Escape from Tarkov is one of the most intense and realistic first person shooters ever to hit the gaming market. It has what seems like infinite depth, and with over 500 hours put into the game, I’m still finding new features and mechanics that blow my mind. Everything is based on reality. That is the main thing that draws players to this game. The realism. 

Never before has a game gone so in depth inorder to try to make a game feel like real life. Recently, on november 11th it received a massive update. This tripled the player base in the span of a day, in which it stayed that way till this day. The reason for Tarkov’s takeoff is because of its unique game elements, depth, and gameplay mechanics.

Escape from tarkov has a lot of depth with its loot, guns, and armor. Every single gun was carefully crafted based on its real life counterpart. They vary mainly from U.S. nato armaments and Russian/USSR armaments. Ya’ know, the basics like AK-47s, Armalite-15’s (AR-15’s) with some of their respective platforms, basically any gun you would expect to find in today’s conflicts.

 Despite a large yet basic set of weaponry the beauty of this game is in the modifications you can apply to each weapon. Each weapon can be disassembled completely and reassembled completely, and realistically. Each gun has a horde of attachments to go along with it, which are still based only on the actual real life attachments/modifications that can be applied to said weapon. Bellow two different AKS-74U’s are displayed.

Both weapons here are the same, but with a completely different set of attachments. You truly do have control over your weapons looks and function

Another good example of this game’s depth is its ammo system. In normal fps games you have the ammo in your gun and the ammo in reserve, in these games dropping a magazine when you reload will somehow make all of the remaining bullets in that ditched magazine appear magically in a brand new magazine that your character pulls out of thin air. In escape from tarkov, dropping the magazine means that, that mag along with all of its respective bullets is gonna stay exactly where you dropped it. You don’t get the bullets back that were in it, and It doesn’t do a magic trick and appear back in your character’s inventory. If you want it back, you need to pick it back up. 

That is a big deal in this game! You probably had to pay for each one of those bullets, and then load them in yourself. So make sure you only press “r” once so that you put your mag back in your vest. As pressing it twice will do a quicker reload and drops the magazine. there is no H.U.D (Heads up display) in escape from tarkov, in order to check the ammo in your magazine you must press the ctrl and “t” key at the same time. Every weapon has a full animation for your character taking the magazine out of the gun, and inspecting/feeling the weight of the mag to estimate how many bullets are left inside. Your characters guess of the amount of rounds left in the magazine is displayed on the bottom of the screen as this happens. Depending on whether you are using a see-through magazine/magazine with a observation slot, will determine how accurate the approximation is that your character makes.     

I digress, as you can see if something as simple as seeing how much ammo you have left can be this complicated, then you can surely understand how much depth the rest of the game has instore. However just to make a quick list of cool features, Three different types of tact learning/peaking maneuvers, different realistic varrients of each caliber bullet for example, Armour piercing, tracer, hollow point ect ect.

Another Good part of this game is its realistic health and damage systems.

As you can see there is a multi-segmented damage system in this game. Each limb can be individually damaged, and may require multiple different treatments depending on the wound. For example say you were to be shot in your arm. Well now not only did your arm take 40 damage, but it’s bleeding and fractured as well. To fully recover from it your gonna have to bandage it to remove the bleeding, apply a splint to take care of the fracture, and then use a medkit to recover the health of the damaged arm. There were three treatments needed for one injury. If the health of a limb goes down to zero, then it is “blacked”, and the only way to recover from that is to conduct surgery using either a survival kit, or a CMS kit. 

Again every single healing item is modeled after a real life counterpart, and each item has custom animations for healing the player. Just a quick example, while conducting surgery using a CMS kit, you can physically watch your character cut a hole in his shirt using scissors, take the shrapnel out of his wound using tweezers, then staple the wound together using a staple gun.

The economic system in Tarkov is a crucial feature to understand. The store is where you will be buying/selling everything from bullets and armor, to toilet paper and screws for your base. The economy is player base controlled, meaning it’s a completely open free market economy. The items you can buy or sell, will have a time limit on how long it will be up on the market for. The prices of items are determined by players, and this leads to a unique look at a simulated economy. The game developers do get involved in the economy sometimes to make sure players are not abusing the system. 

 If the supplies are too expensive in the player economy, you can always go to the in game Traders. They provide the base price for all items in the player economy. As well as selling and trading supplies for cheap. They also provide very good gear as rewards for gathering materials and doing quest for them. Money and player xp are also rewarded for completing quest. Trading and completing quests can level up the trader,

therefore unlocking more gear to be traded/bought. You can also sell to the Trader which raises your level with them, making more valuable gear available. This adds another level to item trading and selling, as well as giving the player activities to do while going out into tarkov. 

The Community of Tarkov is another gem all in itself. Many people on online forms will be friendly and helpful with your issues, but there is one thing that splits the community apart. 2 play styles, the Chads and the Rats. The Chads are players that prefer a full gear raid, with as much PvP fighting as possible. They race towards gun fire and are thirsty for the gear. Rats on the other hand, are players that are more into the economy. They play, not to kill as many players as possible, but to gather as much supplys/money as possible. Nothing is wasteful. Map knowledge is key, getting in and out as fast as you can with as much money as you can hold, is the perfect rat run. Many streamers/youtubes claim one strategy is better than the other, but I personally find that mixing the 2, to be the best.

Your armor in Tarkov can mean the difference between life and death. There are low level vest that will stop a pistol bullet or two, all the way to FAT body rigs/helmets that can absorb some armor piercing rifle rounds. You can tell how good a armor is based on the level. Level one being the lowest, and six being the highest. 

Armor in Tarkov can also run out of durability making it useless if it’s not kept in shape. If your armor is running low on durability, you can use different Traders to repair it for a small or big price, depending on the level and how damaged the armor is. This does lower the durability capacity everytime you fix the armor, making it so after a couple of fixes, you’ll need new armor. 

This game is not optimized, You will require a middle/high tire computer to run this game. There are many functions visually, but technically too so it takes a lot out of your computer. The connection to servers can sometimes be bad, but that’s a problem with the game and not your system. Saying this though, if you do have a poor internet connection, wait times for the game will be grueling. In order to run the game at 1080p at high graphics, you’ll need a 2GB VRAM graphics card and a 8GB system memory.

All in all, Escape from Tarkov is an amazing game with extremely realistic gameplay and graphics. It’s super intense, as well as requiring a lot of dedication & focus. For casual players this game will be very difficult, but with time you’ll improve. There are endless mechanics to discover in game and in depth features to intrigue you constantly.  

Armor in Tarkov can also run out of durability making it useless if it’s not kept in shape. If your armor is running low on durability, you can use different Traders to repair it for a small or big price, depending on the level and how damaged the armor is. This does lower the durability capacity everytime you fix the armor, making it so after a couple of fixes, you’ll need new armor. 

This game is not optimized, You will require a middle/high tire computer to run this game. There are many functions visually, but technically too so it takes a lot out of your computer. The connection to servers can sometimes be bad, but that’s a problem with the game and not your system. Saying this though, if you do have a poor internet connection, wait times for the game will be grueling. In order to run the game at 1080p at high graphics, you’ll need a 2GB VRAM graphics card and a 8GB system memory.

All in all, Escape from Tarkov is an amazing game with extremely realistic gameplay and graphics. It’s super intense, as well as requiring a lot of dedication & focus. For casual players this game will be very difficult, but with time you’ll improve. There are endless mechanics to discover in game and in depth features to intrigue you constantly.