Tarkov’s Final Wipe Before 1.0

(Intro)

Escape From Tarkov is getting one more wipe before the official release of the 1.0 game version. I’ll be honest, I was not only expecting no more wipes until the final game released, but I was also partly okay with that. BSG has had a roadmap set in place for a couple of months now, and so far, they have been on pace with everything they have wanted to release so far (the June update just released so hopefully it has a positive impact on the game). Has it magically fixed the game or added things people are raving about? No; Customs still runs terribly, and there are many things that still need to be tidied up before 1.0. In the meantime, Nikita has confirmed one more wipe. When? We have no idea, but I would have to imagine sooner rather than later. If the expected release date is the end of this year, with each passing month we don’t reset, that just makes the next wipe cycle that much shorter, and therefore, more awkward. Who is going to play Tarkov if the game wipes in say, October and then two months later we get another wipe with 1.0? It just wouldn’t make sense. Either way, the game will be resetting once more, so I wanted to not look forward, but instead, look back. Back at all the time I’ve personally spent with this game; and reflect a little on the highs and lows EFT has gone through over the years. This game’s development was never perfect; in fact, it was more problematic than perfect. But we still have something that some of us could be playing for almost a decade. And that is something worth talking about.

(Reflecting on EFT throughout the years)

Playing and following the development of EFT has been quite a wild ride. From closed to open alphas and betas, this game has come quite a long way. Presentation, to content; it has all only gotten bigger and more ambitious as time has gone on. If it’s one thing I always appreciated about Tarkov, is that visually, it’s a beautiful game. Sometimes you’ll just be walking around, and you get a vantage point to look out towards the horizon, and man, the skyboxes in this game can be so gorgeous if it’s the right time of day. The attention to detail on all the weapons, and how intricate and particular the animations are; there are many small things about this game I truly do love and will always appreciate how much effort the designers and animators put into this game across the board. I would still argue EFT has the best-looking weapon renditions of almost any first-person shooter out there. Sadly, one aspect of the game that still struggles to this day is the performance. Sometimes it felt better, and most of the time it felt worse. Right now, I would say it’s on the worse end of the spectrum. Customs is a nightmare to play, and Streets is still pretty much unplayable for many. To be fair however, there are opposite cases where a map has gone from not playable to butter smooth. Reserve is a great example of this; when it first came out it was awful, but overtime they adjusted it and now the map is one of the better running levels on offer. In general, their optimization has unfortunately been hit or miss across most elements of the game.

Quality of life changes is another component of this game being made that has vastly improved over the years. Is it at a place where everyone is happy? Eh, not quite. There are still tons of little things throughout the menus and options that could still be added for even further improvements but compared to how barren things were even just a couple years ago, I won’t complain. From the compass, to locking crates and items and being allowed to mess with your stash while you load into a raid. These changes are rather small in the grand scale of the entire game, but they were direct requests from the community that they wanted added and BSG delivered on those. Which for all the wrong that they have done, is appreciated, nonetheless.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a trip down memory lane if we didn’t discuss all the mishaps and general mistakes BSG has made as well. The development of this game has been rather… tumultuous to say the least. From entire mechanic additions that the community hated, to an era of Battle-state the likes we never really saw when the unheard edition of the game was released. They’re have been plenty of missteps in the process and the community was always quick to call them out and rightfully so. Tarkov at the end of the day is a product being created for consumers. So, if something is being added or changed and the community doesn’t like said change, they are allowed to voice their concern. Now, it’s also important to remember that this is BSG’s game. And what they say for the final verdict goes. Can people leave and stop playing if they disagree? Of course, that’s your prerogative as a buyer. But BSG wants to keep you around so there is always a conversation to be had about meeting somewhere in the middle on a lot of ideas. Of course, there are some where they might dig their heels and that’s okay too. There is always a level of give and take when it comes to these kinds of games that are in active development and are asking for feedback from players. That’s how they get better. But the greatest sin that we had to bear witness to was the release of the unheard edition. Never in my life have a seen a company double, triple and then quadruple down on such a bad decision. I mean, this spread like wildfire across the internet, and in that moment a lot of comments from people at BSG just felt so out of place and unusual. To this day, that whole debacle still baffles me with how it went down. It could’ve been so much easier and smoother, but BSG has never really chosen the path of least resistance with anything. So, it makes sense that unheard was so abhorred by those who are part of this community. I just wish it was different.

(Why Wipes are celebrated)

People for the most part really enjoy when the game wipes. For the longest time, wipes were only used because the game was adding important mechanics or locations that needed to be tested with a clean slate. Imagine the weight system or inertia being added but everyone was at endgame. The experience and feedback would’ve been drastically different. But in general, wipes exist because of testing things, not because the game just needed to be reset. But some players began associating wipes with just that; because BSG wanted us to start over, without the content part attached to them. For a while, the game was wiping every two months or so because the development cycle was much faster back then. But as the game and its additions got more ambitious, the amount of the times we were resetting slowed down. I remember what felt like the first serious wipe and what brought EFT into its more modern era, was when Reserve was added with patch 0.12. The game exploded around that period not only because the game reset and the additions were staggering, but because combined with Twitch drops, everyone was playing the game for their free stuff. Tons of new players jumping into the game for the first time, and veterans of the game getting their chance to show off their knowledge and prowess within EFT. I don’t know about anyone else, but this to me was kind of peak Tarkov for a long time. Everyone was excited, playing the game sharing stuff online, having fun and people were generally just less jaded on the game as a whole. Wipes still get people excited nowadays, but not nearly as much as they once did, which is a shame.

(My personal disagreement with this upcoming wipe)

Depending on when this potential last wipe is happening, I personally am unsure whether or not I agree with it. We are just over the six-month cycle for the wipe we’re on now, and while that is certainly long, it’s neither the longest, nor that uncommon these days. For a couple of years, the two-wipe cycle has kind of been the standard for EFT. We usually get a bunch of smaller updates in between each wipe with bug fixes and the like, but now it’s usually two major wipes a year and that’s about it. Sure, having the game restart again is always nice for those who are burned out or just want to see what’s new. But this ultimately depends on when it actually wipes. The closer we get to the release date before the wipe, the less impactful it will feel. Obviously, if they were to wipe tomorrow, we have potentially almost another six-month cycle before 1.0, which is totally fine. But if for whatever reason we don’t wipe until let’s say, September and the game is going 1.0 at the end of November, that’s barely a two-month wipe before the final release. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter, but I would prefer them to reset the game the last time sooner rather than later.

(What I truly hope 1.0 brings)

1.0 is the last major hurdle for Tarkov and BSG before things can kind of slow down and their focus can begin to shift. We know there is going to be post launch support for the game with major DLCs and additions, but what about the final release? What does that look like? We’ve talked about it before, but my biggest hope for 1.0 is that the game fundamentally feels different regarding how we progress through it. That to me, is the number one change that must be there when it’s time to release. The gunplay, recoil, weapon and armor statistics, that stuff feels so much less important when looking at the game from a wider angle. I care more about the major and core mechanics themselves rather than whether this weapon gets a buff or nerf. How many traders will have fully animated models with voice lines? Is getting to Lightkeeper going to function the same way or will there be more nuance and impact to his inclusion? Is he even going to be a trader at all? These are just some of the questions I personally have with the game. And I know these are very hopeful ideas, but the reality is that the game will most likely not feel that much different from what we currently have. I want it to be feel like a completely different game at least at the start. But just following this game’s development for this long, that will be far from the truth, and it sucks. I want to be proven wrong here, but I don’t think I will be sadly.

(Outro)

We are finally at the home stretch of Tarkov and the release of 1.0. We apparently have one more wipe to go, before the game is out and it potentially resets for the last time. They have mentioned in the past of giving us one character from each faction and having one wipe on regular basis and one that never wipes. It will be interesting to hear from them how things will be going forward once we do reach the day to patch into 1.0, but for now, all we have is more speculation and wishful thinking. In the end, no matter what happens, it has been an honor and great pleasure to be talking about this game for as long as I have. My only regret is not doing it sooner, but hey; we’re here now, and what happens after, we’ll just have to figure it out. 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 when we might get this next wipe, what you hope to get out of a full 1.0 release and be sure to subscribe for more videos about what this game is going to look like fully released, and where we go from there. I hope to see you in future ones.