Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition is free for existing owners but needs some serious hardware to run

News
By published

The ray tracing exclusive version of the game comes out on May 6.

Metro Exodus
(Image credit: 4A Games)

Metro Exodus, the semi-open world romp through post-apocalyptic Russia that both suffers and benefits from leaving the horror-filled tunnels of the Moscow Metro behind, is a couple of years old now. If you missed it the first time around, or if you've picked up a beefy new video card since then and want to put it through its paces, the upcoming Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition might be just the thing.

The Enhanced Edition features a "fully ray traced lighting pipeline" that adds a range of optimizations, upgrades, and new features to the game's already-impressive visuals, including advanced ray traced reflections and support for DLSS 2.0 on NVIDIA hardware, "which offers sharper image details and increased framerates and display resolutions." It's such an extensive overhaul that developer 4A Games said it has to be released as an entirely separate game—existing copies cannot be patched over.

The good news is that existing Exodus owners can claim the Enhanced Edition for free, but the bad news is that ray tracing is not optional here: If your card doesn't support it, you're out of luck. Existing saves on Steam, Epic, and GOG can be transferred between editions (not those on the Microsoft Store, however, as its save files "are encrypted in their cloud solution per-product"), and a "chapter unlock" feature will enable players to jump straight into later levels without having to replay the entire thing. The Enhanced Edition will not be available on Stadia or Amazon Luna, and Linux and Mac versions aren't coming either.

Here's what you'll need to play:

  • General visual settings: Normal
  • Ray tracing quality settings: Normal
  • OS: Windows 10 (20 H2)
  • CPU Cores: 4 Cores + HT
  • RAM: 8GB
  • GPU: Nvidia RTX 2060
  • DirectX: 12

Recommended (1080p/60 fps)

  • General visual settings: High
  • Ray tracing quality settings: High
  • OS: Windows 10 (20 H2)
  • CPU Cores: 8 Cores
  • RAM: 8GB
  • GPU: Nvidia RTX 2070/RTX 3060 or AMD RX 6700 XT
  • DirectX: 12

High (1440p/60 fps)

  • General visual settings: Ultra
  • Ray tracing quality settings: High
  • OS: Windows 10 (20 H2)
  • CPU Cores: 8 Cores
  • RAM: 16GB
  • GPU: Nvidia RTX 3070 or AMD RX 6800 XT
  • DirectX: 12

(Image credit: 4A Games)

Ultra (4K/30 fps)

  • General visual settings: Ultra
  • Ray tracing quality settings: High
  • OS: Windows 10 (20 H2)
  • CPU Cores: 8 Cores
  • RAM: 16GB
  • GPU: Nvidia RTX 3080 or AMD RX 6900 XT
  • DirectX: 12

RT Extreme (4K/60 fps)

  • General visual settings: Extreme
  • Ray tracing quality settings: Ultra
  • OS: Windows 10 (20 H2)
  • CPU Cores: 8 Cores
  • RAM: 16GB
  • GPU: Nvidia RTX 3090
  • DirectX: 12

You'll also need 73GB of drive space for the base game, plus another 1GB for The Two Colonels DLC, and 7GB for Sam's Story. Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition will be available on May 9.

Andy Chalk
Andy Chalk
US News Lead

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.