Escape from Tarkov is a legendary extraction shooter that came together over a decade of development. It’s still evolving today, and in November 2025, it transitioned out of ‘beta’, becoming a 1.0 game after many years of work. It’s still not perfect, but the team at Battlestate Games is determined to make it the best extraction game on the market.
Recently, Nikita Buyanov, the head of the studio at Battlestate Games, took to social media (as he often does) to share a throwback image from 2015. It was his ‘first plan’ for Escape from Tarkov, and it featured a map system that’s scarily close to what we have today, all these years later.
Ten Years of Evolution, Still Pretty Close
On social media, Nikita Buyanov, the prolific personality who often fronts Escape from Tarkov, posted an image from December 2015. He declared it his first plan for Escape from Tarkov, an extraction shooter that is weathering all comers and proving why it’s the oldest name in the space.
In the image, we see a rough sketch of what would eventually become Escape from Tarkov’s map system, including almost all the locations we have today. It’s laid out pretty similarly to what we have right now in the game, with a few tweaks and ‘size changes’ for the maps.
It shows a progressive system, presumably with the player starting at the first point and making their way through every map in succession before reaching the final map, a port. This effectively mirrors the game as it is now, with players being invited to ‘escape from Tarkov’ by heading to that final map, now called Terminal.
The map starts in ‘City’ and then works through nine further locations:
- Suburbs
- Interchange
- Customs
- Factory
- Woods
- VIllage
- Lighthouse
- Harbor
- Port
Along the way, there are side locations, such as Private Sector, Laboratory, Base, and Basements. We can also see some ‘Arena’ locations dotted around the map, which would eventually become Escape from Tarkov: Arena, a spin-off shooter launched in December 2023.
- RELATED: Latest Escape from Tarkov Roadmap
It’s a phenomenal blast from the past and a testament to how true Buyanov stayed to his original vision for Escape from Tarkov, after all these years.
Have you ever given Escape from Tarkov a try? Let us know what you think about the game on the Insider Gaming Discord server.
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Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
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