Metro Last Light FOV workaround incoming

PC gamers playing Metro Last Light will have noticed a lack of options when it comes to changing the FOV. There’s nothing in the options, and even looking at the cfg files there’s nothing to tweak.

An update on the Metro Steam discussion page from the development team explains why there is no option to change it and what they plan to do about it.

Hey all. The community feedback about FOV has not gone unnoticed. 4A Games has this update for you about FOV and what they are working on:

We’re aware the community have been asking for a ‘Field of View’ slider for Metro: Last Light. Unfortunately, this was 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.

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.

Game performance is also tied to FOV – the amount of geometric detail we put in each scene has been partly determined by this set FOV, and setting a wider FOV would have a performance impact.

We understand this issue is important to many people, and we have been looking at possible solutions.

In the immediate term – the next title update, due in the next few days will allow you to directly change the FOV in the .cfg files.

This may well trigger a number of issues listed above – you have been warned!

– 4A Games

Mess with the FOV at your peril seems to be the message but hopefully a more permanent solution/fix can be found in the future.

Thanks Blues