Dead City 1 (Metro 2033 Level)

"When we emerged into the ruins of Moscow, I felt both fear and sorrow. But, after a life underground, I also saw strange beauty in the dark skies and frozen landscape. "So, that's the dead city," grunted Bourbon. "Welcome home, Artyom.""

- Level description

The level Dead City 1, is a long level which starts right after Artyom leaves the Market station with Bourbon. This is the first mission, chronologically, where Artyom is travelling across the surface. The level finishes just after the second dark one is spotted.

Overview
Artyom walks around half a kilometer (0.3 miles) on the surface from Prospekt Mira to Sukharevskaya (Dry Station), passing through the ruined surroundings of Prospekt Mira Avenue in downtown Moscow.

Despite being visually imposing, the actual level consists only of the Prospect Mira (Market) station vestibule, three crumbling buildings, two courtyards and a collapsed and flooded intersection.

Moscow was never bombed directly, thanks in no small part to Moscow Missile Defense systems, but without human maintenance, a lot of buildings began falling apart due to exposure to elements and eventually filled the streets of the city with impassable piles of debris.

The buildings mentioned above contained a bank, a grocery store, and numerous offices respectively. An interesting fact is that the bank vault appears to be thoroughly looted while the office supplies and equipment remain virtually untouched. Be careful while exploring, traps can be found in some buildings.

Trivia

 * There is a tape recorder containing a message from Hunter, roughly detailing the dark ones' attacks at Exhibition. Hunter's message can only be played once. If the tape recorder is turned on again, the theme for "Market" will play. This area is likely to be the outpost for Hunter.
 * From this level alone you can clearly see that the dark ones only want peace. In the playground sequence, it's possible that the dark one created this illusion to symbolise that it wants the world to be like this again, as well as to try and observe the actions of Artyom.
 * If the player opens fire during the playground vision, they will lose moral points and the dark one will remark "He only wants to kill. He doesn't understand".
 * It's possible to kill all of the demons on this level and get an Inquisitor achievement. A stash with sticky grenades is conveniently placed in the truck on the intersection for just such an occasion.
 * In the Redux version, "Dead City 1" and "Dead City 2" have merged into a single level.
 * In Redux, a previously unexplorable area is host to a single Watchman protecting its cubs, which use the Lurker model from Metro 2033. Killing it and its babies will result in negative Moral Points.
 * Also, in the Redux version, the sun will slowly set during this level, giving way to nightfall and a whole new aesthetic to the city.
 * In the building with the tape recorder, Artyom can hear footsteps and the sound of keys rustling and locking, or unlocking a door. This either adds to the haunted feel of some buildings or that there are others on the surface.

Dark One Sightings
It's possible to spot several dark ones on this level. The first one can be briefly seen in the offices, while the second one will cause a flashback when Artyom passes through the playground, and finally the third one is checking a corpse in the gated passage to the courtyard of the building Bourbon told Artyom to head towards.

Gallery
Мёртвый город 1 Tote Stadt 1 (Level)