Fragmentary Order is the upcoming hardcore sci-fi extraction shooter led by Escape from Tarkov's creator, Nikita Buyanov—he's still working on Tarkov at Battlestate Games, though. But the extraction shooter has changed (in large part due to Arc Raiders) since Tarkov's eight-year beta period beginning in 2016, and even its full 1.0 release at the end of 2025. There's more of an appetite for the genre now than ever, at least for a more casual spin on it. Sure, you'll still lose loot when you die, but most matches in Arc Raiders devolve into making friends with other players.

Buyanov says no to all that. When asked by GamesBeat whether the emergent gameplay of Arc Raiders has given the team any inspiration, Buyanov plainly stated: "It’s an extraction shooter for casual people. It’s not an option for us. We want to have the most painful, most challenging, and most rewarding experience."

In other words, if it's taking inspiration from anywhere, it's Buyanov's experience with Tarkov. You could argue there's even a hint of Marathon's all-or-nothing approach, which balances huge challenges with satisfying rewards—look no further than the intense Cryo Archive map.

However, he's not ruling out the occasional friendliness. "You can try. That’s your call. But we’re trying to simulate reality. Tarkov is the same," he explains. "You’ll have a lot to do, and not just fighting people. You’ll need to survive dynamic events in the location. You might need to work with others to find shelter. We won’t force people to fight. But people will fight."

Evidently, Fragmentary Order won't be a walk in the park, saying hello to everyone you meet like Arc Raiders—and that's not a dig, I'd argue it's the best part of Embark's extraction shooter. All I hope is that it takes a page out of the Arc Raiders and Marathon playbook and streamlines core systems like inventory management and looting to keep the focus on the most interesting aspects: shooting things and creeping around a detailed map.

There's been just a little confusion surrounding the upcoming hardcore sci-fi shooter Fragmentary Order, in that while Escape from Tarkov's creator, Nikita Buyanov, is involved it was not known to what extent, and whether it would have an impact on Tarkov. But this has now been cleared up by Buyanov himself.

"Frago (Fragmentary Order) is being developed by [a] separate company that I created, full of great people around the globe," Buyanov explains in a social media post. "Escape from Tarkov is my life, and I'm continuing working on it too with my BSG (Battlestate Games) family no matter what. Tarkov for life."

Buyanov had previously said that despite looking quite similar in places to Tarkov, Fragmentary Order "is not related to BSG or Tarkov". But even still some players were unsure whether Buyanov was planning to turn his attention away from Tarkov and towards Fragmentary Order.

But the reality is much less extreme, Fragmentary Order is just a new adventure that Buyanov wants to share with everyone: "I always dreamed [of making] a proper hard sci-fi. It had been in my head for years—to bring life to a new universe with predicting-the-future approach. And, of course, add something to the genre as I did with Tarkov. Now my life has become twice as difficult. I decided to rush in with the thought: what if more time passes and I no longer can or want to do anything new?"

It just seems as if Buyanov is seizing the moment by creating a separate company to explore this dream of a hardcore sci-fi shooter, and not preparing to fully turn his attention from one game to the other.

That said there's still a few more questions surrounding Fragmentary Order. The main one I have is whether it will be an extraction shooter or not. It sounds plausible when the premise is 'fighting it out on an intergalactic stage to bring back info and precious items'. But when asked by a fan Buyanov simply answered: "Why do you think it will be [an] extraction shooter?" Well, it's back to the drawing board for me. I guess we'll have to wait a little bit longer to find out whether there will be another extraction shooter on the block or not.

Fragmentary Order is an upcoming "hardcore sci-fi FPS" project helmed by Rant Gaming and publisher Cor3 with some involvement from Escape From Tarkov boss Nikita Buyanov.

Buyanov has, however, confirmed that Fragmentary Order "is not related to BSG or Tarkov", being more of a separate project. Regardless, it seems to share much of the same DNA when it comes to its music, animation, assets, and even its website.

Set to be a "next-generation multiplayer combat tactical simulator in hazardous environments." It essentially just sounds like an extraction shooter in space. Players will take control of "clone assets" to remotely enter a battlefield spread across the solar system, such as the hostile and partially terraformed planet of Mars, carrying out contracts and scavenging for resources, all while simply trying to make it out alive.

It takes place in the dystopian future of 2251. Humanity had all-but collapsed, but was saved by the mysterious megacorporation known as the Core, which was able "to gather the remnants of everything human", convince the governments of the world to unite, and influence a rapid technological expansion to colonise the corners of space.

It seems as if it's still in relatively early stages. After sharing a seven minute announcement trailer and news of the new game, fans were asking how to prepurchase it, to which the devs replied: "We appreciate the eagerness, but let's not jump ahead of ourselves."

If it sounds like your kind of game, the best way to hit the ground running with it is to head to COR3.GG. Here you'll be able to start reading up and immersing yourself in the lore of Fragmentary Order as well as working towards being a part of the Prime Batch, a limited group of players who will have early access.

To do this you have to become Founders—these are "the operators who go deepest", those who immerse themselves within the game the most, even before it launches. You can do so now by progressing through the COR3 rank system. There are five ranks each giving players access to different perks:

• Forerunner - unique profile frame, guaranteed early access, personal badge, lifetime "nickname reservation", and unique Forerunner Title.
• The Pillar - high priority for early access, a personal badge, a nickname reservation, and a unique pillar title.
• Torchbearer - "elevated" priority for early access and a personal badge.
• Pathfinder - "enhanced" priority for early access and a personal badge.
• Foundation - low priority for early access and a personal badge.

To rise through the ranks you must complete questions and "unlock new layers of the world", build "reputation with factions that remember", and accumulate credits and "high-volume credit flow". There are also daily tasks for you to complete that'll earn credits. Today's was going through the system log integrity to find false instances and correct them—it's very straightforward and easy to complete: it took me all of a couple of minutes.

The website can seem quite convoluted, however, especially when you first access it, but practice makes perfect. I also doubt it'll be integral to playing the game, as it seems more like an attempt to create as much immersion as possible before Fragmentary Order's launch, giving a little extra to those who want a much deeper understanding of the world in which they'll find themselves fighting in.

Escape From Tarkov released on Steam on November 15, taking the excellent extraction shooter out of beta after a mere eight years, and almost immediately had a bit of a wobble. Players found themselves unable to log in, with demand being such that developer Battlestate Games acknowledged severe server woes, and then came the inevitable review bombing from those who couldn't play. Welcome to Steam, comrade!

"What a week," wrote director and Battlestate COO Nikita Buyanov on X. "This week was actual stress testing not only of our servers but also our mind and nerves for sure. But seeing you enjoy the game makes us feel better."

Stuff like server issues and bugs can be fixed, of course, though people also have issues with Tarkov's full release that aren't going away: primarily, existing owners having to re-buy the game on Steam. That's not going to change, though presumably the disquiet will die down over time (and while it would've been nice, existing owners can of course still play through the Battlestate launcher).

Buyanov went on to discuss the near future for the game in the runup to the new year, though stopped short of offering any details on the long-teased Scav Life DLC, which will focus on the game's unloved third faction.

"We plan to use this couple of months to prioritize and get more and more fixes and improvements into the game," says Buyanov. "Also there will be winter in Tarkov, new storyline quests, new events. Sometime after there will be the introduction of seasonal characters with the whole new seasons system."

Tarkov traditionally has weather events, with the landscape typically covered in snow from late November until spring: it makes everything prettier, and crunches underfoot so it's even easier for other players to hear and headshot you.

Buyanov signs off by announcing the "traditional New Year TarkovTV in December" with "all of the additional info", and has put up two time-limited codes for some in-game goodies: "SCAVYBOI" and, for a free drill, "ITSADRILL".

Today, a thread on resetera from user RedbullCola titled "Escape from Tarkov directly funds the Invasion of Ukraine through partnerships" linked to a pair of imgur galleries that has been traded around on social media before.

The two galleries show a series of images that draw an apparent close relationship between Battlestate Games, particularly COO Nikita Buyanov, and Russian gun enthusiasts 715 Team. The images show Buyanov in pictures with 715 Team members, firing guns with them, and show in-game screenshots of alleged tributes to the group—graffiti and cosmetics that read "715" and "train hard," part of the group's slogan.

Members of 715 Team, which has a YouTube channel with 1.65 million subscribers, have allegedly supported and taken part in the invasion according to a 2022 report by Ukrainian news outlet Babel. The report discusses Battlestate's perceived proximity to Russian military efforts at length. It states that Buyonav recorded promotional videos with Russian arms manufacturer Kalashnikov before the invasion and claims that, though Battlestate is silent on the Russian state's actions now, its employees have allegedly been spotted in friendly photos with unapologetic supporters of the war.

I cannot verify the bulk of Babel's claims as many of them link to deleted Instagram posts and YouTube videos. The imgur galleries, similarly, hinge in part on context tied to sentiment expressed in videos that are either deleted or in Russian. This is not the first time Battlestate Games has been the target of scrutiny on this topic; a thread on the Tarkov subreddit documents a time when scavs could allegedly spawn with an anti-Ukrainian slur as their in-game name.

To reiterate, Battlestate Games has never voiced formal support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Still, the alleged relationships described amid the reports and forum posts are garnering attention on social media, as seen in this Reddit thread posted by Suibeam. The most-upvoted comment on that thread reads, "Not only is their game a buggy piece of shit, they’re straight up bad people." Another from user Captain_Leemu reads, "It genuinely makes me feel sick to know that innocent people are dying and the murderers are using money from a game I bought. If I could refund it I would. Fuck Nikita."

Another dimension to this is the large number of current and former Tarkov fans in Ukraine. In 2022, Ukrainian Twitch streamer Bobi bid his audience farewell while choking back tears. While he was streaming Escape from Tarkov, he felt the impact of nearby bombs falling shake the ground beneath his feet: Russian military forces had begun a now-yearslong invasion of Ukraine, and he'd spend the next four days fleeing 900 miles toward his home country's western border. He did not flee the country, instead staying to help aid the humanitarian effort.

The role of modern military shooters, and mass-consumption entertainment writ large, in jingoist propaganda is both widespread in many countries and well-documented. The US military uses games like Call of Duty actively in its recruitment strategies as reported by The Guardian, and Hollywood films that portray the Department of Defense have a long history of cooperation with the Pentagon in exchange for access to equipment—Iron Man and 007: Tomorrow Never Dies, for example. When MCU flick Captain Marvel took to theaters, the United States Air Force was quick to cross-promote the movie.

Entertainment plays a tangible role in the social control militaries and governments depend on, and games like Escape from Tarkov are no exception. If you're able and so inclined, you can donate to organizations helping the humanitarian effort in Ukraine like World Central Kitchen or Razom for Ukraine.

Escape from Tarkov, the influential extraction shooter from Battlestate Games, is coming to Steam after eight years in early access. The news was first teased by Battlestate head of studio, Nikita Buyanov, who posted a gif of some old chap pressing the steam button on an iron and looking pleased with himself.

"Yes! The page on Steam will be available soon," Buyanov subsequently added. "All the details later."

The Steam page for Escape from Tarkov is not yet live, but fans want one question answered. Tarkov may have been in early access or beta for eight years, but it's come with a significant price tag and has, on occasion, infuriated its playerbase with various monetisation decisions. So… are existing players going to be able to add the game they've already paid for to their Steam libraries, or is this a new purchase?

Buyanov has yet to address this, though he did respond to one very rude player ranting about the Steam release with the line: "please, eat bag of dicks." In Soviet Russia, dev trolls you!

The Steam release might well align with the release of Tarkov's long-awaited version 1.0, which is scheduled for 15th November 2025. Battlestate Games says that over the eight years the games been in beta, it's received over 400 updates:

"We would like to express our sincere gratitude to every player whose dedication and active participation throughout the testing period played a key role in the development of Escape from Tarkov," said a Battlestate Games statement.

One thing will certainly be fun to watch: the Steam reviews. Escape from Tarkov is a brilliant game but it's also one that every so often upsets players big-time: most recently, with a patch that reset player progress, altered the economy and progression, and left everyone bored to tears with the grind. I'm not going to say that this is going to get review bombed on day one by players with thousands of hours already logged outside of Steam… but let's wait and see, comrades.

Last week Escape From Tarkov released a sweeping patch and what it calls a "Hardcore Wipe"—resetting progress for all players, upending how the game's economy works, altering the progression system, and even changing the game's structure and disabling existing maps.

Naturally, players reacted in a calm and rational manner. Only kidding: most were mad as hell, with some sections of the community in open revolt at what developer Battlestate Games has done to their beloved extraction shooter. The main impact of the wipe was to slow down the game's progression a great deal and, despite Battlestate giving some prior warning this was going to happen, the dramatic reduction in the game's content still seemed to blindside some.

Two particular bugbears have now been addressed by Battlestate Games, which says it's continuing to monitor feedback on the wipe. The biggest issue was only two of Tarkov's 11 maps being available to raid, with the others only accessible via in-game transit points: this has been abandoned and "all locations are now available for selection."

Second, the guaranteed boss spawns have become less guaranteed. The initial hardcore wipe made the chances of a boss spawn 100%, which spiked the difficulty for solo players but was rather a boon for well-drilled teams that could farm them for loot. The game's now "reduced [the] spawn chance of bosses to 70%", which doesn't seem like a massive change but we'll see how it plays out in practice.

Nikita Buyanov, head of studio at Battlestate Games, says "we will gradually switch on features like traders [loyalty levels], locations and everything to simulate and slow down OG gameplay of Escape from Tarkov," so expect more additions as the hardcore wipe settles in. Buyanov also has a few words for some of the game's most vocal critics: "shut the fuck up." Russian devs: they're built different.

Escape From Tarkov got a new wipe today, and it's not going down too well.

The community is in open revolt in reaction to today's Hardcore Wipe, a sweeping patch that upends the extraction shooter's economy, format, and progression in a bid to slow things down. At least, that's how players are reading the decision to disable all maps but two, limit ammo crafting, and make core features like insurance wildly expensive.

Despite developer Battlestate's efforts to prepare players for the Hardcore Wipe last week with X posts, those who only read the sparse patch notes were blindsided by Escape From Tarkov's dramatic decrease in content overnight.

Chief among players' laundry list of complaints is quests: The majority of them are simply missing, greatly limiting options for progression at the start of a wipe set to last months. The plan is for more quests to roll out over time, but that's of little comfort to players who were excited to play a bunch of Tarkov on wipe day.

Then there's the fact that only two of Tarkov's 11 maps are available to raid, with travel to other maps only possible through in-game transit points on Customs or Factory. Many seem to agree that maps only accessible through other maps is, conceptually, a neat idea for a hardcore mode, but Tarkov's excruciatingly long load times throw cold water on the whole thing.

"I tried going to Reserve. This was the experience: Queue was 10 minutes for Customs, five-minute run to transit, 22-minute queue for Reserve just to trade headshots with another player two minutes in," wrote Reddit user SakeMadaMada.

Insurance might be expensive this wipe... from r/EscapefromTarkov

"And we have no tasks, so basically the game is unplayable haha, pure mindless grind (2x hideout items needed according to reddit) with no fun stuff added."

Other changes seem squarely aimed at hoarders. The price to insure and repair items has risen "drastically," according to one player chronicling unlisted changes, a squeeze that coincides with vendors buying loot for less cash than before. The player-driven flea market is also disabled for now, sending a clear message that Battlestate wants money to be a more precious resource.

Such is the goal of the Hardcore Wipe. Battlestate is clearly interested in upending the status quo, an idea that is proving immediately unpopular. Head of studio Nikita Buyanov said on X that Battlestate is monitoring feedback and will make changes as needed.

It’s a bad time to be an Escape From Tarkov fan. Developers BattleState Games announced this week the addition of a new $250 edition of the extraction shooter, which included a full PvE version of the game, bigger pockets for PMCs in the full version, and an equippable item that will make AI-controlled Scavs less aggressive to players.

A brutal survival-focused battle royale, Tarkov's special sauce is the mix of scarcity, danger, and rare opportunity. It's a game where finding a particular medicine can make half-a-dozen failed runs feel worthwhile, where a door key is worth its weight in gold, and where you'll go through long stretches of poverty, slowly building up your stash and eking everything you can out of sub-optimal loadouts. It's a shooter, sure, but a shooter where every single item matters a whole lot more than in any other game.

So, extra benefits didn't sit well with many owners of the existing top-tier $150 Edge of Darkness (EoD) edition, including myself. That version has been available for players to buy into the closed beta since August 2016, and for its considerable price promised  access to every future DLC coming to the game. The argument, coming from content creators, Reddit users and angry fans on the BattleState Games Discord server is that this PvE version of the game is a new DLC and therefore should be handed out to EoD owners for free. 

BattleState Games initially denied the new mode was DLC and tried to play word games, which went down about as well as you'd expect. The backlash was absolutely furious and, after a few days in the bunker, the developer half-admitted to getting it wrong, bowing to pressure in damage control mode and saying that all EoD owners will get six months of co-op play for free, with a rather substantial catch:  Battlestate can’t do this immediately, because they don’t have the server capacity for everyone who’s bought the EoD edition. As PCG's Ted Litchfield put it, this is an enormous unforced error. 

On top of that, in an effort  to try and appease these fans, EoD players are being given priority matchmaking and a series of new items. This means that players who haven’t bought the EoD edition before now (which is no longer on sale, by the way) are now going to be stuck in longer queues for their matches. To be clear, players who've bought the standard edition of Tarkov have paid $50 for the game, and are now being treated like second-class citizens. How’s that for enshittification?

Money Money Money

I’ve always been forgiving of Escape From Tarkov, and bought the EoD edition all the way back in January 2017, when the game was essentially just the previous (and smaller) Factory map and a horde of players charging around with hatchets in a bid to find the one existing pair of night vision goggles on the map. The game's come a very long way since then and, while many players have bemoaned Tarkov's huge cheating problem, I've found most of the changes to be broad improvements to the core experience.

Not every change has been to my personal tastes, and the addition of new systems and maps introduced bugs and meta shifts along the way, but there was a sense that Battlestate Games had a good sense of the game they were trying to make, and Tarkov was moving towards that endpoint with each update.

After this, I'm not entirely sure that still holds. The introduction of the $250 edition, weeks after the devs also announced microtransactions to let players get their hands on additional space in the player's out-of-raid Stash and clothing options (previously earnt through in-game achievement), has left me wondering if really they’re not so sure about what they’re doing after all.

I'm not that annoyed about the addition of the PvE mode and the mess around who got access. It's clearly DLC that should be made available to everyone, Battlestate made a big mistake, and sure enough has begun rolling it back. Game director Nikita Buyanov started claiming that this feature would be available to everyone at the game’s 1.0 release, but such was the fury of the fanbase that, in a desperate attempt to change the narrative, Battlestate shortly afterwards announced that everyone was going to be allowed in, alongside a promise to get rid of the promised EoD priority queue.)

I'm actually more concerned about the deep pockets you’ll be rewarded with for your, er, deep pockets and the device that makes AI scavs less likely to attack players. Key elements of Tarkov are scarcity, the threat of losing items, and that even in the absence of other players this is a hostile environment. These additions fundamentally change these aspects of the game and tip the scales a little more against those that aren’t willing to spend $250 on the already-unforgiving experience.

The new pockets essentially outfit your PMC character with cargo pants, turning the four one-slot pockets into a new configuration featuring two one-slot pockets and two two-slot pockets. Most magazines in the game are two-slots in size, and it meant that to run an assault rifle with decently sized mags you would need to equip a tactical vest to put your mags in. Several quests in the game put restrictions on tactical vests and other gear, meaning that challenge was manufactured to make quests more difficult. Now, Unheard owners could go into raids naked but for a gun and pockets full of magazines, minimising their risk and maximising the amount of loot they can tote from the raid. More importantly, if a player without these bigger pockets is doing one of these same limited-gear quests as someone with these bonuses, they're going to be at a significant disadvantage. This is a pretty open-and-shut case of pay to win.

It’s even worse with the new Mark of the Unheard item, a special trinket that can’t be looted from a player's corpse. Taking the form of a radio, those that wear it will find their insured gear coming back 30% faster, in-game cash services costing 50% less and players with over a 6.0 Fence Rep will find that scavs over 60 metres away will no longer shoot them unless provoked. There are some downsides, but none of them offset the fact that this item can make a player into a player vs player killing machine, able to hide in full view of AI scavs and pick off players.

The presence of calm scavs has long been the sign of a safe area for many Escape From Tarkov players, and so the idea that those who pay enough money to abuse that learned behaviour before picking off other PMCs who are trying to kill the AI themselves, is pretty gross. Snipers can now hide risk-free to pick off players killing and looting scavs in hotspots, without any real downside.

So to summarise, players who pay $250 will face fewer consequences, find the game generally easier, and be at an unmeasurable advantage over those players who have merely forked out $50 or even $150 for the game.

As a game, Escape From Tarkov has never really felt particularly fair. AI characters will sometimes headshot you as soon as they see you, a server disconnection could mean you reconnect five minutes later half-starved to death in a bush, or turning the wrong corner could see you instantly blown away by someone replicating whatever nonsense position StankRat has put out on TikTok. But the crucial thing is that Escape From Tarkov always screwed everyone over equally.

This wipe got off to an exceptional start when I found an ultra-rare LedX (a highly sought after item for quest progression) in a duffel bag on the nightmarish Streets map, before I lost it a few minutes later running up to a bugged armoured car which killed me instantly. "Tarkov gives, Tarkov takes," I said with a shrug as I queued back in. Sometimes it’s just not fair.

But now, it feels like Battlestate Games is changing the rules. While all of these situations will still be in the game, the fact I can buy an advantage in Escape From Tarkov makes me suspect Battlestate Games are not the Machiavellian geniuses I took them for, and more just guys chasing a quick buck as they prepare for Tarkov’s 1.0 release and their next project. After all, these are two changes so significant they’re going to change the flow of the game even for people who aren’t willing to drop $250 on the Unheard edition.

I've got my money's worth out of Tarkov and I’m not opposed to paying more for games I've really enjoyed. But, similar to Unity’s disastrous 2023, I'm now nervous about Battlestate managing to stick their 1.0 landing. I've been a zealous Tarkov stan for years, and played for thousands of hours since my character first got stabbed to death in a bathroom all the way back in 2017.

This isn't the first time Battlestate has got something wrong but, in how fundamentally this special edition messes with what makes the game work, this has been a catastrophic mistake, and one that seems to have cost the developer all the goodwill it's built up over many years: look at any Tarkov forum, Discord or on social media, and you won't find a single player defending this. I can relate. It's always been rough, it's always been unforgiving, but sorting players into haves and have-nots purely on whether they paid more up-front? It's starting to feel like I might finally escape from Tarkov myself, and never look back.

After two attempts to mollify fan outrage over a new $250 version of Escape From Tarkov with an exclusive PvE mode, developer Battlestate has finally relented, promising PvE access to players who previously bought the $150 Edge of Darkness edition of the game that promised access to "all future DLC."

In a statement on the Tarkov subreddit early this morning, Battlestate COO Nikita Buyanov said he was "very sorry that fans and the game community in general are experiencing these feelings," and that this negative response would factor into his future decision making. In terms of the company's response, Buyanov offered the following concessions and assurances:

• $150 Edge of Darkness purchasers would get access to the PvE mode with no further payment or time limit during early access. They will still be allowed access "in waves" due to server capacity concerns.
• The PvE mode will get mod support on Tarkov's 1.0 release.
• Battlestate will continue to sell the $250 Unheard Edition and upgrades to it from other packages.
• Battlestate will iron out a new list of additional benefits for $150 EoD players, while removing the controversial "preferred matchmaking" proposal
• "We will continue to work on patches, new content, events and the game release itself no matter what."

These changes more or less address Tarkov players' primary complaints, but it might be too little, too late: it took six days of much publicized discontent and disruption of the game's official Discord to get here, and many commenters take umbrage with the wording of Buyanov's apology: "I'm sorry you felt this way" as opposed to "I'm sorry we did this bad thing."

Most posts on the Tarkov subreddit right now are expressing dissatisfaction with Buyanov's statement, with some wondering if Battlestate will pull a move like this in the future. Many are suggesting Battlestate turn to cosmetic monetization instead of ever more stratified bundles of the game with mechanical advantages and exclusive modes.

This may still be enough of a concession by Battlestate to release tension and get things back to "normal" in the Tarkov community, but the company has invited severe reputational damage over this boondoggle⁠—how many Unheard Edition customers will Battlestate even manage to snag? A $250 early access videogame purchase is a gesture of trust after all, and after this week, I don't think many Tarkov players are keen to trust the studio.

Original Story: In what has rapidly eclipsed Fallout 4's mod-breaking "next-gen" update as the biggest unforced error of the week in PC gaming, Escape From Tarkov dev Battlestate is still holding firm that players who bought the $150 Edge of Darkness edition of the game will not have access to an upcoming PvE mode in the game⁠—one where your progress persists between server wipes, no less. That feature was announced as part of a new $250 Unheard Edition⁠—even though the $150 EoD edition promised access to "all future DLC" for Tarkov.

In a statement shared on the Tarkov subreddit, Battlestate offered some conciliatory new pricing options for the PvE mode, and also claimed that the mode's servers won't be able to handle the traffic from every $150 EoD player in early access.

The post began by once again asserting Battlestate's frustrating semantic argument behind gating the PvE mode behind an even more expensive purchase: it's not "DLC" by Battlestate's own definition. "First of all, PvE gamemode this is not DLC," Battlestate wrote. "DLC in our understanding is the major additions to the game, including various functionality and content that are released after the official release of the game as a themed DLC pack (Scav Life DLC for example, which will add a lot of new mechanics and content for Scav gameplay and leveling)."

The second paragraph then has an eyebrow-raising secondary explanation for why Battlestate is holding so firm on this: that "the PvE mode is necessarily located entirely on a separate network infrastructure, because, essentially, you play on our servers, only in closed mode.

"At this stage, it is not possible to launch all players who are EoD holders⁠—right now we simply do not have the required amount of resources for this."

Battlestate says that the server capacity will increase in time for Tarkov's full release⁠—whenever that may come, the game is still technically in early access⁠—and $150 EoD purchasers will get full, permanent access to the PvE mode at that time.

Battlestate also says that it will offer a separate, standalone purchase of the PvE mode, "so that any player of any version of [Escape From Tarkov] can have the opportunity to test the PvE mode." Whatever the price of this standalone pack will be, Battlestate says that $150 EoD purchasers will get a 70% off discount.

I'm intrigued at the server capacity argument⁠—after double checking yesterday's consolation offer to the community, it seems that the proposed 6 months of temporary PvE access for EoD owners is only "offline," so server capacity may be a legitimate issue for the company. If that's the case though, I would simply recommend not rolling out the mode until Battlestate had developed the infrastructure to support it⁠—the $250 Unheard Edition rollout is clearly not doing the company any favors.

And I'm just still hung up on this DLC/Feature distinction that Battlestate is burning all of its goodwill to uphold. OK, let's say it is a "feature" and not a "DLC," shouldn't a "feature" added to an early access game be even less of a vector for monetization? I've paid $20 for games in EA that have never asked for another dime when adding new stuff. Definitional arguments aside, it's just absurd on the face of it: most normal people seem to agree that $70 is a big ask for a videogame. Tarkov's EoD purchasers are clearly some of its most diehard fans, and this insistence by Battlestate is just a slap in the face.

The situation is beginning to take on the character of some kind of union negotiation, with Tarkov players proverbially on strike with the uproar in the game's official Discord, and Battlestate returning to the bargaining table with gradually better offers. Thing is, Tarkov, for all its success, is still a relatively niche game that relies on word of mouth and community goodwill⁠—Battlestate needs its players more than those players need Tarkov. It's in the studio's best interest to resolve this as quickly as possible, no matter what it has to concede to players.

Streamer LogicalSolutions, who finds himself a central figure in Escape from Tarkov's "illegal" datamining saga, took to Twitter last night stating that he had been banned from the game. This morning, LogicalSolutions announced that his account was now reinstated, all with little clear communication from Tarkov developer Battlestate.

LogicalSolutions also shared a screenshot of a purported text conversation with Tarkov game director Nikita Buyanov from after the ban. Buyanov stated, "You shouldn't share how you datamine and everything. We saw it so you broke the rules again." 

LogicalSolutions denied having shared any datamined information since Battlestate's announcement of a crackdown, to which Buyanov stated "you lie" and shared screenshots of LogicalSolutions sharing information on stream⁠—screenshots which the streamer states are from before Battlestate's announcement.

In a broadcast this morning, LogicalSolutions stated that he received no communication from Battlestate that his ban was lifted, and that he simply was able to log into his account again. LogicalSolutions did share the ban email on-stream, which cited use of "circumvention tools" and "automation of access to game tools" as the reason.

"I'm very glad that Nikita or the folk collectively at Battlestate changed their mind. I'm very thankful," The streamer told his audience. "But I'd still like there to be some kind of communication. I wish we could have a conversation."

Datamining is a phenomenon in many game communities, live service or otherwise. Examination of a game's files can reveal cut or planned content, as well as statistical or mechanical information useful for guides or buildcrafting. The guides and mechanics-focused datamining seems to have been a particular specialty of LogicalSolutions, who has been a frequent contributor to the Tarkov wiki.

I've reached out to Battlestate for comment on the situation, and will update this story if I hear back. In the meantime, LogicalSolutions has a stay of execution, while the sentiment in a few big threads on the Tarkov subreddit seems broadly pro-dataminer, especially when it comes to explaining mechanics in the hardcore shooter and making it more approachable for players.

Escape From Tarkov developer Battlestate Games is drawing a hard line in the sand against datamining. The studio said in an announcement today that it is going to start banning all accounts belonging to dataminers and anyone who shares the information they discover.

"Datamining is defined as extracting information from massive datasets," Battlestate said. "In other words, it is the illegal infiltration of in-game code and databases in order to extract information that is intentionally hidden from users."

It bears stating right from the hop that datamining, broadly speaking, is not illegal. How you dig through data might be a problem, and what you do with the results—if for example you use it to reverse-engineer some cheats and then sell them online—could definitely land you in some hot water. But while developers may not like it when enterprising gamers take a tiptoe through their tulips and reveal their secrets to the world, it's not illegal.

It's also interesting that it doesn't appear to be the potential for cheats that's the concern here, but that dataminers are revealing things that Battlestate would rather keep hidden, ranging from specific boss spawn chances to new quests and rewards that haven't been officially announced. The studio said that sharing this kind of information reduces the "wow effect" and makes the game "much more predictable," and that it's also unfair to developers when future plans are spoiled by dataminers the moment an update goes live.

Instead, Battlestate said Escape From Tarkov players should make use of official sources only, both to get hyped for upcoming features and changes, and to find specific data about the game. It also promised to try to be more transparent about its plans for the future, "with the amount of information we believe will be enough for players to stay up to date."

And in order to help convince people to follow this particular path, Battlestate warned that from this point forward, it's going to get heavy with anyone even tangentially involved in datamining. "This will result in all the in-game accounts involved in datamining and/or sharing data originating from datamining being banned and platforms getting involved receiving warnings and further actions taken afterwards," the studio said.

That's harsh, and has predictably sparked a backlash against the studio. "How can BSG not realise that those dataminers are the main reason their game didn't die years ago? It would be unplayable without the wiki or the ammo charts," Schwertkeks said on Reddit.

"Imagine planning a massive party for everyone and then getting mad when someone hypes it up," redditor AftT3Rmath replied. "I'd get it if its a surprise party or whatever, but instead of telling said hype man, 'Yo don't let anyone know about the upcoming Red Wedding,' they just shoot said hype man."

One of the calmer reactions came from a dataminer at the center of the conflict, known as LogicalSolutions on Twitter. Linking to their Tarkov Wikia profile, which contains hundreds of individual data entries, they asked why it was okay to share that data—at least some of which was presumably datamined—on the wiki, but not through their personal Twitter account.

LogicalSolutions also recently had a spot of social media beef with Battlestate studio head Nikita Buyanov, which may be part of what spark the studio's sudden action:

Battlestate Games is a Russian studio, and so it's possible that some of the wording in the announcement is the result of a less-than-perfect English translation. But there doesn't seem to be any ambiguity in the core of the statement: If you extract or share data that hasn't been officially released, you risk a full ban from the game. That's extreme, especially when the studio says the penalty can be applied to someone who, for instance, retweets some interesting bit of information without first checking to see if it came from an official source.

I've reached out to Battlestate for more information on the new Escape From Tarkov strictures, and will update if I receive a reply.

Tarkov developer Battlestate Games is getting medieval with the game's cheaters. Not content with merely banning rogue players who make use of things like wallhacks and aimbots, the studio is now shaming them publicly, too. Techcrunch reports that Battlestate has banned 6,700 cheaters from Tarkov in the last week, and it's published every single one of their nicknames in an easy-to-read spreadsheet.

Publishing the cheaters' names is meant to serve a dual purpose, both shaming the cheaters in a public space and showing non-cheaters that Battlestate is taking action. "We want honest players to see the nicknames of cheaters," a Battlestate spokesperson told Techcrunch, in order to "know that justice has been served". It's a practice that the studio intends to make a habit of, and there are already numerous spreadsheets filled with cheaters' names on the company's Twitter. 

Battlestate has strong opinions about players who use cheats in its game. It was a little over a week ago that company COO Nikita Buyanov took to Reddit to decry the actions of "Hackers, cheaters and other related scum of the earth," encouraging players to "report all these bastards". Of course, it wasn't long before some commenters pointed out that—as emotive as its statement was—Battlestate has made these kinds of posts before, and cheaters are still ruining games for players. Perhaps Battlestate wants to convince the doubters it means business by mounting 6,700 proverbial heads on spikes?

The community has regarded the move with sceptical eye so far. While some players have revelled in the public display of justice—a user named Epic_Tea summed up their mood with a post that just read "More!! Ban them all!"—far more are worried that the bans are like "trying to mop the rain," in the words of a player called JangoDarkSaber. One much-upvoted post on the game's subreddit, from SeparateAddress9070, imagines a follow-up announcement from Battlestate reading "In other news, we had record sales of new accounts this weekend!" as the cheaters bought their way back into the game.

So Battlestate has a lot of work ahead of it if it wants to convince the community that it's serious about stamping about cheaters. Still, this isn't exactly a bad way to go about doing that, and I imagine there are more than a few players scanning the published ban lists to see if the devs caught that one guy who personally victimised them. I admit, I'd probably feel a little vindication if I spotted the name of someone who managed to miraculously headshot me through a solid wall in the latest wave of bans.

Battlestate Games' Escape from Tarkov remains in early access, hugely popular, and plagued by the same old community complaints it's had since its initial release in 2017. One persistent strain of the latter has always been cheaters, which are bad enough in a fire-and-forget shooter like Warzone but incredibly frustrating to come across in an experience where accumulated loot and gear are a fundamental part of the game.

Every so often Battlestate goes public about a banwave, but it's never too long before the complaints start popping up again. These reached a fever pitch recently after the recent wipe, with a widespread feeling that the problem was worse than ever. Now Battlestate COO Nikita Buyanov has addressed the community in a manner that could be described as blunt.

In a post titled "Hackers, cheaters and other related scum of the earth" Buyanov continues on in that vein though, as we'll see, not everyone's impressed. "Every time for a long time, unfortunately, one way or another, a problem with cheaters pops up," writes Buyanov, "And people immediately start blaming us for not caring. They begin to bury the game."

Buyanov says the studio is "sensitive" to such criticism, which is quite amusing in the context of Tarkov being one of the most bleak and brutal games out there, and says rather than writing an essay he'll make the following points:

• We have always been concerned about this problem and the work to catch cheaters is always going on. They usually come in waves.
• Right now we ban several thousand cheaters a day and usually most of them are blocked after playing a little.
• Battleye anti-cheat continues to improve, as well as cheats. It's an eternal race to see who can get past each other's defenses the fastest. In the last week alone, the Battleye has been updated 4 times.
• We continue to improve our own additional cheater detection tools. We will have an update soon and start working on a new hacker detection methods to automate it and improve the overall quality and speed of cheater detection and banning.
• The reporting system is also being improved by adding a notification if the one you reported has received a ban. Please keep reporting suspicious players!

"Your worries and indignations are 100% clear to us", writes Buyanov. "And always have been. Report all these bastards, we will make the game cleaner together."

The bad language and tone of defiance may well get the blood pumping, but it wasn't long before members of the Tarkov community began pointing out that, er, we've been here before. Buyanov's response was more florid than usual but, in terms of the substantive points being made, these are re-worded versions of what Battlestate Games has been saying for four years.

Hackers, cheaters and other related scum of the earth from r/EscapefromTarkov

"Here's some thoughts from a player who has over 6k hours and 3+ years of time in this game," writesHllHvnd in the most-upvoted and awarded response to Buyanov. "There is a pattern with these kinds of posts."

The player goes on to detail their own experiences with reporting, and cast doubt on the estimate that "several thousand cheaters a day" are being banned. "I see the same players in a lot of my raids," writes HllHvnd,"I see the same cheaters occasionally in raids after days. 30 seconds of research on google can show that cheaters have been cheating undetected for 4-5 wipes, and potentially even longer with private cheats."

The post goes on to detail some of the most-requested security features for Tarkov that Battlestate has yet to implement. Two-factor authentication, a post-raid replay functionality, a manual system for checking potential cheaters' actions. "Actions speak louder than words BSG," ends HllHvnd. "Do your part, the ball is in your court now."

Battlestate's anti-cheat detection software Battleye comes in for special criticism, with many having little faith in its efficacy despite the developer's claims. "Fun fact," claims Animalm4st3r, "you cannot play Valorant while having Tarkov cheats on your PC. Valorant's anticheat detects them if they are not running and refuses to start the game thinking they are for Valorant."

For as long as I've been playing Tarkov, cheaters have been a running theme. That's not unusual in and of itself, because every competitive game has problems with cheaters, but it is notable how formulaic Battlestate's responses to any new controversy are. They amount to more-or-less the same reassurances, the same promise that the studio takes it seriously, the same request to report cheaters. It's a repeating pattern that's left some of Tarkov's biggest fans extremely unconvinced, even if calling the cheaters "bastards" this time spiced it up a bit.

VIDEO: See the PC Gaming Show segment above. Also on Youtube.

Battlestate Games just shared a trailer for their new Escape from Tarkov map. Shown during in the PC Gaming Show presentation, the gameplay footage reveals that EFT's next location will drop players into an eerie city that's taken a turn for the worst. One thing's for sure: it's a big update. According to head of PR Nikita Buyanov, this map is "the biggest and most detailed location ever". 

Featuring cracked sidewalks and plenty of graffiti, the trailer shows a player entering one of the map's explorable buildings, creeping up narrow stairwells and through multiple rooms. In the accompanying interview, Buyanov outlined that the new level is the team's "attempt to simulate the realistic modern city". Although, it seems as though a major disruption has occurred in this town as it's streets are littered with abandoned cars, and there are stacks of rubbish everywhere.   

Audio plays a huge part in EFT and the trailer gives players a good idea of what to expect from this zone. The debris strewn around what looks to be a pharmacy makes a notable crunchy sound when walked on. This is something that players will no doubt need to listen out for when searching the area after release. The trailer also demonstrates that power can be restored to some rooms by interacting with fuse boxes located on the stairs.

EFT matches are serious business, requiring sharp reactions and impeccable hearing, but Battlestate Games has left room for a little fun in this reveal. Towards the end of the trailer there's a cheeky framed photo that looks suspiciously similar to the Doge meme on the wall of a deserted living room. Catching sight of that will certainly brighten up lonely solo runs across the new map. 

Buyanov also highlighted a key feature in Escape from Tarkov's 12.7 patch. While he described it as "more like a technical patch", it looks as though the size of the Customs map is about to grow significantly. The update will "enlarge the overall area by 30 or even 40 percent", so I can only imagine this expansion will make it even more treacherous to traverse. 

Other additions in the upcoming patch include an overhaul of EFT's skill system, as well as a new boss called the Senator. Unfortunately we didn't catch a glimpse of the new boss, but Buyanov mentioned that he can "heal his partners and search for stashes". Judging by these abilities, I can't imagine the fight against this new threat being an easy one.

Hardcore survival FPS Escape From Tarkov has had a pretty big week, first resetting the game's progression entirely and banning 3,000 cheaters, then breaking its concurrent player record with over 200,000 people online. Battlestate Games COO Nikita Buyanov made a cheeky Reddit post announcing the record-breaking count, asking players "How's it goin?" about the latest patch, following up with "thank you for your dedication and interest. We broke 200k online and made a record!"

Earlier this week Escape From Tarkov's closed beta underwent a total game reset, wiping the progression of its thousands of players. That wipe coincided with the release of a new patch and the start of a new season of gameplay, pushing players back through the game's quests and progression from the start. As this season kicked off, a lot of people apparently felt the need to cheat their way to the top. Battlestate games did not like this, subsequently banning 3,000 cheating accounts.

 Escape From Tarkov released as an alpha in 2016, but didn't gain widespread interest until late last year when it kicked off a large advertising campaign on Twitch. Tarkov is a hardcore FPS with extensive gun customization, survival mechanics, a clever blend of RPG and MMO and Battle Royale, and a conspicuous lack of women. It's now clearly doing quite well for itself, despite being a closed beta only available with the preorder of the full game. You can check out Escape From Tarkov at its official website. 

Escape From Tarkov is the best kind of weird FPS: Eastern European. It’s a S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-style shooter made in Unity by Battlestate Games, a 40-person Russian studio that describes it both as a “realistic combat simulator” and a “first-person action RPG/simulator with MMO features.” It’ll have a dynamic in-game economy, an Elder Scrolls-style skill system where your character gets more proficient through repetition, “real-life ballistics and projectile hit physics,” as well as competitive and cooperative play with up to 16 players in decayed (but grounded) Russian industrial landscapes.

It’s unclear how this kitchen-sink approach will congeal, especially with Tarkov due in 2016, which seems relatively soon for its ambitious scope. But forget all that for now: in a pre-alpha demo of Tarkov I saw at GDC, I witnessed the most over-the-top gun customization I’ve ever seen in an FPS. It’s pure gun pornography, but my gut tells me it has a chance of creating something as uneven, eccentric, but enjoyably high-fidelity as Call of Pripyat.

The developer walking me through the demo, Nikita Buyanov, is both the COO and art director at Battlestate, who work in St. Petersberg. He pops open Tarkov’s long, scrollable inventory, which at a glance looks like, yes, a more elegant version of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.’s grid, with broken-out areas that correspond to your chest rig, pocket, and backpack contents. Buyanov pokes around, casually mentioning that Tarkov will include “the whole lineup” of AK, M4 and AR variants at release, along with other shotguns, pistols, and others, amounting to “nearly 200 guns,” all real-world weapons.

Before I can prod him more about the gun roster, Buyanov opens the modification menu for his AK-74, which magnifies the weapon into a generous, fullscreen view that reminds me of Crysis. Nine lines denote modification points for the weapon: receiver, magazine, grip, stock, magazine, muzzle, and a few others. He slaps a rail system to the front of the weapon and the number of modification points doubles to 18 (watch at 3:08 of the video above). I’m not sure what they all correspond to, but there sure are a lot of them.

Then Buyanov does something bizarre: he rips the dust cover off an AK-74—the top ‘spine’ of the rifle that protects its moving parts from debris. With the cover still off, he exits back into the factory scene we’re in and fires away. The weapon works fine, but its guts are exposed, and you can see its internal piston kicking and bobbing as he spams the trigger. I’m pleased to hear that this apparently isn’t just a pointless cosmetic change, but something that’ll actually make this AK degrade more quickly, and make it more prone to jamming. And by removing components like the stock, the AK takes up less room in your inventory.

Then Buyanov does something even weirder: he digs deeper into the inventory and finds a 90-round drum magazine. Which he loads into a Makarov pistol.

It’s the sort of thing a firearms YouTuber makes a novelty video of. He plugs away with the Makarov, emptying the cylinder, then pulling out the absurd bullet-scrotum, which is fully twice the size of the wimpy Russian pistol. Reloading itself will have some nuance, too: double-tapping R triggers a tactical reload, which throws your mag to the ground instead of returning it to your inventory, saving you a second or two before a fresh one is slapped in. Mags that are abandoned this way are dropped in-place and can be retrieved later.

Tarkov’s structure is still opaque to me—I wasn’t shown a world that was populated by NPCs or quests, so I have no clue how or whether this system will meaningfully feed into the rest of its experience. For now, its weapon modding is legitimately insane—if there’s as much fidelity at the other end of its guns, Tarkov could be a gritty, surprising thing.