The Lessons to Learn from this Hardcore Wipe

(Intro)

This hardcore wipe has been a tumultuous experience since day one. Even before it released and we were seeing all the incoming changes prior to the wipe, there was this tepid hesitance in the air from the community that this might end poorly. Well sadly, it kind of did. Issues with features we were forced to engage with, problems for many with the pacing of the entire experience, and a general disdain for having to be forced to play with it whether you wanted to or not. And the part that stinks the most? This could’ve all been avoided. There were many different ways BSG could’ve handled this hardcore wipe and made it an experience that while still not for everyone, something that people were at least willing to play with. The game needed a shake up like this; but not exactly like this. So today, instead of talking about what went wrong, let’s go over what BSG could’ve done to get it right and the different lessons that can be learned going forward into 1.0.

(Testing mechanics beforehand)

The biggest issue people had with hardcore, was being forced to use mechanics that not only they didn’t want to but were never fixed from when they were first introduced. Transit has always been an interesting concept that could’ve been something cool, but it was never iterated on once, nor was it ever fixed after the marathon event. Bugs and problems with the mechanic persisted all the way until this hardcore wipe. That should’ve never happened. Things should’ve been looked at over the course of the year and a half it was in the game. The fact that no one did a single pass over this to make sure it was working correctly blows my mind. I’m sure that BSG couldn’t have accounted for every conceivable issue once the majority of the player base started using it. Okay, that’s fine. But having teams spawn on top of each other was simply unforgivable. That at the very least could’ve been fixed beforehand, but it never did. So already, very early on, people were not happy having to use transit, when the entire system was broken from the start. If it worked, people were a healthy distance from each other, and you could spawn into a raid that was already in progress, I truly think people would’ve been a little more open minded about the whole thing. That last change, loading into ongoing raids is something that many myself included dream could be put into this game. If open world is officially off the table, this is the next best thing. Allowing people to join raids that are ten or fifteen minutes in may put you at a disadvantage to getting any loot, but the questions you will have to ask yourself whilst working through this map makes up for it. You don’t know who is still alive, you don’t have a clue where people are, and you are unsure when someone else might join. Which is something Tarkov raids have needed for a long time. We have figured this game out; there aren’t a ton of variables in the first thirty seconds of a raid. This would flip that dynamic onto its head. But it was ruined before it got off the ground. A shame, really.

(Communication is key)

If fixing the mechanics were completely out of the equation, then at the very least some more communication from BSG about exactly what was going to happen could’ve saved some face as to what the players were about to experience. It’s been one of their worst traits over the years; a lack of direct and transparent communication about what is going on behind the scenes, what we should expect, and where to go should we have constructive criticism. 2025 has sadly been the best year for all of this. And I say sadly because it’s taken over eight years to finally get to a point where it feels like sometimes, they provide some insight as to what’s going on, and where to give feedback. There is now a website where the community can suggest or report things and vote on what’s either important or agreed upon by the masses; that way, BSG can kind of get an idea as to what the priority list is from the player base. What also pisses a lot of people off myself included, is their weird rejection of putting any ongoing information directly into the game or even the client. If you want to stay up to date with everything the, the fastest way is to have a Twitter account and follow both Battle-State and Nikita. Since many myself included don’t have a Twitter and most likely never will, I find everything out pretty much through the subreddit. This is not how it should be; either messages from the system tab in-game or aging any of the traders filling us in on what’s going on would be a big help. If Changes are happening to the game, why on God’s green earth are they not relayed to us in Tarkov? It’s genuinely baffling.

(Have a plan, and stick to it)

Hardcore feels like a cobbled mess put together at the last minute. But I think in reality, BSG actually had a plan for this hardcore wipe and are seeing it through pretty much to a T, at least in their eyes. They mentioned before the wipe that things were going to slowly roll out overtime as we progress through the wipe. What doesn’t feel like was a part of the plan, was the pacing of some features being rolled out. Since people detested transit so much for good reason, BSG added all the maps back before the first weekend of the wipe. Quests were added twenty-four hours later. Which could’ve been a part of their plan, but I don’t think that was the case. They must’ve known before doing this that the hardcore wipe was going to have generally less players than normal wipes, so with that being the case, I wish they stuck to whatever their initial plan was instead of trying to both capitulate to people complaining about the game being harder, while also trying to band aid fix the entire wipe because systems they wanted to use had been broken for years. What it looked like for the first two weeks was them back peddling on chunks of the hardcore wipe because people were causing a stink online. If you had a plan, stick to it. If something is broken, fix it but realize that’s your fault and it could’ve been prevented in the first place. It just felt like they caved in some areas of the game, as they have many times over the years. I understand this was pretty much an experiment and this was their first time doing something on this scale, but like come on. Just a little more preparing could’ve saved everyone involved a lot of headaches and conversations in the long run.

(Turn it off)

I think at this point, the hardcore wipe should just be turned off. Which makes me sad because we’ve been going over how all of this could’ve been avoided. This hardcore experiment because remember, that’s ultimately what this all was, could’ve been awesome. A change up that makes people more reliant on finding things in raid, without forcing people to go play arena if they even want a chance of being successful. But now we have level four traders. I still have some level one traders because I don’t feel like spending on my money to level up Peacekeeper. We’re over a month in; hopefully they have learned a lot about what to do and what not to do if they feel like shaking things up. Insurance pricing is still stupid, repairing is stupid, post raid healing is stupid; it all just got more expensive. Not more difficult, or enticing, or sacrificial; just more grindy and tedious. Just dump more money into it and you’ll be good. That’s not good design. So maybe it would be better for everyone at this point to just shut it off. And let’s move on to the next set of challenges. Whatever they may be.

(Outro)

My hope with this entire hardcore wipe, was that lessons were learned, and they gained some knowledge about how to shake up the game in ways that feels fun and unique, without making the game annoying to play. I was super down for the idea while reading out the changes from the screenshots. But in practice, it doesn’t live out to the expectations we had for it. Maybe that’s my fault; maybe I was giving them too much credit, I don’t know. Perhaps I was just too excited to see them turn the game on its head after so long. Either way, this all could’ve been avoided for the most part. People still would’ve been upset, but at the very least those that participated could look back on the experience as a whole with fond memories and say yeah, that wipe was crazy, but at least we had a lot of fun. 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 how the poor reception of hardcore could’ve been avoided, what else could BSG have done to soften the blow and be sure to subscribe for more videos about the monstrous failures that had good intentions, but didn’t land because they weren’t executed well at all. I hope to see you in future ones.