Is Tarkov Having an Identity Crisis?
(Intro)
As the release of 1.0 looms evermore over the horizon, I think it’s important to have a conversation about the identity of Tarkov and where it stands today. At this point, Tarkov has created a name for itself by being, from the outside looking in, a difficult first-person extraction shooter where you lose your gear if you fall during your raids. And for players who have any length of time in this game, they know that’s only part of the whole story, While yes, it’s an extraction shooter and you lose your stuff, everything else you may hear about if you aren’t an active player doesn’t line up with what the gameplay loop actually ends up being most of the time. So much so, that after everything that has happened and now that the hardcore wipe is over, people have been asking what the heck is Tarkov supposed to be. What’s the identity of the game and does it even understand itself anymore. These are solid questions to ask. Again; we’re so close to release, that this is the worst time for the game to try and figure out who or what it’s supposed to be. And the developers are gonna’ have to figure that out. So, let’s have a conversation about what Tarkov is supposed to be as a game, how it has strayed away from that philosophy over the years, and how it may be having an identity crisis, at the absolute worst possible time.
