Escape from Tarkov is a multiplayer first-person extraction shooter video game created by Battlestate Games for computers running Microsoft Windows. The game takes place in an imaginary area called Norvinsk, located in northwestern Russia, where a conflict occurs between two private military groups: United Security ("USEC") and the Battle Encounter Assault Regiment ("BEAR"). Players participate in matches known as "raids," where they fight against other players and computer-controlled characters to collect items and survive long enough to escape. The first version of the game, called Version 1.0, was released on November 15, 2025.

Gameplay

Escape from Tarkov is a realistic and challenging first-person shooter and survival game that uses ideas from online games with many players. In its current version, the game includes five different game modes: PMC raid, Scavenger raid, PvE, Practice, and Arena.

In PMC raid mode, players begin by choosing weapons, selecting a map, and picking a time of day. They enter the map alone or with teammates. During the raid, players face other PMCs and enemy NPC Scavengers. They must either fight or avoid these enemies. Players can collect many items, such as guns, armor, medical supplies, food, drinks, and valuable objects.

To escape with their collected items, players must reach a designated extraction zone within a set time. Each raid lasts between 20 and 50 minutes, depending on the map, and can include up to 14 players. If players die or fail to escape, they lose all items in their inventory, except those stored in a secure container with limited space or those insured with in-game money, as long as no other player has taken the insured items.

In Scavenger raid mode, players are given a random set of equipment instead of choosing their own. They enter a raid already in progress as a Scavenger and are not attacked by NPC Scavengers. Scavengers have their own extraction zones, some of which may overlap with PMC zones. After completing a Scavenger raid, there is a waiting period before the mode is available again.

There are currently 12 maps available, each representing a different part of the city:

• Customs: A large outdoor industrial park.
• Factory: The inside of a small chemical plant.
• Interchange: A road junction near a large shopping mall.
• Lighthouse: A wide area with a train station, water treatment plant, chalet homes, and an island with a lighthouse.
• Reserve: A secret military base.
• Shoreline: A large map with areas like a hydroelectric plant, villages, and a health resort.
• Streets of Tarkov: A section of the downtown area.
• The Lab: A secret research facility run by TerraGroup.
• The Labyrinth: A theme park built by a TerraGroup contractor.
• Woods: A former wildlife reserve.
• Ground Zero: A business center where TerraGroup headquarters is located and the conflict began.
• Terminal: A large cargo hub serving as a last evacuation point.

Each map includes a mix of indoor, outdoor, and underground areas, with changing time of day and weather affecting gameplay. A future update plans to combine all locations into one large open world. Players can also move between connected maps instead of returning to their stash immediately.

Escape from Tarkov’s gameplay is similar to military simulation games like the ArmA series. The game includes over 100 firearms, such as pistols, machine guns, and grenade launchers, each with different features like recoil, weight, and ease of use. Players can find weapons on maps, take them from dead enemies, buy them from traders, or assemble them from parts like the dust cover, grip, stock, and barrel. Each part affects the weapon’s performance. Damage depends on the type of ammunition used, not the weapon itself. The game includes detailed ballistics, such as how bullets bounce, drop, or penetrate surfaces.

Players can protect themselves with equipment like bulletproof vests or helmets. Character inventories are arranged in a grid, with space depending on items like chest rigs or backpacks. Carrying too much weight slows movement and drains stamina. Scavenging is time-consuming and risky because items appear one at a time, and players cannot move while searching.

Players have control over their character’s movement speed and crouch height. Most actions create sounds that other players can hear. The game tracks how many bullets are left in each magazine but only shows estimates like empty, half-full, or full. There is no in-game map showing exact locations, so players must rely on landmarks and points of interest to navigate.

Each major body part has its own health bar. If a body part is destroyed, it causes penalties. For example, a destroyed arm makes aiming, reloading, and searching harder. A destroyed stomach causes constant coughing and wheezing, making it harder to hear enemies and faster energy and hydration loss. Some injuries require specific medical items to fix, like bandages for bleeding or splints for broken bones. Players must also keep energy and hydration levels high to avoid penalties like health loss or inability to sprint.

When not in raids, players stay in their hideout, an underground bomb shelter. They can build facilities using scavenged or purchased materials to gain in-game benefits, such as shorter Scavenger raid cooldowns, more experience, or the ability to craft items.

Extra items can be stored in a stash for future raids, sold to NPC traders, or sold to other players through a virtual flea market. Players can also buy needed items from the flea market using in-game money like Rubles, Euros, or USD. NPC traders give quests that increase loyalty, unlocking access to better items and quests.

Every action a player takes, such as moving, eating, or killing enemies, earns experience points. These points help improve individual skills and increase the character’s overall level. Higher skill levels make characters better at specific tasks, while higher levels unlock new features like advanced trader quests or access to the flea market.

Plot

Escape from Tarkov is set in the fictional city of Tarkov, the capital of the Norvinsk Special Economic Zone in northwestern Russia between 2015 and 2026. Government problems and the failure of businesses have caused the city to fall into disorder. Warring groups have taken control of parts of the city, and local people known as Scavengers (or Scavs for short) now rule some areas.

Players can choose between two PMC factions: United Security (USEC), a Western-based company hired by a corporation called TerraGroup to hide its illegal actions, and BEAR, a group created by the Russian government to investigate these actions. Each faction has different gameplay benefits and special outfits. For example, USEC players start with more experience using Western or NATO-style weapons, while BEAR players gain the same advantage with Russian or Soviet weapons.

The main enemy NPCs are the Scavengers, who are usually hostile to both BEAR and USEC. Scavs are divided into groups with different levels of equipment and behavior. Regular Scavs have basic gear and are the main AI opponents, and players can fight them after a cooldown period. Other types of Scavs include Rogues, Cultists, and Scav Raiders, who have better equipment, more complex actions, and specific locations where they appear. Scav Bosses are even stronger, with more health, better gear, and harder AI. Some Scav Bosses are also accompanied by guards.

Battlestate Games sometimes changes how often factions appear and which maps they are on during special events.

Development

Escape from Tarkov started development in 2012. Battlestate Games lead developer Nikita Buyanov said he and the staff gained experience by working at Absolutsoft on their earlier game, Contract Wars. Both Escape from Tarkov and Contract Wars are set in a world the developers call the Russia-2028 universe. Some staff members have real-world military experience, including one who was a former Spetsnaz operator.

The developers used real weapons in abandoned warehouses to record weapon sounds.

During the game's beta phase, the developers released regular updates, including new features, maps, characters, and equipment. Major updates sometimes reset all players' progress.

In 2023, Battlestate Games introduced a separate competitive mode called Escape from Tarkov: Arena (EFT: Arena), which focuses on short rounds and team-based matchmaking. EFT: Arena was released as a standalone game on the Epic Games Store on April 10, 2025, at the same time as introducing a battle pass system. The game has an esports scene that began with a DreamHack tournament in 2023.

Release

Battlestate Games said that Escape from Tarkov would be a game that players must buy completely, without free parts or extra purchases. The game was released on Steam on November 15, 2025. It is sold in four versions (Standard, Left Behind, Prepare for Escape, and the Unheard Edition), with each later version giving players more starting items and a bigger storage space than the earlier ones.

Escape from Tarkov began as a closed alpha game, first available to a small group of users on August 4, 2016. Battlestate Games later announced an extended alpha stage on December 28, 2016, which was open to users who had preordered the game. During this stage, the game was released in four preorder levels, with the Edge of Darkness edition guaranteeing access to the alpha version. All players who had access signed a secret agreement that prevented them from sharing details about the game. Streaming gameplay was limited to a few players until March 24, 2017, when the agreement ended.

The game entered a closed beta stage on July 28, 2017, and was available to all players, regardless of their preorder edition. It became more popular in early 2020 on Twitch after a promotional event gave players in-game items for watching streams. This popularity caused server problems and long wait times for matches. The game reached its highest number of players at the same time—200,000—on May 20, 2020, after a major update was released.

Battlestate Games also created several live-action miniseries. The first, called Raid, had five episodes released on YouTube for free from March 29, 2019, to February 25, 2021. A film version combining all episodes has been viewed over 28 million times. Their second series, The Chronicles of Ryzhy, started on October 16, 2022, and finished its first season on December 9, 2022. The second season began on April 7, 2023, and is still ongoing.

On August 20, 2025, Battlestate Games released Escape from Tarkov patch 0.16.9.0, which added the “Friend from Norvinsk” questline. In the Hideout minigame “TarGrad Tales,” introduced in this quest, players found a QR code that led to a video titled “Prepare for Escape,” which hinted at a full release date of November 15, 2025. Shortly after the video was discovered, the studio’s CEO, Nikita Buyanov, confirmed the date.

Reception

In 2018, during an early look at the beta version of the game, Heather Alexandra said, "Tarkov is challenging, but there is much enjoyment in learning its details and becoming a skilled soldier." In an article by PC Gamer, Steven Messner noted that the game "discovered new possibilities for online shooters" and praised how the game's features help players value their equipment and remember how they obtained it. He also mentioned that the survival challenges and high difficulty make every victory a success and every failure a learning experience.

Criticism

The game has had problems with cheating and real money trading, which happens when players sell in-game currency for real money, breaking the game's rules. In 2020, the developers took action against players who bought currency by trading valuable items with others during in-game events, warning players not to share items too often during group missions. This caused confusion, as players questioned what types of trading were allowed.

Battlestate Games has been accused of using YouTube's DMCA system to remove videos that criticized the game. A YouTube user named Eroktic posted a video claiming the company leaked user information, leading Battlestate Games to issue DMCA claims on 47 of the user's videos. Two videos were removed for spreading false information, and the rest were removed for creating "negative hype." Initially, the company said they only used DMCA claims on one user, but later it was found that another YouTuber also received claims. Both users reported losing viewers and income.

In December 2019, Battlestate Games' Twitch account was temporarily banned after an employee pointed an empty gun at his head and pretended to pull the trigger during a live stream.

In 2016, a developer said the game would not include female characters because "women can't handle that amount of stress" and "only hardened men" belonged in the game's world. After apologizing, the company clarified in 2020 that the developer's comments did not represent the company's views. They stated there would be no female characters due to "game lore" and the difficulty of creating animations and gear for female characters. The employee was reprimanded for the remarks.

In April 2024, Battlestate Games announced a new version of the game called the Unheard Edition, which includes exclusive equipment and access to a PvE server. Earlier that year, a cheaper version called the Edge of Darkness Edition was discontinued. Previously, owners of the Edge of Darkness Edition were promised free access to future game updates. However, when the Unheard Edition was released (with PvE mode labeled as a "feature" instead of DLC), the promise was changed to six months of free access, causing player complaints and accusations that the game was becoming pay-to-win. On April 27, the developers said Edge of Darkness Edition owners would get full access to PvE mode once version 1.0 of the game was released, with a 50% discount to upgrade to the Unheard Edition. The next day, the company revised the plan to allow access earlier in waves as more servers were added. On July 18, the PvE mode was released as a separate purchase for players who did not own the Unheard or Edge of Darkness Editions.