The Rats

Lore & Background

In Dmitry Glukhovsky's 2005 novel, the Rats are referenced as a persistent hazard in the dead stretches of tunnel between controlled stations. Survivors who venture too far from the lit, garrisoned segments warn each other of them: shambling, snarling figures that have regressed into something closer to animals than people. They are the metro's reminder that the tunnels do not simply go empty beyond the last barricade—something still moves in the dark, and it is no longer human in any way that matters. In the 4A Games video game adaptations (Metro 2033, 2010, and Metro: Last Light, 2013), the Rats are rendered as a recurring hostile enemy type encountered in unexplored or abandoned tunnel sections. They are fast, aggressive, and fight in small packs, using the cramped geometry of the tunnels to their advantage. They carry no gear beyond whatever they have scavenged or torn from victims, and they do not speak. Their presence marks a zone as truly unclaimed territory—beyond the reach of any station's authority. Their origin is never given a single canonical explanation. The implication across both novel and games is that isolation, radiation, starvation, and the psychological weight of the underground slowly eroded whatever civilization these people retained. They are, in essence, what the metro does to a human being left alone in the dark long enough.

In Their Own Story

The tunnel beyond the last lit junction smells of wet rust and old blood. Artyom's flashlight beam catches two shapes crouched on the tracks—knuckled, hunched, their fingers too long, nails black with grime. They do not scream. They do not beg. They simply tilt their heads, the way a dog tilts its head at a sound it cannot place, and then they are moving, fast and low, and the only sound in the tunnel is the wet slap of bare feet on concrete and the clicking of teeth that have forgotten how to form words. Artyom backs toward the junction, magazine already in his hand, and hears behind him the soft, chittering breath of a third one that was already in the dark and is still in the dark and will be in the dark long after he is gone. The Rats do not hate him. They simply do not recognize him as anything other than meat that is still moving. He seals the junction door. He does not look back. He tells himself he will come back for the supplies. He does not come back.

Reader's Guide

The Rats are not a cast of named individuals but a feral collective, and their 'profile' is best understood as a group entity rather than a single character arc. Name / Designation: The Rats (a collective term used by other survivors; the Rats themselves have no names for themselves). Role: Ambient hostile threat in unclaimed tunnel sections. Station or faction affiliation: None. They are explicitly outside the Redline, Blackline, and Anomaly structures. They do not trade, do not negotiate, do not recognize flags or barricades. Key relationships: None in a meaningful sense. They interact with other humans only as predator and prey. Other factions regard them as a nuisance to be cleared from a tunnel stretch rather than a faction to be dealt with diplomatically. First appearance: Referenced in Dmitry Glukhovsky's Metro 2033 (2005) as a hazard in the dead tunnels; rendered as a recurring enemy type in the Metro 2033 video game (4A Games, 2010) and again in Metro: Last Light (2013). Arc and fate: The Rats have no narrative arc in the traditional sense. They do not evolve, do not convert, do not fall. They persist as a constant environmental threat in the uncontrolled sections of the metro. In the novel, they are mentioned in passing by survivors as something to avoid; in the games, the player encounters them repeatedly in abandoned stretches. Their 'fate' is simply continuation: they remain in the dark, and the dark remains theirs. They are the metro's own immune response to the idea that humanity might still be intact down here. They are what is left when the tunnel wins.

Did You Know?

• In the novel and games, the Rats are never given a named leader or a formal hierarchy; they function as a feral pack rather than an organized group.
• The Rats are one of the few 'threats' in the Metro universe that is entirely human in origin—no mutation, no supernatural element—just the cumulative effect of isolation and the underground on the human psyche.
• In the video games, Rats are encountered specifically in unlit, unclaimed tunnel sections, serving as a visual and mechanical cue to the player that they have left controlled territory.
• Other factions in the Metro treat the Rats as an environmental hazard to be cleared from a corridor rather than as a political opponent to be negotiated with or allied against.