Tarkov has Reached 1.0 - How Is It?

(Intro)

Tarkov 1.0 has officially arrived! After eight long years of alphas, betas, tons of wipes with new content and the like, the game is now what BSG would technically call feature complete. It’s been about a week since it launched, and people have been playing it. So much so, that it crossed the number two most sold game on steam when it was released, which is really cool to see. But in general, the game feels both familiar and new at the same time. I think honestly so far, the first couple of hours have been my favorite part. Well, after they figured out the servers once they caught on fire. I know it was brutal for a ton of people, and I feel bad that they couldn’t just jump in and experience all the new stuff. But the early game has been the most interesting so far, because that’s where new content and additions have been most prevalent. I’m just glad we finally made it to the full release. It’s going to be interesting to see where post launch content goes for this game, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s quickly go over the launch of Tarkov, some of the new additions to the game, and what the general expectation has been like now that we get to finally see the complete vision of the game.

(The biggest changes)

I am so glad the game starts pretty much how I thought it would. Granted, I didn’t come up with the idea of the intro; people have been saying this would be the intro to the game for some time now. You boot the game up, choose your name and character, and are thrown right into a really well done cutscene setting up the sequence of events that get us to Tarkov. It’s well shot, the voice over is good and finally does something I think the game has been lacking for a long time: making you care about the world and its characters. Giving you some much needed context as to why we are even here in the first place. Even if making you care just a little bit and even if it’s only so you can see your character finally escape, it sets the tone and mood that would be expected when conflict occurs in a highly sought after location with some generally questionable things happening within it. Regardless, finally having someone explain simply and plainly why the events in Tarkov are taking place is a much welcome addition. To really understand what was going on previously, you had to either read pretty much all of the flavor text in the game from the traders or read the books. Which I honestly still want to do at some point. But for now, having the plot explained to the player is more than enough. The other notable changes you will see early on are the traders rendered in-engine. Now, I don’t want to be rude because this has been a long time coming, but something about the models looks... off. I don’t know if it’s me; maybe it’s my graphical settings because there have been some issues day one with the settings, or the Unity engine working some overtime, but the models for some of the traders don’t perfectly represent the images we’ve been staring at for years now. Some of them are better than others; Skier looks pretty one to one with his portrait and Mechanic looks okay too. Even our main guy Prapor, looks decent when rendered in engine. But Therapist and Ragman look a little rough. Hopefully, they can update their models to be a little more accurate and not as... uncanny. But otherwise, being able to see and talk to them is definitely interesting. Because other than their usual distributing of the quests we know and love, they also now provide the main story quests that we have to work through in order to escape Tarkov.

(The Main story)

The newest and arguable most important part of the 1.0 update was the addition of the main story. Which now provides a path forward for our PMC to actually get out of Tarkov in one piece. It’s been the final ingredient for this game to feel feature complete, and it’s been the one thing we’ve been waiting for years to arrive. And so far, it’s been cool to have more context about the current circumstances surrounding Tarkov and the region. What is also cool is the addition of the tape recorder which allows you to listen to pre-recorded audios about the before and after of what’s happened to Tarkov. So far, I’ve only found one tape in the tutorial, but I expect to come across more as we progress through the game. But the quests themselves have been pretty par for the course. Considering now, the way we unlock access to other maps is also different. You can’t just queue into any map you want at the start. You have to progress through the story, meet the other traders, and work with them to gain access to the later levels. As of the time I am writing this, I am still missing Reserve, Lighthouse, and Labs. But I’m sure it won’t be too long before we start going there. I suppose my only gripe with the new screen they added to talk to the traders is that it’s another menu you need to sift through. But it’s reasonably quick and if you don’t feel like listening to them talk, you can skip the dialog by pressing the space bar.

(The general 1.0 experience)

Other than the addition of the main story, and how you unlock maps, the gameplay loop is still very much Tarkov. For better or worse. The game isn’t “fixed” by any stretch of the imagination. Its still got the jank, tons of bugs, glitches and crashes. There was a small piece of me that was hopeful; maybe just maybe we might see some of these problems addressed, but even after about a week of playing, this definitely feels like they got the story into the game, changed how you progress through it, added the in-engine models for the traders and that was the priority. The expectation now is over the course of the next few months; they will be stabilizing the game, making adjustments to performance, and making Tarkov feel better to play. Because BSG was never just going to drop 1.0 and then peace out; they have DLCs planned, and hopefully opportunities for optimization and the like. But for anyone who is new to the game, jumping in for the first time, whether on the client or the new steam release, hello! Welcome to EFT. Hopefully your experience thus far has been enjoyable despite the absolute shit show that was the first couple of days after the wipe. Sadly, this is par for the course so don’t feel like you’re the only one who can’t get in. We all want to play too. But for people who have been playing for a while, things should mostly feel comfortable with enough newness sprinkled here and there to keep things interesting in the long run.

(Outro)

The general consensus at least for myself personally is that 1.0 feels... good. About exactly what I expected. Nothing so outlandish that we were surprised by BSG but also having enough fresh introductions that there is a tangible new path forward. Apparently, there are multiple endings for the game, which will be interesting to see which one's people get and how you unlock the other ones. Again, I want to say I appreciate the intro cutscene so much. The tone of the game has kind of swung back to being somewhat series, which is something I touched on in the previous video; wanting the, and I hate to use this word but, the edge back to EFT. Something that could be taken seriously, but with some lightheartedness thrown in every now and again. An entire fictional region is at stake, so it should feel generally tense. I want to congratulate Nikita and BSG for the release of the game, even as they work through the day one growing pains and wish them well going into the holidays and the future of this game. I am interested to see where they go from here. But let’s get through more of the game’s content, I suppose. 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 thoughts on the game’s 1.0 launch. The good and the bad you’ve experienced and be sure to subscribe for more videos about the features and additions that have come with the full release of the game. I hope to see you in future ones.