FOREVER WAR

From inventing the extraction shooter to finally reaching 1.0, the creator of Escape From Tarkov has refused to compromise on its original game-changing vision

By Ed Smith

Sniper rifles are hard to obtain, but once you have one, you’ll be formidable

E scape From Tarkov’s soul is contained within its extraction zones. Eight years since the game was first released to the public, those small, secluded areas of the map that represent both your objective and your only chance of survival have become monuments to the game’s impact on wider gaming culture. This was the first real extraction shooter – while developer Battlestate Games has drawn some general inspiration from zombie sandbox DayZ and military simulators such as Arma, Escape From Tarkov formalised what is now one of the most dominant subgenres in multiplayer shooters. When you finally reach the extraction zone, unsling your assault rifle and start reciting your prayer to the indifferent, all-deciding countdown clock, you are lying prone in a piece of videogame history.

You are also, for those agonising, seemingly endless ten seconds, experiencing all of EFT’s drama, tension and raw emotional power in a rush. Even now, when it’s flanked by dozens of imitators and rivals, there is no FPS that impresses upon you more harshly the consequences of every single one of your decisions. Death is swift. Opponents are lethal. If you achieve one kill, collect a couple of fresh cans of food and make it to the exit with only a broken arm, two haemorrhages and a limp, then you’ve had a pretty good game. Tarkov is sometimes referred to as a looter shooter, but the only thing it provides in abundance is hardship: you do not understand the true value, the significance, of a first-aid kit, a flashlight and a handful of loose 7.62 bullets until you’ve crawled all the way to the old gas station on Customs only to get shot in the head by a waiting Scav. When Battlestate Games created the extraction shooter, it also created a brutal metaphor for the capriciousness of reality.

Nikita Buyanov, Battlestate Games founder and creator of Escape From Tarkov

NO FPS IMPRESSES UPON YOU MORE HARSHLY THE CONSEQUENCES OF EVERY ONE OF YOUR DECISIONS

Tarkov can be picturesque and serene, but don’t let the scenery distract you from the danger.

And now, more than a decade since it first entered production, Escape From Tarkov has finally been released in full. Marking the arrival of the completed Story Mode and the long-anticipated Steam port, EFT 1.0 is at last online. While this ‘finished’ edition represents a kind of ending for Tarkov (more updates and DLC, and years of live-service support, are still planned, but when you boot the game from now on you’ll no longer get the disclaimer that it’s technically still in beta), it also marks a new beginning for the FPS – and new challenges for its creator. Liberated from the confines of Battlestate’s own esoteric game launcher, EFT now has to gratify a new wave of potential players. The people who buy it on Steam are unlikely to have ever played Tarkov before and may be repelled by its uncompromising friction. Battlestate therefore has to make some concessions to its potential new playerbase, and revise EFT so that it’s more welcoming and forgiving.

At the same time, the developer knows that difficulty, realism and a deliberate kind of opacity, whereby key mechanics and systems are left unexplained and players have to learn everything for themselves, are fundamental both to Tarkov’s identity and its success. Even the tiniest wins – escaping from a gunfight without getting shot in the back more than once, say, or finding a pistol grip worth a couple of hundred Rubles – feel like terrific victories, because the game is so tough. If Battlestate makes Tarkov ‘softer’, it risks ruining the entire experience.