40 languages and sold over 15 million copies, a best-seller indeed. The book is satirical, not afraid of calling out the illness of corruption, scandals in the Russian government, or how they claim to care, protect the people of Russia but yet let them rot in poverty. The book is extremely brutal, with unforgiving, blunt descriptions of Stalisnt violence, Nazi killings, domestic violence, concentration camps, mass killings, the book even has violence against kids. The book is dark has bright moments, Artyom the main character of the first book struggles to find hope, his best friend gets himself killed to save Artyom. The book strives to question Russian authority, who is really in charge, by questioning society on how it lets corruption breed. Humanity may be evil but there is still some good. 

4A studios, the studio that picked up the video game franchise with Metro: Last Light, made Metro Exodus. An adaptation from the Metro 2035 novel where Artyom leaves Moscow in hopes of finding life, searching for fertile land in a country of violence that rivals Mad Max. Artyom with his wife Anna, along with his military squad, with his commanding officer Colonel Miller (the step-father of Artyom). Struggle to try to find hospitable land in Russia as they deal with bandits, tribes, cultists, among other threats. The game is a beautiful, immersive, hard, unique story, pretty environment, interesting characters like Sam, a U.S. Marine who has Spetsnaz training, the personal bodyguard of Miller, with a conflicted identity of being a proud American Marine being friends with Russians, serving under a Russian officer. 

 Overall, the Metro franchise is a dark, gritty, nihilistic franchise that isn’t afraid to be bold, criticize, or show how savage humanity can be. But it shows how humanity can be better by giving characters like Artyom, a person who just wants to understand how humanity can be so savage. Or Anna (the wife of Artyom) who is loving, forgiving, willing to give Artyom a second chance at redemption for leaving her, having an affair, dismissing her, and overall being a bad husband to her. The franchise is also extremely immersive where I’ll be playing the video games becoming lost in the stations of the Metro or reading the books being excited wondering what is next for Artyom. Glukhovsky has stopped writing the Metro series focusing on other works but 4A studios did announce they were going to release Metro 4 with rumors of Glukhovsky supporting it, as Glukhovsky has supported the Metro video game franchise in the past with Glukhovsky even helping a Hollywood studio produce a Metro 2033 film to the big screen. (Dimitri Glukovsky)