Escape From Tarkov veterans and new players are trying to figure out the new Streets of Tarkov game map, which cuts out several city blocks of the fictional city of Tarkov and allows players to move freely through them.
While new maps are periodically added to Escape From Tarkov, Streets seems to be a particularly unusual addition due to the way it is located. While most of Tarkov involves moving from landmark to landmark, here you’ll be tearing apart entire city blocks with running gunfights that look like something out of the Heat.
It’s an intense shootout that rewards quick decision-making and smart positioning, but because it’s so much different from the usual Escape From Tarkov fare, many players get trapped and go through hard times.
Luckily, we at NME have died a whole bunch, so you don’t need to. We cannot guarantee that these tips will lead you to extract from the squads of pumped-up children, violent species and hordes of wild players who make survival unlikely, but we can promise that they will give you a chance in battle. The rest depends on you.
Shoot and run
Every shot without a silencer in Streets is like a dinner bell for hungry enemies, whether they are pumped up enemy PMCs, wild with artificial intelligence, or even wild from players — which is the worst of both worlds, since they have human intelligence and they have nothing to lose.
The streets are large, but they can be traversed fairly quickly, which means that if you get bogged down in a firefight, you’ll probably encounter all sorts of armed threats within a minute or two of the start of the fight. To avoid this, you can ask teammates to block corners or you can exit the game as soon as possible after the fight.
Keep in mind that in some buildings and complexes there are very few entrances on the streets, and you can be pushed from all sides.
Beware of the movie sniper
It’s oddly specific, but it’s caught us off guard enough times that it’s worth mentioning. The cinema area is a huge complex surrounded by open fields, and this is the only place where wild snipers are currently spawning on the streets. He can see all the way from the car dealership and the car park to the parking lot in the yard and the grocery store, which means that there is almost a third of the map on which he can shoot unsuspecting players.
This will most likely cause you problems if you are heading to a destroyed house or extracts in the yard. You can usually avoid his gaze by sticking to the destroyed storefronts or killing him first, but both options can be risky.
There are other wild snipers hiding among the roofs, which can quickly ruin your day. Watch out for muzzle flames during night raids or try to stay in solid cover during the day.
Bring more ammo
No matter how many rounds you spend in a shootout, it’s not enough for “Tarkov Streets”. Usually a magazine in a pistol and two magazines in a bulletproof vest are enough for most long raids with some ammunition hidden in your safe container, but on the streets expect almost twice as many shots.
Why? Combat tends to be continuous and you will be constantly entering and exiting combat during fights. You will be surrounded by a swarm, and you will have less time to rearrange, so you will burn through the stores without having time to blow them back up.
Most Tarkov maps have war zones and relatively safe zones, which means you can have a little more control over your battles. This is not the case on the streets, and often from the moment you appear until you finally get to the evacuation, you will have a continuous firefight.
Pack more magazines and keep ammo handy for unexpected fights.
Study the flow of the map
There are five sections to Tarkov Streets. Knowing which one you are in will help with navigation, but should also give you an idea of which direction you need to move in if something goes wrong. Most of the map consists of closed areas that look more like rabbit holes than wide—open lines of sight of the Forest or Customs, and getting lost or separated from the team is a good way to be killed by sending yourself empty-handed. return to the inventory screen.
This Jindouz community member card does a great job of breaking them down by color, which is the fastest way to reach them. Pay attention to the streets that function as arteries all over the map: these are the fastest ways to get around, but they may not be the safest. Keep an eye out, there are often sharp-eyed wild ones at interchanges, and curious players can also watch them.
Immerse yourself in the nightlife
The streets are a hectic cluster of death during the day, but night raids—at least early destruction before everyone uses night vision goggles—are pretty peaceful and a great way to collect loot. Most of the rooms in Streets are chock-full of goodies, so with an empty bag and the judicious use of the squat button, you can strip like a bandit.
Bonus points if you have a silenced rifle and a Vulcan night vision sight, which should turn you into a morally ambiguous Batman as you wander the streets.
Don’t step on the sniper road
In the very north of the map is Klimov Street, which is being watched by AI snipers. These are not sniper savages, they cannot be seen and killed, but if you go out on Klimov Street for more than a step or two, a sniper will kill you. It’s a shame to die like this, and it’s likely to happen when you’re fighting near the Pinewood Hotel and across the road to the green complex from the map above.
The exception to this rule is that if you have a green signal rocket and you shoot it into the sky in the “signal zone”, which the game will inform you about in the lower right corner, then you can safely go out on the road, but this is mainly for extraction using extraction on Klimov Street, and not for tactical movement. In an emergency, you can survive by running along the Pinewood Hotel and clinging to the building, but it’s risky.
By the way, about the discharge from Klimov Street…
Perhaps the most important advice of all: how to get out with your prey? Excerpts from Streets of Tarkov are something of a pain in the ass, so it’s worth knowing where they are before you pick up the golden lion and face the stress of trying to get him to safety.
We have written a manual with a detailed description of each passage in The Streets of Tarkov, which you can read here.
