Earlier today, it was announced that one of the most beloved fan-supported projects in the extraction shooter space, SP Tarkov (Single Player Tarkov), will be shutting down on or before August 12. This devastating (for some) news comes as Battlestate Games issues a legal notice against the owners of the SPT platform, requesting that they disassociate themselves from all Tarkov and BSG branding.
In a lengthy statement on Discord, DrakiaXYZ, one of SP Tarkov’s lead developers and most prolific personalities, explained clearly: ‘This is the end of the SPT Project under the current team.’
End of An Era for Single Player Tarkov
Late yesterday, internal communications sent to the SPT team from Battlestate Games’ legal team surfaced online. In this document, an email, it was stated that Battlestate Games was demanding the end of the SP Tarkov branding:
It has come to our attention that you are using the domain name https://sp-tarkov.com/, which incorporates our trademark “Tarkov”, and that your website further uses our trademarks within its content in connection with the offering of a computer game.
The email ordered the immediate shutdown of any Tarkov branding, the alteration of the domain name, and a clean break from anything ‘associated with the game or any confusingly similar designations.’
For hours after, the SPT team remained relatively silent on the matter, then DrakiaXYZ popped up in the SPT Discord server to issue the worst news possible: Single Player Tarkov will be shutting down.
As you’ve undoubtedly heard, we have recieved a Trademark Violation Notice from BSG in regards to our usage of the term “Tarkov” in our project’s domain and website. We had been discussing what to do about this internally, but certain users have decided to leak internal communications and push their own narrative as if it were the truth and final outcome, so we are forced to make an announcement before we were ready, and before a final decision was made about what we plan to do with all pats of the project.
The maintainers of the SPT Forge, and infrastructure around distribution of SPT and associated patches will be stepping down. The SPT Forge, sp-tarkov.com domain, and patch hosting infrastructure will be discontinued on or before August 12.
On the day the Forge is shut down, the GitHub Org will be renamed and archived, to remove all direct references to the Tarkov name or other trademarked words. Due to sensitive internal information, the GitHub Org will not be passed on directly. The code can still be forked from the archived repos.
The fate of the Discord is still being discussed internally.
This is the end of the SPT Project under the current team, and in its current form. However, all of the source code will remain available if a future team wishes to continue from where we left off.
This is not a decsiion that is made lightly and we are as devastated as every member in this community may feel. Thank you to our mod authors, moderators, helpers, contributors, testers, and most importantly our users who helped us become the community we are today.
SP Tarkov has been around since 2019 – 2020, when it emerged as a viable alternative to the online-only, multiplayer-driven core platform. Over the years, it has grown immeasurably, becoming a very popular platform that offers untold opportunities for deep customization of Escape from Tarkov.
Truthfully, it has always existed in a relatively grey area, populating a space that went mostly unperturbed by Battlestate Games until now.
As you can imagine, the community is twisted up over this. Many claim that the SP Tarkov team has taken things a step too far, as the name change request wasn’t an issue that necessarily required the complete shutdown of a six-year-old project with thousands of users.
Others lambasted Battlestate Games, declaring that the team had ‘killed’ the project that many had loved for years simply because they’re ‘jealous’ that the SPT devs are ‘doing a better job than them.’
Unfortunately, the SPT team doesn’t really have a leg to stand on, as, at the end of the day, the bones of the project are locked firmly on Battlestate’s IP.
I’ve already reached out to Battlestate Games’ representation, including Nikita Buyanov, for any additional comments on this.
Are you sad to see the end of SP Tarkov? Let us know your thoughts 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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