Dark Ones

Lore & Background

The Dark Ones are creatures that attack VDNKh and are described as inspiring terror throughout the station. They are the reason Hunter seeks out Sukhoi and Artyom. Artyom believes the Dark Ones have been using an entrance at Botanical Gardens that he and a friend left unsealed ten years earlier. Later, Artyom has a vision that relates to dreams and nightmares he has been having. He realizes the Dark Ones had been trying to make contact, unable to communicate with the human survivors within the metro in a meaningful way, before they found Artyom. Artyom re-evaluates their behavior and realizes that what was seen as aggression were actually attempts to make contact, which were only met with violence.

In Their Own Story

In the tunnels beneath the ruined city, a young man named Artyom first encounters the Dark Ones not as enemies, but as whispers—fragments of thought that slide into his skull like cold fingers. They show him images of a world before the war: sunlight on concrete, the hum of a city that no longer exists, then fire, then silence. The stations fear them, branding them a new plague, a psychic invasion. But as Artyom climbs toward their hive at the Ostankino Tower, the visions sharpen. They are not attacking. They are reaching out, clumsy and desperate, trying to share a warning about something far worse than themselves. The final choice is his: to rain down a missile and erase them, or to spare a species that may be the only thing standing between humanity and the abyss.

Reader's Guide

The Dark Ones are not a playable character but a living riddle that haunts Metro 2033. They appear through scripted sequences and hallucinations that bleed into gameplay—your screen warps, audio distorts into a low hum, and the air feels thicker. These psychic attacks are not just effects; they are the Dark Ones trying to touch your mind. In combat levels, you can fight them, but the game constantly nudges you to hesitate, to wonder if the thing shrieking in your head is really hostile. Your final decision—to destroy them or spare them—isn't just a choice; it's the moral anchor of the entire story, one of the earliest examples in a first-person shooter where a single moment of mercy or wrath rewrites the ending.

Did You Know?

• The Dark Ones have been using an entrance at Botanical Gardens that Artyom and a friend left unsealed ten years earlier.
• Artyom realizes the Dark Ones had been trying to make contact, unable to communicate with the human survivors in a meaningful way.
• What was seen as aggression from the Dark Ones were actually attempts to make contact, which were only met with violence.
• The Dark Ones inspire terror throughout VDNKh station, which faces increasing attacks from them.
• Hunter intends to gather intel on the Dark Ones, and if he does not return, Artyom must carry a message to Melnik at Polis.