Metro Exodus Release Woes Extend Beyond Launch

People just want to be able to play Metro Exodus. The game's taken a winding path to release, but hopes that all those problems would be resolved after the launch have been dashed, as players have discovered numerous technical issues that can make the game unplayable.

Reports suggest players are being kicked to the main menu after the legal screens, among other bugs (And these appear on both the Steam and Epic Games Store versions.) Metro Exodus’ pre-release saga made pre-ordering the game seem ill-advised in retrospect; now buying the title after its official launch could be a hassle. And it turns out that the Steam version of the title debuted without the execution file it needed to launch.

A brief summary of the release woes: Metro Exodus was originally available for pre-order via Steam. Then, after it expanded to the Epic Games Store, the intellectual property holder decided to pull it from Valve's platform. Later, the developer announced that Steam pre-orders would pre-load but Epic Games Store pre-orders couldn't be downloaded until the launch.

At the time, that last one seemed like a win for people who pre-ordered Metro Exodus on Steam, but the victory was short-lived considering the execution file issue. Their one advantage over Epic Games Store owners--being able to pre-load the game--disappeared. It was almost like thinking something was delivered early only to find an empty box.

Which is a shame, too, because our early impressions of Metro Exodus were favorable. It's the first game to launch with ray tracing support instead of having to patch it in, and it gave us an opportunity to run some preliminary tests measuring the performance impact of ray tracing, DLSS, and the combination of the two.

Nathaniel Mott
Freelance News & Features Writer

Nathaniel Mott is a freelance news and features writer for Tom's Hardware US, covering breaking news, security, and the silliest aspects of the tech industry.