With Escape from Tarkov's wipe coming soon, as well as its ongoing holiday sale, you may find yourself asking: Is it worth it to pick up and play Escape from Tarkov? We'll be looking at Tarkov's punishing and rewarding gameplay to answer this question.
For starters, let's go through what Escape from Tarkov is. Escape from Tarkov is a multiplayer tactical first-person shooter, with a big emphasis on realism. Players take control of private military contractors, or PMCs, as well as Scavs, or scavengers. Players must loot guns, equipment, food, water, and medicine to survive. This happens in raids, where a group of players spawn on a map and have a limited amount of time to scavenge and loot, as well as take down enemies. You also have to manage a hideout, which you upgrade with items you find in your raids. This hideout helps you in various ways, such as item crafting, weapon customization, and more. Although the gameplay may seem simple from how I described it, Escape from Tarkov is anything but simple.
This is why we'll be taking a deeper look at Escape from Tarkov's gameplay to see if it's worth it to start playing it.
Escape from Tarkov – Is it worth it to play it?
For starters, let's talk about one of the features Tarkov has that usually pushes people away. Dying is a part of every first-person shooter game. Unless you're a speedrunner who aims to finish the game without dying, you really will die sooner or later. Normally, when you die, all you'll have to do is restart from a previous save. In multiplayer games like Call of Duty, you respawn with all your equipment. This is not the case in Tarkov. When you die in Tarkov, you lose whatever you had on you. Your equipped guns, as well as any loot you may have, all disappear when you die. Of course, there's the insurance system, but that only returns your items if no one else gets them.
This is one of the biggest reasons why players don't want to play Tarkov. It's very easy to lose your valuable equipment, even those that took you hours to get. And this doesn't just happen once or twice. This will happen a lot while you're playing the game. I once had a session where I died in all of the raids I did, losing quite a lot of my stash of equipment. I lost a lot of money as well as I would insure my equipment before every raid. This danger of losing your gear is present in your entire playthrough, so if you do decide to pick up the game, you better get over that fear.
Another Tarkov gameplay feature that pushes people away is the regular wipe periods. Every so often (around six months or so), Battlestate Games wipes the slate clean for all players. This means all of your skill levels, stash contents, and progression get reset. Your experience also goes back to zero, and your stash contents revert to your starting stash (which depends on your pre-order level). The developers have two good reasons for doing this. First, wipes and patch days walk hand-in-hand, so each wipe brings with it new features, maps, guns, and more. Second, wipes prevent veterans from getting too ahead of new players.
When my friend first started playing Tarkov, my other friend (who is a veteran of the game) brought him into a night raid. They both got shot and taken down by a player with a thermal scope. They were not able to retaliate at all. Wipes make sure that that isn't the experience new players will get whenever they pick the game up. The developers want to give new players, or Timmies as some in the community call them, a fighting chance. Of course, the new players themselves will have to learn the game's mechanics to improve.
This brings me to my next point. The developers put a lot of effort into making this game as tactical, and as close to reality as they can. Thanks to that, the gameplay is not as simple as, say, Call of Duty. Just from the movement system, it's already quite difficult. There are different walking speeds, different crouching heights, stamina management, leaning, and more. For the gunplay, you will need to manage your gun's ammunition, ergonomics, and recoil. The game has a minimalistic HUD, especially when it comes to keeping track of how much ammo you have. You also have to keep track of ammunition types, since some ammo doesn't penetrate certain levels of armor.
This can get difficult and overwhelming for new players. I've been playing this game for two wipe periods already (not a lot, I know), and I still don't have a grasp of the game's mechanics. Heck, I only know how to properly play on three of the game's 8 current maps, and there's already another one on the way. It doesn't help that the game doesn't really have a tutorial, and players will have to rely on new player guides online to learn how to play the game. In a world where almost all games have tutorials to teach you what to do, this makes it very difficult for some players to get into the game. We might actually make a guide for that to prepare for the upcoming wipe, so stay tuned for that.
So, after reading all that, you may be wondering what my answer is to the question “Is it worth it to play Escape from Tarkov?” My answer is yes, albeit with some reservations. When I first played this game, I was so overwhelmed by just how much I had to do. Learning new maps, learning the basic game mechanics, and figuring out how extractions worked. All of these confused me at first. Thankfully, two of my friends play this game a lot, and they were able to teach me the game's basics. Now, although I still have a long way to go, I find myself looking forward to playing this game.
Sure, I lost valuable equipment along the way. However, I gained even more, and the stories of how I got that equipment are some of the best stories I have had in gaming. Yes, I lost my big stash, my progression, and everything else thanks to the wipe. Thanks to that, though, I knew what I had to do in the following game period. I knew where to get the items I needed, which quests to do, which ones to ignore, and how to efficiently do them. Yes, the gunplay and gameplay mechanics are confusing. But when I took down three PMCs who killed two of my friends while I was severely dehydrated and running out of ammunition, I felt that it was all worth it in the end.
So, do I recommend Escape from Tarkov? Yes, I do. It's a fun game that's worth getting into, and one that you can definitely enjoy with friends. It will take time to get used to everything, and I do mean it will take time, but it will all be worth it in the end. Just remember to have good communication with them. This game has friendly fire and it is not forgiving.
That's our answer to whether or not Escape from Tarkov is worth playing based on its gameplay. It is currently at 25% off until January 7, 2023, at 12:59 PM PST.
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