4A Engine
The 4A Engine is the in-house engine of 4A Games, the studio founded in Kyiv by developers who left GSC Game World. It has run every Metro game since Metro 2033 in 2010, and 4A says it does not license it to anyone else.
History
4A’s chief technology officer, Oles Shishkovtsov, says the engine began as a personal project out of frustration with the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. engine he had worked on at GSC. That history caused a row in February 2010, weeks before Metro 2033 shipped: GamesIndustry.biz reported that GSC’s founder, Sergey Grigorovich, had claimed in the Russian press that 4A’s technology came from a pre-release S.T.A.L.K.E.R. build. 4A denied it, and Shishkovtsov said the two engines share no code. Digital Foundry described the 4A Engine as a proprietary codebase. Only the two companies’ statements exist; neither side published proof.
Metro 2033 shipped in March 2010, Metro: Last Light in May 2013, and the Redux remasters in 2014 brought Last Light’s engine improvements back to the first game. In May 2021 the Enhanced Edition of Metro Exodus rebuilt its lighting around ray-traced global illumination, and Digital Foundry called it the first triple-A game to require ray-tracing hardware on PC.
In January 2023 4A released the Exodus SDK, its full editor, free for modders, while saying it would not enter the engine licensing business. Metro 2039, announced in April 2026 and due in February 2027, runs on the same engine. The studio’s story, from Kyiv to Malta and through the war, is in our Metro story.
Games made with 4A Engine
4 games, oldest first. Each game links to the article that names its engine.
| Game | Year | Developer | Engine version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Metro 2033 | 2010 | 4A Games | 4A Engine |
| Metro: Last Light | 2013 | 4A Games | 4A Engine |
| Metro 2033 Redux | 2014 | 4A Games | 4A Engine |
| Metro Exodus (incl. Enhanced Edition 2021) | 2019 | 4A Games | 4A Engine |
The claim that the 4A Engine came from GSC’s X-Ray rests on one party’s statement and the other’s denial (2010).
At a glance
- Developer
- 4A Games (Kyiv and Sliema, Malta)
- First game
- Metro 2033 (2010)
- Latest game
- Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (2021); Metro 2039 due 2027
- Licence
- In-house, not licensed; Exodus SDK free for modders
- Status
- Active
Sources
Checked .
- Metro 2039 — Wikipedia
- 4A GAMES STUDIO UPDATE — 4a-games.com.mt
- The Ukraine war's deep impact on Metro 2039’s development, story — Ars Technica
- 4A Games — Wikipedia
- Metro 2033 (video game) — Wikipedia
- Metro: Last Light — Wikipedia
- Metro Exodus — Wikipedia
- Metrospective: 4A Games vs. Digital Foundry (20 Feb 2010, via Internet Archive) — digitalfoundry.net
Image credits
- 4A Games logo — 4A Games. Public domain. Placed on a white square and converted to WebP
