Is Arena More Fun to Play Than Tarkov?

(Intro)

Tarkov is a difficult game to quantify into being called fun. If you’re an outsider who doesn’t play the game looking at what’s happening, the immersive world, accurate portrayal of weapons and attachments, and the risk factor of losing gear when you die, you might be intrigued by what you see. And then you open the game up for the first time and there is so much going on you quickly become overwhelmed and regret buying the game. But if you’re lucky and have someone around who can assist with getting you started, you might get lucky and get the Tarkov bug and just become absolutely consumed by the game. It’s happened so many times with so many different people, it could be studied as a phenomenon. But, as someone who has been playing for so long, that magic does go away after some time. The game is still great; but the spark and initial curiosity that led you to buy the game is lost because everything about the game becomes about the numbers. Late game Tarkov is especially impacted by this, because as a wipe cycle goes on, the number of people still playing goes down. It’s no surprise that people tend to enjoy early game Tarkov more, for its frenetic and scrappy gameplay. However, with the introduction of Arena and its existence in the Tarkov ecosystem, a question popped into my head. Do players prefer or enjoy playing Arena more, or do they enjoy Tarkov more, specifically the late game?

(Defining Winning in the Two Modes)

Even though Tarkov and Arena are in the same engine, with the exact same mechanics, weapons, ammo, recoil patterns and everything else in between, the two games are fundamentally different. On one hand, Tarkov is supposed to be an immersive first-person shooter with RPG elements including quests, skill progression, character progression, and intense stakes with the gear you bring into raids. And on the other hand, Arena is a fast-paced aggressive shooter using team and solo game modes with pre-built classes created by the individual with little to no risk involved. The goals of Tarkov are pretty vast; survival, completing quests, leveling up and fighting the opposition across large and open maps. Whereas in Arena, the objective is to win. Regardless of the mode of play, winning and claiming the number one spot by any means necessary. We’ve actually talked in the past about what the definition of winning means in Tarkov because it isn’t so cut and dry like it is in area. There are so many ways to engage with Tarkov, so many goals you can personally create that everyone playing it for the most part wants to do different things with the game. Survival at its core, is the easiest definition of winning. If you survive your Tarkov raids, you are essentially winning because you can complete quests, earn more exp, and spend less money on building kits. Arena is much easier to pin down. In team fight, reach a score of five to win the match. In last hero, whoever has the most kills after ten minutes win the match. And in blast gang, like team fight, hit the number of rounds needed to win the match.

(What Late Game Tarkov Facilitates)

The main reason I am specifically talking about late game Tarkov for this conversation, is because when the game wipes, people normally tend to gravitate towards it versus Arena (especially before the 2.0 version, but with how much money and exp you can earn I’m not so sure anymore). They want to quest, get off ground zero, and have those early kit scrappy fights with each other because we all know the song and dance of late game. Min maxed weapons, best ammo, long range scopes, thermals; while people can enjoy it, there’s nothing wrong with that, after even just a single wipe playthrough that gameplay can feel old. The early and even mid-game doesn’t have that lethargic feeling to it until maybe you hit the interchange/shoreline/lighthouse arc, which we also covered in a video a while back. That’s when the fun can start to run dry, and monotony of having to wear specific gear on maps people don’t enjoy can take the fun away from it. But arena, doesn’t really have that problem. Sure, people are going to be sweating and trying to use the best gear they can, but the 2.0 version of arena has a system in place so that people can only take that so far. If you use too much good gear, that preset won’t be available for you to use. There needs to be some level of sacrifice that comes with making a loadout. Whether that’s armor, number of magazines, choice of ammo, or the medication you choose. You can’t have the sliders all be at max. The dance of trying to get as close to the limit as you possibly can is its own game. And it’s kind of fun. You have a .308 MDR with three twenty round mags of M80, and one ten round mag. That way, your total score is 12.990 or whatever it might be. You figured out a way to squeeze just a little bit more out of your kit, but it still passes. And the best part, is you don’t always have to run the best stuff. Going in with silly or goofy kits and trying to make them work is part of the charm in arena. Granted, you can certainly do this in Tarkov and I have been doing it for years, but the level of success you’ll have is much higher in arena because there are no limits in Tarkov. Most people will run the best stuff and not really care about your joke kit. So, your success rate is going to just be lower.

(What do players want out of late game Tarkov?)

The biggest question that revolves around this entire conversation doesn’t really even involve arena. Because we know what that mode is offering. And it’s pretty good. The question that we need to answer to decide which mode is better, is what do players want out of late game Tarkov? Now, this could be its own video and hey it might be later on, but to put it succinctly, Players want to use the gear they have acquired over the course of their time playing a particular wipe, they want take that gear and fight other players with similar gear to them. They might want to earn as much money as possible. They might want to get to the elusive lightkeeper for the first time and begin his questline. They could fight the bosses. Or, they might just want to have a place where they can shoot the shit with their friends, talk about their day, all while randomly getting into scuffles that either ends in them wiping a team, or getting sent back to their stash. Players want a reason to open Tarkov, and between Tarkov and Arena, I think Tarkov gives you more of a reason to open it and play when a wipe cycle has lasted more than 120 days. Don’t get me wrong, arena is great with how things work. And I'm not saying that you’ll never open it before or after a certain threshold is met, but in arena, you have three modes and eight maps to play. You know what to expect. The only thing you’ll be doing actively is improving at the game, which is great. But Tarkov has the opportunity and the potential to tell stories, get you immersed in the world, spend potentially hours in game without going back to your stash because of the new transit points to get to other maps without stopping to reset. It’s what I’ve always loved about the game; Nikita said it best. What makes a good Tarkov raid is when you have an experience that is so impactful to you that you need to tell your friends about it. You just don’t get those moments in arena unless you are constantly winning 1v5 situations, which let’s be real here: you aren’t doing that every round of every game. Tarkov’s potentially even deep into a wipe cycle is still there; you just need to be playing it to see it.

(Outro)

Both game modes bring their own flavor and depending on what you are after in the moment, you will gravitate towards one or the other. Arena is great because it’s a sample of what Tarkov can be like. You get the shooting, you can get the looting, and the feeling of besting opponents and winning. Tarkov is great because you can get engrossed in the game once you start to understand what it’s asking of you. And once you do, that bug is hard to get rid of and it’s something almost every single Tarkov player has gone through at least once. Neither mode is perfect, and each share flaws that unfortunately have been around for years. But when everything is working as intended, and you are locked in, both modes are fantastic. It just comes down to which one you enjoy more. Thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to watch this video. Let me know down in the comment section below your preferred mode of play, at what point in a wipe do you have that preference and be sure to subscribe for more videos about the tedious and unnecessary debate between two modes that are fairly identical under the surface. I hope to see you in future ones.