Escape From Tarkov, an action shooter/horror simulator from Battlestate Games, got a progress wipe and a bunch of new content during the Christmas break, and as Tarkov’s assistant, I got stuck robbing and blowing my way through the game’s opening hours. .
Still Tarkov. Patch 13.0 doesn’t change the situation as much as last year’s patch, which brought inertia and weapon malfunctions to the game. The changes here are smaller and harder to notice: early quests have been modified or adjusted in difficulty, while 7.62 PS ammunition, an early game favorite, has become harder to play from the start. These are small changes that make the game more difficult, but most Tarkov veterans have already adapted to them.
The changes in the title are “Street of Tarkov “, the first iteration of which appeared in patch 13.0 “Escape from Tarkov” and gives players a little sense of a real urban war. A real urban war, as it turned out, is a completely new beast compared to the antics of an ordinary Tarkov.
Players are guided through trash-strewn streets as they try to reach their targets, with would-be looters clashing with each other in sporadic clashes as they try to avoid sniper fire, find hidden chemical labs, or just extract a few goodies.
Fighting in the streets is intoxicating. The fights are fast and crazy, and since it really looks like several dilapidated city blocks, you need to take into account a lot of strange angles and unusual features. The abandoned grocery store you are attacking really looks like a real grocery store, not an FPS map. This is something Tarkov has always excelled at, but choosing your way through a war—torn city is something completely new for Tarkov.
It also encourages you to play in a different way. A shot without a silencer will sound on the map like a dinner bell. Since the map is currently relatively small but densely populated, rogue enemy players, NPCs, or even player—controlled Wild Ones — who have nothing to lose since the game gave them gear and sent you to mess up – will swarm your position like something from aliens, which means that the goal of the game is to to get into the fight, break contact and get out of there before you are spoiled by a wave of loot-hungry players eager to get their hands on your loot. While a slow methodical game will bring you loot and success in an ordinary Tarkov, it is impossible to control every situation on the streets, and therefore you will have to play the way you were dealt, shooting and racing around the city, where almost everyone wants you to die.
If that sounds stressful, it really is. Traveling through this urban jungle is generally more difficult than hiding in the arid mess around the Custom Fortress or among the trees that make up almost every square inch of the Woods map. There are very few shelters here, and instead of hiding to lick my wounds, I found my squad, and I’ll crash into an apartment building or a corner store and try to strengthen it for a few seconds, enough time to bandage a wound, fix a broken arm, or fix a blacked-out leg so that you can run away more effectively.
I still don’t know if I can recommend Escape From Tarkov to anyone other than the most avid FPS fans, but it still has the best shootouts in the business. With this early implementation of the Tarkov Street map, Battlestate Games has also shown that they can also have some of the best maps. Oddly enough, the big hope is that Streets will not get bigger and more labyrinthine, but will only grow a little, adding much more vertical play. Be that as it may, it’s like a safari of everything great in Tarkov, when several players fight to become the Apex predator.
Escape From Tarkov can be played on PC.
