Metro 2039 creative director shares how the Russia-Ukraine war has affected the game, says there are 'no gray zones' in the story and 'we are not afraid to call evil evil'

The initial plans for the upcoming Metro game were changed as a result of the conflict

by · TechRadar

News By Demi Williams Contributions by Rob Dwiar Published 26 August 2026

(Image credit: 4A Games)

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  • Metro 2039 creative director Andriy Shevchenko discusses how the Russia-Ukraine war has impacted the game
  • The developer says, "We are not afraid to call evil evil"
  • He adds that there are "no gray zones" in the story

Metro 2039 creative director Andriy Shevchenko has shared how the events of the Russia-Ukraine war have manifested in the upcoming first-person shooter.

The next installment in the Metro series was revealed earlier this year and is expected to deliver another dark survival story set in the heart of the Moscow metro, where the last survivors of the nuclear apocalypse struggle to exist.

At the time, Bloch explained that the team at Ukrainian studio 4A Games had everything planned for the next chapter, until it all changed in 2020, and "more significantly in 2022" with Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

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As a result, the studio "changed the story to be even more about choices, actions, consequences, and what you have to pay to have a future."

"Now war is our reality, and our message has shifted to be about the circumstance, the cost of silence, the horrors of tyranny, and the price of freedom," Shevchenko said.

Now, in a new interview with TechRadar Gaming alongside executive producer Jon Bloch, the developers explained how the real-life impact of the ongoing war has influenced the game's messaging and the story's moral core.

"We are not afraid to call evil evil," Shevchenko said. "If you see evil, we now have a protagonist [The Stranger] who can talk, who can share his own thoughts. He will call this character, this situation, this story element evil. It is bad. And there are no gray zones."

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