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Metro Exodus - Sam's Story

Last night, perhaps when you were snuggled up under your blankets, a little miracle happened. It was in the midnight hour (ET) when Metro Exodus returned to being sold on Steam. Normally, this isn't quite the monumental occasion, but it certainly is in the case of Metro Exodus.

It was Metro Exodus that really kicked off the season of the Epic Games Store exclusive. This was a period in which a fair number of games that were slated to be released on Steam, suddenly announced that they would be exclusive to the Epic Games Store for a period of one year. Don't get me wrong, that season never truly ended. It just became such a regular occurence that much of the constant loud vitrial turned more into a quiet seething rage.

Metro Exodus was especially notable during this time for one reason: Unlike other games that were merely announced on Steam and then pulled to the EGS before a sale could be made, Metro Exodus was actually available to purchase from Steam for a bit. Pre-orders had been live on Steam for quite some time before the exclusive nonsense started. The game was pulled from being sold on Steam. At the very least, 4A Games and publisher Deep Silver honored the purchases that were made on Steam. Both updates and content releases for the game were made at the same time between Steam and the EGS release. It's just that for an entire year, no new purchases of the game could have been made through Steam.

As of last night, that year of exclusivity came to an end. True to their word, 4A Games once again made Metro Exodus available for purchase through Steam. Not only is it available on Steam again, but it's available at a launch week discount of 40% off of its regular price. This brings the $39.99 (USD) game down to a mere $23.99 until February 18th.

Even the Gold Edition is just $38.98 during this time, which is still about a dollar cheaper than the base game will be after this weekend. The Gold Edition of the game includes the base game and the Expansion Pass. The Expansion Pass give you immediate access to the game's two expansions: The Two Colonels and Sam's Story. Sam's Story was actually just released earlier this week.

For some, the wait has been agonizing. For others, it's given them a chance to play other games that might have been cluttering their backlog. If nothing else, the fact that this game was released a year ago on a closed platform meant that a number of patches have already been released for the issues early adopters ran into. Silver linings and all that, right?

If for some reason you do still want to buy it on Epic Games Store, you can do so using this affiliate link. The usual spiel about the affiliate link is that any purchases made with the affiliate code "zips" will give me a certain percentage of each sale. That eventually goes back into helping run the site.