Interchange is the Hardest map in Escape From Tarkov

Out of the seven maps currently in Tarkov, many have differing opinions on what maps are the easiest and hardest. It really boils down to personal preference and how you the player navigate the map, and what your goal is when on that map. While others have their choices, my personal accolade for the hardest map is without a doubt, Interchange. Ever since its introduction, in patch 0.8, interchange has been the map I spend the least amount of time on; only doing what’s necessary to level up Ragman to loyalty level four, before moving on and never touching the map ever again. And there are some reasons as to why this map gets the least amount of playtime for me.

The difficulty starts as soon as you load into the map, the spawns. Off the jump, Interchange has some of the worst, if not the worst spawns out of the maps (with a very close second being Reserve), regarding how quickly you can spawn and run into someone with 0-15 seconds. Honestly, I was going to single out the Railway side as being the more egregious of the two sides you can spawn on, but even Emercon side can be brutal sometimes. The map isn’t that big in size, so it’s hard to stuff 12-14 players on it without someone getting shafted early on. The only spawns that get a decent chance are ones that spawn you on the sides of the mall, right behind the garage entrances. And even if you do manage to get inside, there’s no guarantee you’re getting out.

The outside area of Interchange is just scratching the surface. The inside is a whole different beast. Once you enter the mall, it’s a game of who sees who first. And while normally this gameplay is par for the course, the mall is nothing but two floors of corridors with stores on either side. And some of the stores are open on two or even three sides, meaning that they can connect you from one hallway to another, making cat and mouse games occur most often. And if the weather is what we can expect from Tarkov, that means it’ll most likely be foggy or raining when you play. And if good luck trying to spot anyone inside with those weather conditions.

This one could be not as bad as it was before the dynamic loot adjustments to the maps, so it’s up in the air for a verdict, but the loot distribution across the stores has always felt one-sided. And when I say, I mean literally; all the players find themselves mainly on the side of the mall with Oli, Techlight, and Kiba. Most of the stores in the middle and on the side opposite Oli rarely ever get contested by players, because there are no real points of interest. All the good loot that people want is located on one half of the store, which is a shame because the mall is so large, moving some of the loot or even relocating some of the stores could spice up the somewhat stale PVP situations that take place inside the mall.

And of course, the most frustrating part of the map by far: visibility. It’s atrocious. And it has gotten worse over the years. I can barely see what is going on inside the mall. Especially in stores like Oli. And yes, it makes sense for it to be dark where the are no lights, or overhead glass allowing sunlight in, this is where the saying of: “as realistic as playable” comes into effect. It’s certainly realistic, but God it is not playable. Granted, I don’t use post-FX when I play Tarkov, but still, the lighting situation is the most unforgivable part of the map. If it was generally brighter inside, I feel as though a large portion of the map’s problems would be resolved. But not all of them. It’s a damn shame too because on paper, the concept of this map is by far the coolest out of the ones we have right now. But it’s implementation has done this map no justice. Which is why I actively avoid it until I must play it. And that’s annoying too because Ragman’s quests give some of the largest amount of exp, so if you wanna’ grind tasks and level up, you kind of have to complete his missions to get that exp.

Now, people may have differing opinions on which map is the hardest of which map they hate the most and that’s fine. But for me, Interchange wasn’t always the worst map. When it was first introduced, yeah it still had all these problems, but because it was new and loot and fights hadn’t been optimized like they are now, we didn’t really know what was going on. The map didn’t even have Killa at the time. Oh yeah, Killa is on the map, and he’s just gonna’ power slide two tap you, so there’s that. Recently, they changed him so that he can spawn anywhere and not just around Mantis, Brutal, and Kiba. Now, he spawns basically anywhere inside the mall, which is nice, but also terrifying.

Overall, Interchange could be an incredible map, but is held back by some dated choices regarding lighting, visibility, and loot drops (again that last one is up for debate now). Hopefully with Unity 2019 on the horizon, and with a graphics overhaul coming, this map might get the love it needs so it’s not the hardest and worst map in Tarkov.