Escape From Tarkov is an extraction shooter developed by Russian studio BattleState Games (BSG). It's somehow been in "beta" for 8 years. Players enter a game, find loot or kill players/AI and take their loot, then if they can exit the map they keep the loot.
The game has a weird monetisation model. The developers promised no microtransactions, no pay 2 win, the usual stuff that makes gaymers smile. Instead the base edition is $50, going all the way up to the Edge of Darkness edition at something like $150. What do you get for that? Basically extra space to store items between games and a season pass for all future DLC.
A few months ago BSG stopped selling Edge of Darkness and suggested they'd offer the features to other players as microtransactions instead. G*mers were less than pleased, but it all blew over in a few weeks.
Arena
Meanwhile, BSG released a seperate standalone game called Arena, which is basically a Team Deathmatch mode for Tarkov aimed at being an esport. Like most "esports ready" slop it flopped, probably because Tarkov doesn't do balance. There are good guns and shit guns, it's ultra realistic. Guy with the better gun and better bullets always wins.
So, 8 years after initial release BSG dump their money into a new, failed game. It's given out for free to Edge of Darkness owners as a "DLC" but still fails. People suspect that this might mean that BSG is running out of money.
PvE
Perhaps the biggest thing the players want is a non-PVP mode. A big part of this is because the game is hard and most players suck, but to be fair Tarkov also has a massive cheater problem.
I mean massive btw, cheaters can see every item in each game. If you enter a raid carrying good gear, the 3-5 cheaters in each map will immediately charge you down for it without fail. BSG supposedly bans these players but does little to stop it, probably because most cheaters sell rare items for real world cash and use the profits to buy a new copy every week. That said, it's been worse in the past. There were times when cheaters could just teleport all the loot in the game straight to them. Fun.
So naturally, players really want to get away from the cheating and play offline. BSG insists it's not possible, although somehow modders were able to reverse-engineer things and create their own Single Player Tarkov (SPT) mod. Someone is lying there, I can't tell who.
Unheard Edition
This week BSG announced a new edition of Escape from Tarkov - Unheard Edition. In this you get all the Edge of Darkness features plus a special knife, woo.
Just kidding, alongside the knife you also get a character with bigger pockets to carry more stuff in game, extra gear and a bunch of other utilities. Naturally gaymers are mad about these more blatant Pay 2 Win features. It's not too bad though, right?
To sweeten the deal these paypigs also get access to a new coop pve mode. Yay! The devs insist that this isn't DLC, but a unique game mode. Edge of Darkness players don't get it.
Oh, and they get a special item which makes the AI not shoot at them.
The best part? The new edition costs
$250
Cue rage.
Drama
The Reddit jannies open the flood gates and promise to be less neurodivergent than usual. Just don't use naughty words.
The devs have been caught repeatedly editing the website to remove promises they just broke. At this point you can just look at /r/escapefromtarkov and see a dozen threads full of seethe.
Highlights:
The devs give in and offer Edge of Darkness owners a 6 month trial of PvE mode. Redditors even madder.
The lead developer gives an interview where he shits on all the complainers, apparently "True Believers" will buy the new version.
Oh, and you know how Edge of Darkness players got a "season pass" for DLC?
"No dlc planned"
This is ongoing. Will BSG give in or let it all blow over? Only time will tell.
Update
BSG studio head doubles down again. PvE for Edge of Darkness will come later, for now you're paying for a preview before full release. They're also going to offer a 50% discount on upgrades for top tier paypigs. Oh, and if you already paid full price you can have a second game key for the shit-tier edition, but you're not allowed to sell that.
Redditors are still mad
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Excellent post, been meaning to write one up on this trainwreck. They are MAD.
You didn't even mention that this is a Russian dev and all transactions are handled by them (no steam), so the paypigs who were blatantly lied to about the $150 package that they bought years ago have absolutely zero recourse to get their money back
The cosmetic knife that comes with the new paypig edition is an off the shelf asset flip skin that they bought on unity store
EFT has some genius mechanics and is actually an excellent game with the exceptions of some inexplicable design decisions. If they fixed the cheaters it would have been as popular as PUBG was, but instead they choose to do whatever this is
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Can't people file chargebacks? Arguably worse for the dev because if enough people do it the card processors can ban the account from taking transactions
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They're already banned from most western banks lmao
Most of these paypigs paid 5+ years ago and almost certainly aren't getting their money back
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You can't chargeback half a decade later. Their only route is to sue, but unsurprisingly the non-Russian entities they're paying are shell companies with no actual assets.
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Fair enough. I haven't heard of this game til recently so I assumed it was newer than that lol
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Problem is that preventing cheating will harm their income. Most new sales are banned item sellers at this point, so there's a status quo of sorts.
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Classic eurojank, ambition, interesting mechanics and vibe, mixed in with some poor ideas and bad execution.
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