What Will Escaping from Tarkov Actually Consist Of?

(Intro)

We’ve all wondered this question: what will escaping from Tarkov actually look like as a game mechanic? With the knowledge that BSG wants this game to reach 1.0 by the end of the year, it makes sense that these kinds of question begin to pop up. All we know currently is that we don’t have any of the critical quests we will need to complete to beat the game, and that Terminal is going to be our golden ticket out of here. But there are still so many questions left unanswered: What is the new story progression going to look like? What will we need to do to reach the end game? How much of the game will we go through before the option to leave becomes available? A lot of unique and interesting questions that we never really had to think about. Everyone kind of hand-waved the idea of reaching 1.0 off, as the years went on because it just felt like BSG was never going to get there. But they are determined to see it through by the end of 2025 and I hope they can deliver on that timeline. In the meantime, I think asking, answering and coming up with some hypothesis about what Tarkov will look like with all the main quests integrated is interesting and compelling. So, let’s do just that; what will the players in EFT do in order to beat the game, and finally escape from Tarkov?

(The Main story quests)

As has been mentioned many times by Nikita and BSG, the main story quests will be the primary focus once 1.0 happens, and that’s how you will progress through the game. Any quests that are currently in Tarkov will become kind of filler, if you will. But even with that limited knowledge, there are so many questions to ask: what are the main story quests going to look like? How involved are they going to be? How many are there? Are they going to be similar in style to quests we have now, or is there going to be a whole new dimension built around them? It’s all good food for thought, and just thinking about it logically, I can only imagine they involve passing information and doing some favors for the traders in exchange for new contact points between them and potential solutions for escaping. If anything, I hope they kind of feel reminiscent of Stalker Anomalies main story quests.

The progression in that game feels really natural, and you find yourself doing a bunch of side quests while on the main path. And my hope is that Tarkov feels similar in that regard. You talk to Prapor, and he basically says well if you want to escape, you’ll need x, y and z. And in order to get all of that, I’ll need some favors. And that’s kind of our introduction to the entire main story quest line. Across the journey we will discover and meet all the traders we’ve come to and love, or hate if you are Jaeger, and from there they all kind of work together in creating this narrative that we follow along with in order to get our ticket out of there. What interests me the most are the situations where we have a quest item that might need to be turned in, but multiple people want it and are providing different rewards. Kind of like Chemical – Part 4; that quest line when you read the flavor text is interesting and how three different traders want that information and how you can manipulate and backstab anyone you want. I really hope those elements make it into the main story.

(Terminal and its role)

Another major component to main story is the map Terminal and the role it’s going to be playing for us to escape. I’ll be honest; I thought Terminal was going to be another PvP map, but from what others have said and what BSG has told us, that doesn’t seem to be the case. It might end up being a single player exclusive map that we interact with multiple times and once we have everything they require to board a ship, that’s how we will end up escaping. Because it won’t be done by a plane terminal, but by a seaport. If we use the Raid series that BSG made as the example, it’s going to require special access to even get into without being shot on sight. Who knows what factions will be involved; the UN, Russian GRU, potentially the Black Division that has been teased multiple times by BSG but never fully acknowledged. It could get crazy if like in the series, a full-on assault of the port happens, and we need to fight our way out or die trying. They have so many different ways they could handle this, and I just hope it’s interesting and engaging. Because the worst-case scenario for this would be to hear about Terminal from the traders, learn about it and then have it be a simple hand over the key item and you win kind of exchange. I honestly doubt it’ll be that simple, but the thought does worry me, even just a little.

(Ref, Arena and its potential Impact)

Another major question I have with the main story is whether or not we will need to interact with Ref and Arena in order to progress the story. Considering that it’s a alternative game mode that we need to pay for, the quick answer would be no. But for some reason, I could see BSG incorporating at least Ref as a character into the main story and weaving some of his elements into the core gameplay loop. Perhaps he has intel on what’s happening and for doing some stuff for him in Arena, he will ease the obtainment of certain key items or something. Again, because Arena is paid, I doubt they will lock off anything substantial to Arena specifically, but maybe they could incentivize people who do own Arena some more gear or perhaps some shortcuts in the story by going through Ref. Just spit balling, and I’m unsure if I would even want something like this in Arena, but we can’t fully rule out the possibility.

(Extra fluff and flair)

One component I am curious whether they will also add into the game is cutscenes or any kind. Even ones that are similar to how talking with Light keeper is handled. While not a fully CG cutscene, it does run off in-game assets while a live raid is active in the background. And we know for. A fact that Prapor is the next trader that has a fully functioning model in-game. Whether or not we will see all the traders get the same treatment, only some of them, or if the idea gets scrapped by the time 1.0 happens, is still up in the air. I would love to actually talk to these people, have some dialog options that may affect how some future interactions play out, and see more of this world brought into the light instead of everything happening through menus and outside of a raid. Talking to these people should be risky; maybe not to the point where you can get attacked while interacting with them, but it the traders are in the world, that means in order to see them you must venture out and put your life and gear on the line. It reminds me of a modded DayZ server I played that had Tarkov elements, but all the traders were on the map, and you could get attacked while talking to them. Maybe that gameplay loop isn’t the most ideal for how much work we might need to put in, so keeping us safe at least while talking to them seems like the best course of action. But who knows? I could be totally wrong with how BSG is thinking about this mechanic should it ever come to fruition.

(Outro)

How players will escape from Tarkov is still up in the air. Tons of questions, with barely any answers and we can only wait and trust that BSG will add interesting and fun solutions that makes people want to not only see the game all the way to the end, but to escape and try again perhaps. I imagine that’s how you iterate on the prestige system; by beating the game you have the option of starting over and prestiging instead of keeping all your gear and just playing the game normally. Again, there are a lot of directions that this can be taken, but regardless the most important thing about beating EFT is that it feels fulfilling. Like we accomplished something huge and get to see the fruits of our labor on full display. Because that’s all a lot of us want at this point; to see this game through to the end, and what that experience looks like as a finished product. 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 what escaping EFT should look like, what you hope to get out of the entire experience and be sure to subscribe for more videos about how we are going to finally see the end of a game that has been in development for over a decade. I hope to see you in future ones.