Escape from Tarkov in 2023

Disclaimer:

I am writing this post with the assumption you already know about Escape from Tarkov (EFT) and how it works, if you don’t know what EFT is here is a quick Youtube tutorial.

All the credit goes to Boomstick Gaming for creating this amazing yet concise beginner’s guide that explains everything about EFT in just 12 minutes. Most starters guides are 1 hour on average.

Is it worth diving into?

Spoilers: This post contains major spoilers.

Short answer: Hell yeah.

Long Answer: I promise you, that you haven’t played a more thought-out and complex shooter. It is very daunting to try it I must admit. An FPS game where there is no tutorial, minimal HUD elements and the fact you have to find points of interest on a map but the game does not give you the layout of the map. Technically, there are in-game layouts of the different maps but they aren’t user-friendly at all, I advise you to check out the Tarkov wiki or Map Genie and look for the maps there. Thank the lord, for the Tarkov Wiki which details almost anything about the game.

All of this plus, a dozen keybinds, makes for a very stress-inducing experience. However, It is that stress-inducing package that makes you want more and more because there is nothing like it on the market. There have been formidable attempts such as The Cycle: Frontier, or Marauders. I put around 100h on CTF but got bored of it quickly. It was straightforward and didn’t give me much excitement after extracting with a ton of loot. Marauders seems interesting, I will try it soon and make a review about it.

I don’t consider Call of Duty’s: DMZ a true extraction shooter. It’s more like a mode from Warzone, I don’t buy it that the developers allegedly spent 4 years on this. Bugs aside the game lacks vision and structure. Let’s say you finish a round what’s the point? There are no in-game traders no economy and no real progress. If they nail that aspect we are bound to get a really good game but so far it’s a big L for me.

These games are far simpler and way easier to grasp but it’s because of their simpler nature that you kinda get tired of them quickly. EFT’s raids are a roller-coaster of emotions every time. There are so many variables to consider in split-second decisions that make EFT the king of extraction shooters.

Who should play Escape from Tarkov?

Many EFT veterans would probably tell you “it depends on how many hours you can put into EFT”. I disagree, whether you are a casual player or a seasoned FPS “fiend” who devotes 8 hours to games daily you should try EFT either way. Sure FPS veterans who can devote hours upon hours will surely appreciate the complexity of EFT but I think casual players can enjoy EFT too. Whether you stick around that’s entirely up to you, your lifestyle, and your schedule.

Just sorting out your inventory or just doing a scav run can give you an enjoyable experience second to none. The game in general just feels really well-thought-out, every aspect of the game is interconnected to the overall goal of the game, which is to survive with a ton of loot.

What changed with the new wipe?

Tarkov released a new map called Streets of Tarkov, which is the best Escape from Tarkov has ever released. I think out of all the games that depict urban warfare I think Streets of Tarkov captures urban warfare so well that you really get the feeling that you are in a giant city full of explorable buildings and that at any moment a player could pop you from a window.

It also added a new audio system as it transitioned from Steam Audio to Oculus Audio. The new audio system works on Woods, Streets of Tarkov and a few other maps, the new audio system will be added to the rest of the maps later.

The reception is mixed as there was nothing wrong with Steam audio, the problem with Tarkov’s audio lay in the occlusion of the sound, meaning when if there was an enemy player outside of a building stepping on certain pieces of wood or stairs and you didn’t have line of sight you couldn’t hear them at all or the second scenario is that you can hear them but you have no sense of audio direction all you know is that there is a guy somewhere he could be upstairs, downstairs or even outside but you have 0 clues as to where he is.

In addition, Tarkov added new stims, a new AR the AUG, A1 & A3. Also, a new trader Lightkeeper was added which is among the first traders that you can interact with in-game. However, reaching him is not easy as the bridge that leads to the Lighthouse is rigged with mines but also protected by the newest Boss Zryachiy. OnePeg made a video explaining how to get there.

These are all the major changes in EFT here is the full list of patch notes so you can check the changes at your leisure. In standard BSG fashion, there are tons of stealth changes that aren’t detailed in the patch notes. A good place to look for those changes is in the EFT fresh-wipe Megathread or to play the game yourself and find out about them.

Things you need to be aware of

There are things you need to consider before you join Escape from Tarkov. Performance issues, especially on the new map some people say that with a decent rig, you might get semi-stable 70 fps which for a shooter with this scope and complexity is kinda unplayable.

Moreover, EFT has 4 editions and each of them comes with a set of benefits bigger than the previous edition, this might be a controversial take but I think having these editions that grant significant player benefits over another player for more money is P2W. Let me clarify, the base edition of the game costs 40 eur at the time of writing that’s including taxes & fees. It grants the following benefits:

You get the lowest stash size available, starting gear, and the smallest safe container a 2X2.

Below are the benefits of the Edge of Darkness (EOD) edition.

• Access to all future DLCs, such content includes the Tarkov Arena, a standalone multiplayer game in the Tarkov universe.
• Max size stash, which costs around 8 million roubles, and weeks of grinding.
• Unique in-game ID.
• More and better starting gear (advanced heals, more food, etc)
• Increased reputation with all the traders, leveling up traders gives you access to better gear overall, like armor, guns, and good ammo (good ammo is king in EFT)
• Gamma secure container, this is the 2nd biggest container in the game. You cannot get this exact container with in-game grind, you can however grind for the Epsilon or the Kappa container. You can also buy the Beta one for like 1 million roubles, but it’s not worth it. Spend that money on your hideout and focus on Epsilon.
• Finally, you can play offline-coop with friends. It’s a really cool feature to have because you can create your own custom game essentially. Below are some configurations.

That’s only reserved for EOD players as supposedly BSG has to buy extra servers for the offline coop mode.

If you are a new player I would start with the base game when you are sure you want to grind out EFT you can upgrade to the EOD edition. You can enjoy EFT with both editions, it’s just that the EOD edition saves so much time and of course Roubles and adds a lot of quality of life with all of the benefits detailed above. 150 euros is a decent chunk of change to spend on a game, on a Steam Sale you can buy more than 5 games and that’s extremely modest.

In my opinion, either buy the cheapest option or buy EOD it’s not worth it to buy the in-between editions.

Terrible optimization

Sadly, EFT continues to be unoptimized not sure why this is not a priority for BSG. Here we are though, if you do not have at least 16GB of RAM and a decent GPU & CPU then I’m afraid you won’t be able to run EFT very well thus diminishing your gaming experience. With regards to optimization, this has been the case with many wipes, I don’t think BSG will work on the game’s optimization anytime soon.

The scavs are cracked this wipe

From my personal experience and from looking at the number of posts on Reddit and Twitter, I can confidently say that scavs are more lethal than previous wipes. They will one-tap you with a broken shotgun behind some bushes with the most basic ammo available. That’s not their intended use case.

When you tell me about scavs, I think of AI that is capable of killing me if I take too much time to react or they will swarm and overwhelm me but getting one-shot by them before you even have to ADS is not great.

Conclusion

TLDR: Check out EFT, either way, it’s an amazing game that you should definitely experience at some point whether you stick with it that’s another topic that deserves an article on its own.

I would like to end the article here and not make it too long, I hope I have given you enough info and that I helped you make a decision. I will regularly update this guide with new changes.

Thank you for checking out my thoughts on Tarkov in 2023!