In February, developer 4A Games announced thatMetro Exodusfans could expect anEnhanced Editionof the game on PC and next-generation consoles sometime this Spring. NowMetro Exodushas revealed a lot more details about what fans can expect.
Just a couple of days ago a rating from aTawain ratings board revealed some details on theEnhanced EditionofMetro Exodus, and today it was announced that it would arriving on PC on May 6 with next-gen consoles to follow. The PC upgrade will be free to all owners of the standard edition, and a new video has been released with an extremely in-depth look at the upgrade’s technical aspects.
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The video comes through an exclusive preview with Digital Foundry. The most surprising part right off the bat is that the new version ofMetro Exodushas completely rebuilt its lighting systems to only run on machines capable of ray-tracing. Where the original 2019 release ofMetro Exodusonly began developing the global illumination systems half-way through development, theEnhanced Editionhas been completely built upon it. This means that every shadow-casting light in the game contributes to the global illumination, and the video demonstrates just howdrastically improved theEnhanced EditionofMetro Exodusis.
The video also found that while theEnhanced Editiondoes have higher CPU requirements, it runs just as well as the 2019 version at high settings with steady frame rates. It also goes on to highlight the increase in quality from the 2019’s version of DLSS 1.0 and the updated version’s DLSS 2.1. The difference here is again rather stark, with objects in the far distance having a much sharper resolution to them in theEnhanced Edition. Of course, the analysis is only for the PC edition, so it will be interesting to see just how many of the changes make it to thenext-gen version ofMetro Exodus.
All in all, the enhanced features of the new version ofMetro Exodusare rather significant. The complete overhaul of the game’s lighting system boasts ray-tracing implementation on a scale that is a first for the industry, and 4A Games should be very proud of what it accomplished with theEnhanced Edition. Hopefully, fans who want to experience it in all its glory are able tobuild a PC with proper ray-tracing capabilitiesdespite the ongoing chip shortages. For players who are able to run theEnhanced EditionofMetro Exodus, though, they thankfully won’t have to wait much longer to see the apocalypse with the best lighting yet.
Metro Exodusis available now on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. TheEnhanced Editionarrives on PC on May 6 with a PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S release sometime in the future.
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