Escape from Tarkov is one of the most divisive games of all time. It has suffered under the weight of controversy, been spoiled senselessly by swathes of cheaters, and, at times, proven to be an elating title that has spearheaded the growth of one of the most exciting genres in modern gaming.
Battlestate Games recently pushed Escape from Tarkov into a state of graduation, moving from a ten-year alpha and beta cycle into the very long-awaited 1.0 version that’s now occupying the market and dominating the genre once again.
What follows is my comprehensive Escape from Tarkov review, compiled after five years of playing this punishing extraction shooter and, along with hundreds of thousands of others, finally reaching version 1.0.
Escape from Tarkov is a Rollercoaster
‘Rollercoaster’ was one of the first words that came to mind when I was thinking about how to sum up all that Escape from Tarkov is. It’s a tumultuous, emotional cacophony of a title that will leave you feeling ecstatic after a phenomenal raid, then will happily send you plummeting into a pit of despair after a brutal failure.
It’ll have you reaping the rewards of a solid streak of resolving quests and winning fights, then have you ruing the day you invested in the game and cursing all that Battlestate Games holds dear after being devastated by a cheater while on a banger of a run.
From tasks that take mere seconds to challenges that only 0.01% of players will ever achieve, Escape from Tarkov has one of the most diverse spectrums in gaming history, but regardless of which end you’re sitting on, one thing remains axiomatic: this is not a game for the faint of heart.
In the ten years that Escape from Tarkov has been in development, we’ve seen immense overhauls that have changed the face of the game, and crushing blows dealt by the community and the team behind the title that have left the extraction shooter in shambles. It probably has one of the most storied lifecycles ever, and that’s not an exaggeration.
Love it or hate it, Escape from Tarkov has aura.
The Extraction Concept Evolves with Escape from Tarkov
Without the success of Escape from Tarkov, the extraction shooter bubble, which continues to grow as you read this, wouldn’t be anywhere near the size that it is today. Escape from Tarkov’s monumental and generational run began around 2020, when streamers contributed to the mass popularization of the game.
All of a sudden, this intriguing, hyper-challenging, and borderline milsim game from a mysterious Russian developer started taking over social and streaming platforms, and everyone was switched on to something new and terrifying: a genre where a single bullet can mean the loss of absolutely everything.
Over the years, many challenges have arisen to face Battlestate Games and Escape from Tarkov, but while they’ve come and gone, the pioneering title has remained firmly at the top of the table. It’s only in recent months, with the arrival of games like ARC Raiders, that worthy competitors have surfaced.
In the last ten years, the face of Escape from Tarkov has drastically changed. New maps have been introduced, and old maps have been expanded. The game’s arsenal has swollen to epic proportions, and the quest list has grown in kind. More traders have been added, a multiplayer arena spin-off was released (and synced up), and the game’s core mechanics have been upgraded, altered, and adapted time and time again.
The complexity of Escape from Tarkov is reflected in that journey. This isn’t an arcade shooter where you have stacks of ammunition, can slide around the map, and will regenerate your health if you stay out of combat. This is something much more punishing, and that presents a barrier to casual gamers – but still, Escape from Tarkov has greatly succeeded in the face of that potential blocker.
Related: Best Games Like Escape from Tarkov
Tarkov is Challenging, But Incredibly Rewarding
Escape from Tarkov is supposed to be extremely difficult. Aside from the fact that Battlestate Games has pushed the envelope in terms of realism and survival elements, the game’s lore has characters left behind after an evacuation of a war zone, which results in a desperate fight just to stay alive and scrape by with whatever resources can be looted or bought.
To that end, players must suit up, load into a map, fight other players and AI enemies, complete quests, secure loot, and finally, extract from that map. If they fail to get out in time or are killed by any entity, they lose everything they took in and everything that they found during the raid. That’s the core gameplay loop, and it’s not for everyone (but what game is?)
Healing mechanics are intricate and require working knowledge of different solutions, from tourniquets and splints to bandages and painkillers. The game’s ballistics and weapon handling mechanics are so granular that using a sub-par type of ammunition in a particular magazine attached to a certain gun can mean the difference between a kill and armor eating up your shots.
In terms of deeper immersion, players can loot resources to build up a hideout that gives them various benefits, all while working through skill paths that have rewards the higher the player ascends through them. There’s a lot to soak up, and this is only scratching the surface, which I feel is fully indicative of what’s in store for new Escape from Tarkov players.
There are no maps with markers, no guiding lines to follow, and no icons above your teammates’ heads. You don’t have a UI telling you how much ammunition you have left, and you have a finite amount of space in your pockets and backpack, so inventory management is another metagame to conquer.
If you’re not put off yet by the compelling complexity of Escape from Tarkov, then read on – we’re only going deeper.
Related: Is Escape from Tarkov a Battle Royale?
The Look, The Feel, The Atmosphere
Escape from Tarkov is a good-looking game, provided you have a powerful enough PC to run it correctly. It has all the bells and whistles of graphical customization you’d expect, and it offers a fairly diverse array of maps that feature what you might refer to as ‘biomes’. For instance, there are two maps themed around the concept of heavy forests, while another is a sprawling city. There’s a map that’s a tight-knit factory environment, and another that’s a coastline with a huge industrial influence.
There are night raids, which are almost suffocating in how much they increase the game’s difficulty level, and day raids, both of which can be impacted by a rotation of weather effects and a ‘season system’ that changes from winter to spring, to summer, and to fall.
Each of those seasons has unique attributes. In the winter, crunchy snow lines your boots and presents a horrific inability to camouflage yourself. In the fall, trees and bushes are stripped of their leaves, offering less cover, and in the spring, noisy rain deafens you.
These seasons are delivered in addition to regular updates, which, before the 1.0 release of Escape from Tarkov, were known as ‘wipes’. These global resets would, every six months or so, push players back to a clean slate, allowing everyone to rebuild over and over again. In lieu of that going forward, Battlestate Games has promised seasons to remain consistent, and DLC-based expansions will also be released.
But back to the atmosphere of Escape from Tarkov.
When it all works properly, the sound, dynamic weather, visuals, and effects are sublime. If you get trapped in a high-octane, energetic gunfight in Escape from Tarkov, you’ll come away with your heart pounding and your hands shaking. However, over the years, plenty of issues have surfaced with the game’s audio and performance that have left players, more often than you’d like, with a sour taste in their mouths.
In Escape from Tarkov’s 1.0 update, Battlestate Games included hundreds of improvements, bug fixes, and overhauls to various elements of the game, like the UI and trader interactions, trying desperately to boost the game into a space where very little was wrong with it.
They mostly succeeded, but nothing is perfect, and that includes the most popular extraction shooter ever made.
What’s on Offer in Escape from Tarkov?
Escape from Tarkov represents hundreds of hours of potential. It’s a lengthy game, and you never know which way any raid will end up going. As you die so much, you’ll likely spend longer than expected resolving a single quest, and that naturally stretches things out a bit.
The core storyline added with 1.0 is huge and sits nicely alongside side missions and daily and weekly objectives given to you by the game’s traders.
You can play with friends in Escape from Tarkov, or run solo, but it’s a game that’s always better with people by your side. It can become a horror game when playing solo, as the silence around you is suddenly shattered by a single shot that takes the top of your head off. As you explore Escape from Tarkov, you’ll come to appreciate that at least 100 hours are needed to fully comprehend the game’s mechanics, maps, and the core gameplay loop, and that’s not a joke.
It’s by no means a game that you can play if you don’t have much time on your hands. If you load into a raid on Streets of Tarkov, for instance, and you stay there for the duration, that one run will cost you up to an hour off your life, if you include loading and preparation times.
But that’s just another example of the meat on the bones of Escape from Tarkov. Sure, that meat can sometimes be a little rotten, and the AI might not always function correctly, or you might run into a cheater, but many feel that the game is still worth playing, as those delightful highs combat the crushing lows so nicely.
And at the end of the day, if you don’t want to experience Escape from Tarkov from a PvP perspective and fight other players, you can invest a little more and obtain the PvE product, which is the exact same game, but exclusively populated with AI enemies.
Related: Is Escape from Tarkov Free to Play?
Is Escape from Tarkov Worth It?
Escape from Tarkov is one of the most confusing games I’ve ever played. I’ve fallen in and out of love with it, it has given me intense anxiety (like, legitimate heart-racing anxiety), and it has introduced me to some great folks over the years. I’ve hated it, I’ve adored it with an immense passion, and I’ve gone so far as to get a piece of it inked on my skin for life.
I’ve also put €400 into Battlestate Games’ coffers because I’ve upgraded my ‘edition’ of the game so many times.
But for all the negativity and controversy (read: The Unheard Edition), Escape from Tarkov remains a phenomenal experience that can absolutely alter your vision of the games you know and love. Before Escape from Tarkov, I was a Call of Duty and Battlefield fan, but this extraction shooter loop filled me with a desire to seek out a greater challenge and understand the breadth of this game’s complexity.
If you have a PC (because Tarkov isn’t on console yet), you have most likely considered playing Escape from Tarkov. Now that the 1.0 version is out and represents a full, finished product, and it’s on Steam, it’s officially the best time to start playing the game. Bear in mind that you’re letting yourself in for something extremely unwelcoming, and you should do just fine.
Related: Is Escape from Tarkov PvE Worth It?
Verdict = 5/5 (Masterpiece)
I might be biased, as I have around 2,000 hours in Escape from Tarkov, but even with zero hours played, I could identify that this is the ultimate extraction shooter. In that space, it’s a household name, and it has stood above all others and weathered everything thrown at it. The graduation to 1.0 is nothing but a representation of the diehard dedication Battlestate Games has poured into this title over the last decade, and it’s a wonderful thing to behold as a long-time fan of the game.
Through thick and thin, Escape from Tarkov has prevailed. It’s an enormous, deep, and rich game that’s still evolving, it offers unparalleled emotional experiences, and it looks, sounds, and feels great while doing all that. It’s the most punishing game you’ll ever play, but if you put enough hours into understanding this gem of a title, you’ll come to appreciate that it is a generational masterpiece of the extraction shooter market.
For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out my full review of ARC Raiders
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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