r/metro

During my NG+ run of Metro Exodus I had picked up a couple of these charms by chance not knowing they were really a special collectible only available in NG+ until I looked up what they were exactly. I thought these were just supposed to be like good luck items or some such, but when I picked up the teddy bear one I got the achievement Toy Collector. Which I thought was weird because they do not particularly look like toys. Until I saw the three dangling from this IV drip and thought "this looks almost like a baby mobile" which led me into speculation territory.

The previous two Metro games, particularly redux versions, flirt heavily with the idea of Artyom and Anna having a child. This is something I talked about before in a previous post. The two main pieces of evidence is the redux menu for 2033 shows Anna and their kid playing around, while in Last Light's bad ending you can see Anna talking to her kid about Artyom. As I said in that post my conclusion was that 4A Games clearly had intentions of having Artyom be a father come the third game, but that idea was scrapped somewhere in very early development.

I think this game also tried setting that up. Obviously there is a lot of talk between the characters of Anna and Artyom settling down and having a family, but a lot of it is either jest or speculation. I do think these "toys" were supposed to be more firm hints on the direction 4A Games intended to go though, namely that Anna and Artyom would indeed settle down and finally have a family. I base this on the fact that for a NG+ collectible feature, its really... weird and banal? Like just to collect three (3) decorative items you need to beat the entire game, and all they do is just hang there. And again, them being called toys is weird when they certainly are not, unless you envision them being a mobile. If I had to guess, I think the very basic idea for Metro 4 was to fulfill what Artyom mentions at the end of liberating the Moscow Metro. Given the time it would take to return to Moscow, Anna likely would have had a child by then, and these toys likely would have featured with the kid. We also know 4A Games is not opposed to signaling long(er) term intentions as there are a few hints of Sam's Story, including dialogue by Sam and Khlebnikov's map board having a post-it of Vladivostok that simply reads "?", certainly predating development of the DLC.

Ultimately though whatever plans they had for this were likely scrapped on February 24th, 2022, when the Russian Invasion of Ukraine began. It is to my understanding that Metro 4 was pretty far along in development, I don't know about playable build but certainly with things like story and characters set up on paper if not in-game. That was scrapped as 4A and Glukhovsky wanted to make a game that was much more reflective of the realities of the war and the fascist spiral Russia has fallen into. Maybe we'll still see Artyom and Anna (imagine them showing up to save Moscow just to see a one man army waging a crusade against Adolf Hunter lol), but who knows until the game is released. At any rate, this is now my second speculation post about plans for Artyom and Anna having a kid just to be thwarted by development realities and choices.

I just completed the "Sam's Story" DLC but I didn't get 2 trophies that should appear at the end.

A Hind D? Colonel, what's a Russian gunship doing here?

Playing Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition for the first time and I can't stop ooh-ing and aah-ing at how stunning the game is

Metro Exodus speculation: the "toys" you can collect in New Game+ are for a baby mobile

I miss Metro Exodus

Which part of Metro Exodus is this scene from?