Metro: Last Light Problems Continue: Lack Of FOV Slider Explained

There’s no respite to the ongoing problems related to Metro: Last Light. Following the decision to address the heavily criticized Ranger Mode DLC issue, 4A Games and Deep Silver have now decided to take up the topic of as to why Metro: Last Light doesn’t have a Field Of View (FOV) slider.

While the company is aware that the community has been asking for a Field of View slider for Metro: Last Light, a Deep Silver brand manager stated on NeoGaf that it’s not “as simple a thing to implement as it might appear.”

“The main reason for maintaining a fixed FOV is because we have 3D elements like the watch and weapon ammo that need to remain visible. In addition, all the game's first-person cut scenes and cinematics and each and every animation involving Artyom's hands - idle weapon animations, reloads, ladder climbing, melee attacks etc, - were created assuming the same, fixed field of view,” the post explains.

“Changing the FOV would break all the cut-scenes and animations - you would be able to see inside Artyom's arms, or they would appear to float in the air in front of you. Or worse. We had considered offering three FOV pre-sets, but this would still require significant work to re-do every animation, adjust the HUD and UI and other seemingly small but incredibly time consuming tasks. Even with a wider but still fixed field of view, Artyom's hands would look too far away. We know - we tried.”

The post also explains that the game performance is tied to FOV, and the amount of geometric detail the developers put in each scene has been partly determined by this set FOV, and setting a wider FOV would have had an impact of the game’s performance.

However, there is some good news. It has also been revealed that alongside the upcoming update, 4A Games will offer PC gamers the ability to change the FOV via the game’s cfg files. However, there is every chance that this workaround may or may not trigger a number of issues that have already been listed the developers.