In its first studio blog post since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Kiev-based 4A Games gave a brief update on the situation and, out of nowhere, published a complete modding toolkit (opens in new tab) (or SDK) for Metro Exodus (opens in new tab) for Metro Exodus. The Kiev office is sometimes unreachable, and electricity and running water can be a luxury item," but the studio seems to be finding as much time as possible to work on various projects, and one of them, the Metro SDK, has now come to fruition.

The SDK is a full-fledged, authentic toolkit that the developers used for the game itself: 4A claims to be "the editor at the time we released 'Metro Exodus,'" but I (being someone who has none of the technical skills necessary for modding) I have to think that a fair amount of power is in the hands of the Modder, and the integration of Mod.io (opens in a new tab) should make it a little easier to manage and share what you've created with the toolkit. [As long as you own Metro Exodus, you can access the SDK: on Steam in the Tools section of the client, on GOG in the Additional Executables section of the launcher, and for Epic Games Store users in the sdk>bin_x64 folder, which they will need to trawl through.

But the update is also noteworthy in that it offers a glimpse into how life has changed in the Ukrainian studio since the Russian invasion last February: according to 4A, some of the staff "lost their homes in the bombing," while others "went into the . into the army," while "colleagues, friends, and family members were injured" and "some lost their lives."[4A says it is providing "financial and logistical support to teams scattered in and around Kiev" in order to improve the extraordinary conditions in which many workers find themselves.

4A said that it continues to work on Metro's next game despite this situation, and that the game's content is naturally influenced by the ongoing war. The studio said that "the war in Ukraine has made us rethink what kind of story the next 'Metro' should be" and that "all of the themes of 'Metro' - conflict, power, politics, tyranny, and oppression" - are now part of the developers' everyday reality and will be "woven into the game with a new purpose."

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However, don't expect that game anytime soon. Studios also need to "manage expectations," he says. Everyone is trying to live "with normalcy" as much as possible, but they still need to deal with "power outages, water outages, family members who need to relocate, friends and colleagues who need to volunteer or are called to the front lines. I'm thankfully no expert, but I think it's probably difficult to make a game out of this situation, let alone one on the scale of Metro.