Metro Awakening ‘Underperformed Financial Expectations’, Publisher Tells Investors

Metro Awakening “underperformed” against the financial expectations of the game’s parent company, despite positive reviews.

In the interim financial report for Q3 FY 2024/25 from the Embracer Group, who own notable publishers and studios like Koch Media, Deep Silver and Vertigo Games, the company discusses Metro Awakening following last year’s launch. As seen on page 7, Embracer states the game “underperformed management financial expectations.”

Little else was said about Metro Awakening, and it’s unclear what specific financial expectations Embracer had for the recent VR-only prequel. That said, the same report highlights the game’s positive critical reception. Alongside winning Steam’s VR Game of the Year and our own favorite PlayStation VR2 Game of the Year, our 4.5/5-star review called it a “mesmerizing” VR gaming experience that we praised for its atmospheric immersion and storytelling.

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Much like Ubisoft’s expectations for Assassin’s Creed Nexus last year – which CEO Yves Guillemot confirmed he was “a bit disappointed” by but stated the game “did okay, and it continues to sell” – the expectations of flatscreen AAA publishers are generally much higher than most VR developers. However, it’s also worth noting that unlike the Quest-exclusive Nexus, Metro Awakening is a multiplatform title.

Sales are harder to quantify for the Viveport and PlayStation VR2 versions, though SteamDB estimates place PC VR sales somewhere between 50k and 100k units. Nearly 45k (via QuestWithMatt) have also unlocked Metro’s first achievement on Quest, though this figure doesn’t account for potential refunds and those who haven’t played it yet.

Even with a slate of recent high-profile releases that also included Batman: Arkham Shadow, Alien: Rogue Incursion and Skydance’s Behemoth, VR gaming remains an indie dominated space filled with mostly smaller studios. These teams usually have different metrics of success, as we’ve recently seen with Thief Simulator VR reaching over 310k sales on Quest alone, or Into The Radius hitting 800k sales across all platforms.

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As for Embracer, the company reported it reduced its debt to $298 million after ending its major restructuring program. This also involved shouldering roughly $928 million debt onto a newly spun-off company, Asmodee. Flatscreen game Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is the big success story, with nearly 2 million units sold since launching earlier this month. Otherwise, overall sales declined by 22% year-on-year across a nine-month period ending on December 31, 2024.