Metro 2039 Developers Explained Why Gameplay Leaks Are Not Welcome After 7 Years of Development
GTA 6 wasn’t the only big title to be pushed into the spotlight by leaks in 2026. While most eyes were on Rockstar as old-build footage kept leaking after a hack, 4A Games ran into a similar mess earlier this year. Right before Metro 2039 was officially shown, someone put a playable build of a cancelled Metro game online — the source was never nailed down, but the files exposed a large chunk of the studio’s early work on a follow-up to Metro Exodus.
It never brings good feelings. It’s very unpleasant to see. Producer John Bloch
22 minutes of gameplay from the cancelled Metro 4 version
The leak made clear that the team had once tried a very different route: an open-world design, multiple protagonists and a reimagined take on customization and survival systems. That ambitious branch was stopped in 2022; devs shelved it, wiped the slate and started again, which meant changing creative aims and inventing a new narrative path. Bloch assured the community’s reaction to what leaked didn’t steer the team’s current plans — the leak itself just added to the frustration.
I can’t say it affected the work we’re investing in the game now. It happened, and there’s nothing to be done about it. It’s unpleasant, but it could have been worse. Honestly, a lot of other things happened during the development of this game that were far more serious.
Metro Exodus shipped in 2019, and Bloch admitted 4A didn’t intend for Metro 2039 to stretch over seven yrs. Still, that long haul bought time — not magic, but lots of small, necessary changes: engine fixes, gameplay tuning, UI tweaks and other technical work that would have been rushed otherwise. The narrative was rebuilt from the ground up; some set-pieces and locations were cut, yet the team tried to salvage and refit whatever made sense.
The extra years gave us room to polish engine bits and rethink how the game plays. The story had to be completely rewritten, and we had to abandon some locations that fed the previous plot. But we tried to preserve as much as possible from what was already created and adapted elements to the new story.
Bloch’s take is that the current build — refined through ongoing iterations, QA passes and multiple polishing cycles — is stronger for it. Metro 2039 is slated for release in Feb 2027 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X.