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11 Metro 2039 takes place in Moscow and its vast underground Metro network in the year 2039. A nuclear war struck the world about a quarter of a century before the events of the game, leaving the surface largely uninhabitable and driving survivors into the tunnels and stations of the metro system. This setting is the original home of the Metro series, and Metro 2039 returns to it after Metro Exodus (2019) took players out of Moscow and across the ruins of Russia.
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44 The Year 2039
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66 The game is set in 2039, about 25 years after the nuclear war and a number of years after the events of Metro Exodus; the exact in-universe gap has not been stated precisely. In that time the world has changed significantly. The fractured, independent station communities that characterized the Metro in earlier entries have been unified, by force and propaganda, under the Novoreich. This political transformation is one of the defining features of the 2039 setting, turning the Metro from a mosaic of competing factions into a single authoritarian state.
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88 A quarter-century is a long time even in the post-apocalypse. The Metro communities have had time to develop social structures, hierarchies, economies, and cultures, even as survival remains precarious. The Novoreich's rise represents what can happen when a sufficiently powerful and ruthless actor fills the power vacuum left by the chaos of the early post-war years.
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1010 The Moscow Metro
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1212 The Moscow Metro is one of the world's most extensive underground rail systems, and in the Metro universe it became the primary refuge for the survivors of the nuclear war. Its tunnels and stations serve as streets, homes, markets, and battlegrounds for the people who live in them. The confined geometry of tunnels and platforms creates a distinct atmosphere of claustrophobia and danger that has always been central to the series' identity.
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1414 Metro 2039 represents a deliberate return to this confined underground world. 4A Games described the game as a return to the series' roots following the more open, surface-traversing structure of Metro Exodus. The tunnels of 2039 are shaped by the same mutant threats and human violence that defined earlier entries, but under a new political order that changes the nature of the conflict.
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1616 The Surface and the War
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18-The nuclear war that ended the old world left Moscow's surface scarred and hostile. The Metro universe has always held the surface above Moscow as a dangerous, irradiated environment populated by mutated creatures, though the precise state of the surface in 2039 and whether it features in the game's gameplay has not been confirmed in pre-release materials. The underground Metro remains the primary theater of the story.
18+The nuclear war that ended the old world left Moscow's surface scarred and hostile. A gameplay trailer released in June 2026 confirmed that the surface is more than a backdrop: a substantial portion of the game takes place above ground, in the ruins of Moscow and the surrounding area, where survivors contend with the elements and the mutated creatures of the wastes. The underground tunnels remain the heart of the experience, but the surface forms a significant part of the world the player explores.
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2020 Continuity with the Series
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2222 Metro 2039 exists within the same world established by the Metro series, and the setting of Moscow in 2039 is a direct continuation of that world's timeline as a sequel to Metro Exodus. The story was developed by 4A Games in collaboration with Dmitry Glukhovsky, author of the Metro novels, so the setting and its internal logic reflect the established lore. The game is described as an original narrative inspired by, but not directly adapting, the novels.