**Story and ending spoilers below.**

**Story and ending spoilers below.** I got the bad ending the first time I played Metro Exodus, and I was pissed. After spending that much time with Artyom and Anna, I wanted them to actually get a future together. So here's what to watch for if you're trying to get the good ending. The important decisions happen well before the last mission. You're looking for at least two of these three results: - Duke survives the Volga. - Damir stays with the crew after the Caspian. - Alyosha gets out of the Taiga without being wounded. You only need two for the good ending. Getting all three also earns Full Strength. I'd aim for all three rather than deliberately giving yourself no room for a mistake. The game keeps its morality totals hidden, so this isn't a claim that every little errand below is mandatory. It's a route that gives you several chances to help people while avoiding the choices that hurt your crew's chances. ## Before you start Listen when your companions ask you to spare people. Keep your weapon down around peaceful locals, use knockouts instead of executions, and leave surrendered enemies alive. Someone firing at you isn't always a bandit you can kill without consequences, especially in the Caspian. You can still fight mutants and hostile bandits. You don't need to finish the entire game without killing anybody. Just stop shooting when someone surrenders, and be careful around prisoners and civilians. Grenades are a bad idea when the people you're trying to save are standing beside the guards. Use quicksaves before difficult sections where your difficulty allows them. If you accidentally shoot a prisoner, reload while you can still fix it. ## The Volga: keep Duke alive At the church, get Katya and Nastya out and sneak away without killing the cultists. Use the knockout option if somebody blocks your way. While exploring, free the cultists being held by bandits. Look around the guitar tower and the larger bandit hideout instead of clearing an area and leaving the prisoners behind. I'd also do the crew's errands. Bring back the guitar and Nastya's teddy bear. They aren't a substitute for treating the locals well, and neither should be treated as a single required switch that saves Duke. Take the traders' tugboat quietly and spare the traders. Then be particularly careful during the final bridge infiltration. Sneak past the cultists or knock them out and reach Silantius without turning the bridge into a massacre. If you blow the stealth approach, reloading is safer than guessing how much goodwill you have left. Before moving on, check the result: **Duke needs to make the jump back onto the train alive.** ## The Caspian: keep Damir with you This is the chapter where I'd take the most care with who I'm attacking. Some of the people fighting alongside the slavers are slaves themselves. Use stealth and knockouts when you can't tell them apart. 1. **Spare Saul.** He's the man who ambushes you on the roof near the start. Knock him out instead of killing him. 2. **Help the workers at the dismantling ship.** It's along the western road toward the lighthouse, with people working on scrap outside. Deal with the slavers without hurting the workers. This is separate from the prison ship later. 3. **Be careful at the lighthouse.** Don't shoot the slaves or finish off wounded people after the fighting. 4. **Bring Giul her family's photograph.** In the underground bunker, check the office area beside the route toward the archives and vents. Go through the partly open blue doorway into the rooms with filing cabinets. Giul's mother is seated in the small office at the back, holding the photograph. Take it, then actually give it to Giul when you return. 5. **Free the prisoners on the other ship.** Follow the slave-ship location Anna points out. You can use the smaller boat to the south to zipline aboard. Once you've dealt with the guards, use the lever outside the upper control room to release the prisoners below. After taking the zipline down into the hold, use the second yellow lever for the remaining cages. Don't leave after fighting the guards without opening the cells. 6. **Spare the slaves during the water mission.** Sneak through the oasis with Damir and check the captive area near the bucket lift. Keep the slaves out of any fighting. 7. **Help the abused slaves at the Baron's fortress.** After the elevator, follow the thug who pushes a slave into a side room and knock him out there. Farther up, stop the thug beating a woman. Knocking him out can turn the guards hostile, so be ready to move or fight without hurting the slaves. These are extra chances to help, not two individually proven requirements for the ending. At the end of the chapter, **Damir needs to come back to the Aurora with you.** If he stays behind with Giul, that counts as one of the three outcomes going against the good ending. He hasn't died, but he won't be there later to help Artyom. ## The Taiga: get Alyosha out uninjured The Pioneers and Pirates are the Children of the Forest. Avoid killing them. Work around their camps, use darkness and cover, and knock someone out only if you need to get past. Free the man tied up near the beginning and the prisoner in the bandit camp before the bear section. Leave the Admiral unharmed too. Don't confuse this with the Forest Child trophy. That asks for the much stricter run where you aren't detected and don't attack any humans, including knocking them out. You don't need that trophy to get Alyosha's good outcome. The result you're watching for is **Alyosha escaping without being shot.** ## Finishing the game, or fixing an earlier run With at least two of those three results, continue through the Dead City and finish the story. The good ending lets Artyom survive and return with the medicine for Anna. Miller still dies, so there isn't an ending here that saves absolutely everybody. If one companion's outcome went wrong, you can still get the good ending with the other two. If two went wrong, replaying only the last mission won't fix it. Use an earlier save or restart the earliest chapter you need to change, then keep playing forward from there. Don't repair the Volga, jump straight to the finale and expect the game to combine that new result with the old later chapters. I'd check Duke, Damir and Alyosha at the end of their own chapters. That way you know where you stand before you spend another several hours heading toward an ending you didn't want.