Revisiting 26 April 2020, 14:06

author: Darius Matusiak

Escape from Tarkov – Difficult Love, Love Nontheless

Escape from Tarkov is still a technical mess after all the years. It makes you more stressed than relaxed, it keeps taking things away, it's completely unpredictable. And yet I still love this game.

The review is based on the PC version.

The gameplay in Escape From Tarkov resembles a visit to a shady neighborhood with an expensive watch on your wrist. A lone inexperienced traveler will go missing without a trace, and a group of battle-hardened hard-liners may also come out battered – if at all. It's a game that doesn't explain any of its complicated systems and mixes lonely rookies with veteran teams armed to the teeth on the same map, not to mention the bugs, trimmed content, and network code in need of patching. Tarkov can be a real frustration simulator – and yet, I can't get enough of it!

Even before the battle royale genre became wildly popular, Escape From Tarkov offered somewhat similar rules, only much more hardcore and authentic. After all, survival is all that matters here, too, and rallies are unpredictable. However, the creators were able to enrich the formula with a far-reaching purpose, making regular gameplay worth it without seasons. Then there's loot, whose value is particularly big. And, most of all, guns – lots of guns. The encounters are incomparably more realistic, engaging, and intense than in all of the competing games. All of this makes winning (i.e. escaping the map) much more satisfying than winning in other games.

Gunshots

The sound of gunfire in Escape from Tarkov is like blood in the ocean, except instead of sharks, it attracts veterans looking for easy prey. In green players, on the other hand, it quite often causes virtual paralysis, unheard of elsewhere. Any kind of movement seems a bad idea, especially towards the gunshots. Few games simulate firefight so realistically. One bullet can put anyone down, silenced guns are still very loud (as in reality), and shotguns are effective at medium distance, rather than an arms' length.

Gunplay realism is provided by sophisticated details – accurate aiming down sights, muzzle flare revealing your position, good sound design, lots of ways of controlling posture, guns sticking out of cover. On top of that, we also have various effects of gunshot wounds that require different healing items, which are, of course, scarce. A decent bulletproof vest and helmet can of course help, but they usually just give you an additional split-second to react to an ambush. If an attack doesn't end swiftly, the outcome will be completely unpredictable. Even defeating all enemies’ means nothing if we can't get to the map's exit – the "escape" isn't part of Tarkov's title just for kicks.

With all these mechanics and rules, Tarkov imposes a completely different style of play – careful, slow, quiet, but also completely decisive. I can't count how many times I've been hit by a random bullet – whether through my own stupidity, ignorance; through a thermal scope, sometimes a few feet before the finish line. None of the frustration, however, could kill the satisfaction of first wins against higher-level opponents or reaching the escape zone. In battle royale, emotions climax when there are only three or four players left in the arena – in Escape From Tarkov, the tension persists from the beginning to the end of the ten-minute rally, as soon as we get our main character out on the field.

I'm a geardo, duh

I also return to Tarkov for the loot that can be acquired or unlocked after reaching a certain level. There's no pink skins or even forest or desert camouflage for weapons. Apart from various junk related to grinding or quests, the main equipment – namely weapons and tactical gear – are authentic products of real companies, recreated in the game with remarkable accuracy. So, you're not chasing after stickers and gun charms, but rather real equipment that genuinely changes the way you play.

However, I'm a geardo, a collector of military equipment, so I rate this functionality of the game in a special way. Hence, I love the customization, and stacking as much gadgets as possible on the M4 is for me a game of its own. The Gunsmith mode in Escape From Tarkov is simply second to none, and soon, a similar option is expected to appear for tactical vests. This kind of loot makes it worth going through the potential failures and grinding in rallies.

I'm down, I'm up

In Escape From Tarkov there are no seasons, there are no colored skins available for a given period. There are, however, a few things that encourage visiting Tarkov systematically, in spite of defeats and deaths. The first is certainly a very clear path of self-improvement. You practically have to learn how to play FPS all over again, because nothing is like in the other games. Progress is apparent not only in the number of opponents killed, or the value of the loot, but also in how we prepare for action – from a rusty AK and a fishing vest to full armor and a modified M4 with thermal vision. Everything comes with time, gradually, and watching these changes is very satisfying.

The remaining incentives are pretty typical. It's primarily leveling up – lowering prices and unlocking quests. The proper game generally starts only after the character has reached the 10th level. Then, we have the side missions. These are the most basic fetch quests, oddly enough presented in textual form, but providing lots of experience points and moving us to different locations, which encourages to learn more maps.

Then, there's the Hideout – our base offers of a range of features, from a shooting range to weapons testing, to kitchen and toilet, even a bitcoin GPU mine. At first, it's a dilapidated place in the basement. Only after investing huge amounts of money and grind into all kinds of items does it turn into a cozy place. Developing the Hideout from a shack to a hotel is another tangible marker of progress in Escape from Tarkov.

Frenemies

Despite the praises you've red here, the game is far from flawless, and some of the most irksome errors have been pestering us from the begining. Stuttering, desync on servers, bugs, kicking you to desktop. Playing Escape from Tarkov and liking this game is a difficult relationship requiring a lot of understanding. At the same time, I understand why the authors believe that creating new maps and constantly adding loot and equipment is as important as fixing bugs.

There's no endgame in Tarkov yet and some players are finally reaching the point where there's nothing to do. They've visited every room, they've got every weapon, the most valuable items, tens of millions of virtual currency. What's next? Popular streamers simply start a new account, start again from level one, and play mostly solo until the regular Wipe – global reset of progress. With new gadgets, changes, and maps, there are always reasons to keep coming back.

I admit, though, that I would be afraid to make any judgment on the release of this game and its contents, given the plans of the devs and what they want to accomplish before the debut of the full version. I'm not waiting so anxiously for a story mode anymore – I'm waiting for an urban map, SCAR rifles, vest modding and other little things. Regardless of the degree of polish, it is already is an FPS providing a unique experience, unlike any other game. And if one day a complete, finished product comes out of this, with a story and RPG elements, it will be an instant classic to match S.T.A.L.K.E.R.