TarkovTV Recap (October 31, 2024)

(Intro)

BSG’s latest TarkovTV has a lot to unpack. On Halloween BSG went live on their twitch channel to sit down and go over some upcoming changes for both arena and the main game. This livestream was unexpected and ran for about an hour. But we got a lot of solid information in terms of where BSG wants to take both arena and Tarkov going forward. The Arena patch just went live last Friday and after playing it for a while, it’s a very welcome patch with the additions being awesome.

(Arena Update)

Arena’s newest update is really cool. I wasn’t expecting it to come out so quickly, but it has been two weeks since the livestream. The new map “The Fort” is definitely the most interesting layout and design out of the ones we currently have. Being somewhat of a castle and jail hybrid; almost like Alcatraz. But the map is about a medium sized map with somewhat of a three-lane design. Which makes sense because it’s one of the few maps that can play the new mode that also came alongside this update, checkpoint. It’s basically domination from something like Call of Duty, where there are three objectives that you need to capture and hold to earn points. With fifteen minutes on the clock, and a winning score of fifteen-hundred, you’ll be running around on either Checkpoint, Bay 5, or Bowl a lot to score kills and capture the objectives. It's a generally fun mode; especially since it’s the first respawning 5v5 mode we’ve gotten for arena. How we haven’t gotten a basic team deathmatch yet is beyond me. But this will do nicely until that happens. Other than the new map and mode, there were some small quality of life changes. Clothes can now be purchased in arena and any outfits you’ve already bought have been transferred over which is awesome. Because the clothing always felt lacking in arena but now it’s more synched up but not one hundred percent. There are a couple outfits I have in the main game that didn’t get sent over to arena, but this is certainly better than nothing. Other than that, a little animation plays for the new MVP screen, they added two new grenades which will come to Tarkov at some point, the V-40 which is a tiny grenade and a yellow smoke that actually blooms very quickly. They did a bunch of exp and money adjustments for each mode, map, and place you finish in, and generally just made arena better.

(Tarkov Changes)

Now onto the Tarkov changes. And man is there a lot coming into the game, so we’re going to go through these quickly. The New Years patch being 0.16, is going to add Tarkov’s first shoulder mounted rocket launcher the RPG-26. A onetime use launcher. How we acquire it or what its purpose will be is still unknown. They’ve mentioned it can be used to destroy the BTR but there’s no reason to do that other than to see an explosion. Regardless, ax extremely powerful piece or utility is coming soon. Tarkov is also getting a prestige system for those who want to restart during a wipe but don’t want to reset their account. There will be ten total prestige's but it will be launching with only two. Engaging with this will unlock new exclusive cosmetics such as different dog tags, outfits, melee weapons, and more. Nothing that in terms of starting with extra gear or more guns, strictly cosmetics which is how it should be. This system will also be only for PvP which again makes sense. Customs is getting adjusted again, but this time to the same degree that Factory did, so opening up more buildings and generally just updating the map visually so it doesn’t feel as old. Customs is not that map that needs to be looked at right now there are two others that could use some love (Lighthouse and Interchange) but whatever.

The BTR driver will now have quests for us to complete which depending on what they are could be cool and maybe allows you to use his services at a discount. Hideout customization is coming, which who knows could mean hideout cat finally. It sounds like with the New Years patch, they will be changing the weather to winter, and with that will come new clothing that resembles winter camouflage. So, for the first time, we will have gear and clothing tailored specifically to blend in with the snow. Another .338 Lapua bolt-action the SAKO TRG M10. The ability to heal body parts uninterrupted is coming which will be amazing so you no longer will have to spam your heal button and then cancel it with left mouse clicks. More detailed post raid stats; whatever that means. A reworking of weapon mastery, which is interesting because all it does currently is change some animations with the weapon, so it’d be cool to see some extra benefits. Bodies and loot crates will be trappable. So, you will be able to lace a dead PMC or crate with a tripwire or maybe something else. Scary times are coming; better have that instant search body, un-tab and run at the ready. And the final thing they showed off was another rework to the current recoil system. Now, this was a weird interaction because they showed off a video where the weapon feedback looked different enough to warrant concern that they did change the recoil, but Nikita assured us they didn’t touch the guns themselves, but just the camera and how the game gives us that visual feedback of recoil felt. Granted, he struggled to get his point across and the entire stream chat unanimously said please don’t, which prompted Nikita to get upset, and again I couldn’t tell if this was genuine or not because immediately after they went into a video about the current zombie's event. So, the last few minutes of the streak were weird and kind of awkward as a viewer. So, whether or not the adjusted recoil is going to become a thing with the new year's patch I am honestly unsure.

(Overall Thoughts)

Overall, the horizon for both Tarkov and arena look promising. There were some changes that BSG wanted to implement like Unity 2022 but have been unsuccessful with doing. So that sounds like it will be coming at some point, but for arena, just the fact we are finally getting a 5v5 respawn mode, I am very much excited for this. I have a strange feeling this will become the new norm of play for the most part, unless you have last hero specific dailies to complete, but the amount of chaos that will ensue with the new mode is going to be a good time. Tarkov is also looking promising. The rocket launcher is scary I can’t lie, but to be honest in terms of the explosive ordinance that has already been added to the game, it tends to be on the tamer side. Combine that with the launcher being a single use only and perhaps they might intend for the launcher to have more utility than be directly deployed against other players. All the other bells and whistles are nice additions finally, but that potential recoil change scares me because I don’t know if it’s real or was a part of the end of the stream as a segway. Maybe we’ll tackle that footage specifically in its own dedicated video, but for now I’m hoping it isn’t real.

(Outro)

That was a quick rundown of the latest TarkovTV podcast. I know this is much later than everyone else, but to be honest I was hesitant to even make one of these because I knew how fast others tend to pump them out. But I still wanted to go over them in general because there are some very solid changes coming for both modes of play. Either way, 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 stream as a whole as well as all the incoming changes and be sure to subscribe for more cliff notes of important Tarkov changes that will most likely get implemented half assed at the start and then get adjusted overtime. I hope to see you in future ones.