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- Battlestate Games
- Battlestate Games
- Battlestate Games
- Battlestate Games
Escape from Tarkov
Released On: Nov 15, 2025
72
6.0
Where to Buy
Where to Buy
All Platforms
Metascore
Mixed or Average Based on 11 Critic Reviews
72
45% Positive
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
45% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
9% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Metascore
Mixed or Average Based on 11 Critic Reviews
72
45% Positive
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
45% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
9% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Dec 1, 2025
Escape From Tarkov has changed significantly on its road to release, but there's little doubt over this being the best that Tarkov has always been. The story mode adds depth and meaning to the game in ways that were sorely missing before, making its standout environment and gameplay actually matter. It may not be the prettiest or the most approachable game, but Escape From Tarkov looks set to remain the premier post-apocalyptic first-person shooter in the market for the foreseeable future.
Nov 26, 2025
Escape from Tarkov is a solid extraction shooter born in 2017. Despite its technical limitations and uneven balance, version 1.0 confirms it as a unique, intense, and persistently engaging hardcore tactical FPS. It's not for everyone, but that's precisely what makes it special.
User Score
Mixed or Average Based on 57 User Ratings
6.0
51% Positive
29 Ratings
29 Ratings
11% Mixed
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
39% Negative
22 Ratings
22 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average Based on 57 User Ratings
6.0
51% Positive
29 Ratings
29 Ratings
11% Mixed
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
39% Negative
22 Ratings
22 Ratings
Dec 3, 2025
Tarkov has driven me crazy many times, and yes, there are a lot of loading times and a few technical issues... But one thing it definitely isn't: it's not just average, it's more than good. Just look at the ratings of the biggest esports games in the world. Millions of players love LoL or CS, but according to Metacritic, these two games shouldn't be popular or good at what they do... And a Metascore that's even in the red zone, even though a game has held its own for years, inspired many, and still enjoys great popularity today—how can such a rating be trustworthy? Any normal person can see that something's fishy. I've been playing Tarkov for years; it's the best extraction shooter in most aspects. It's been around for years, it's grown, and it will remain popular for a long time to come.
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PC Nov 29, 2025
Hands down my favourite game of all time. Anyone you hear whinging about performance optimisation and cheaters, is merely coping for having a PC not capable of running the game properly and is coping for their distinct lack of skill in the game. This game is brutal but honestly some of the best moments will come when you achieve greatness here.
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PC Nov 23, 2025
Escape from Tarkov may have spawned an entire genre, yet it remains one of a kind. Its complex mechanics, visceral gunplay, and unpredictable pacing aren’t for the faint of heart, but with the release of 1.0 on Steam, there’s no reason for fans of hardcore tactical shooters not to enlist.
Nov 24, 2025
Escape from Tarkov's world is unforgiving, and is definitely not for casual play. Yet, its the challenge and engaging gameplay that makes it all the better. It's still weighed down by bugs and glitches and connection issues here and there, as well as the disappointing lack of (free) PvE, but it's a solid FPS extraction game for those looking for an extra hard challenge.
Dec 2, 2025
As the hardcore pioneer of the extraction shooter, Escape from Tarkov is still quite compelling, but it's also saddled with issues that range from technical problems to pay-to-win monetization.
Dec 2, 2025
Escape from Tarkov offers a unique and extremely intense gameplay experience driven by its atmosphere and the constant tension of every shootout. However, this potentially outstanding experience is systematically undermined by a catastrophic technical state, unstable servers, cheaters, and a design that too often confuses “hardcore” with outright hostility toward the player. The result is a game that comes close to legendary status more because of its reputation than the actual quality of its 1.0 version.
Nov 29, 2025
I always thought this game sounded interesting, but was primarily a console gamer for about a decade so never checked it out. Having recently gotten a new pc I wanted to play a unique pc game rather than the typical Console ports and it just so happeed that this finally releasedon Steam. This game is a work of genius and incredibly immersive. As is well known it can be incredibly frustratingand punishing so I can see it scaring off many newcomers due to its janky elements, extremely hardcore and experienced player base, and lack of graphical polis. This reminds me of the glory days of pc gaming in the 90s and early 2000s where pc games were exponentially more demanding and complex and brought a unique experience to the table. Even though I've been roughed up very badly in this and way more crushing defeats than victories I'm going to keep at it and utterly hooked. This very much remindsme if the first time I played Demons' Souls and had a rough first impressionbut it really grows on you. No game is perfect and this has plenty of rough edges, but nothing else like it in gaming. Giving it a 10 to balanceout the whiners. It is hilariouswyen someonehas hundreds or thousandsif hours played and gives somethinga bad score. You obviously like it and got a lot of value out of it.
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PC Nov 17, 2025
When the stars align, Tarkov is a game you can truly lose yourself in. Sounds make your heart race, movement feels weighty, and the immersion is unmatched. But most of the time, you end up dealing with poorly optimized servers, inconsistent performance and frustration caused by the lack of clear information. It’s an experience every FPS fan should try at least once. Unfortunately, the official release doesn’t add much to the current state of the game, which in my opinion feels like it’s reaching the end of its cycle.
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PC Dec 4, 2025
The game itself is ok, but the customer support is non existent. If you choose to buy the game, be aware that if you ever need support to help you recover your account, you'll be waiting indefinetly
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PC Nov 21, 2025
There is my long and well though opinion on the game. I ignore the rough server start during the first week of the release, meaning it does not affect my review. I have approximately 3,5k hours spread through the game over 8 years (I did play from the closed beta period of time) TLDR: If you heard about the game from your friends or saw some streamers playing it, just ignore its' existence. There are BETTER and CHEAPER PvPvE games you could try in 2025. (Anomaly Matter, Breakout Arena, Arc Raiders, Hunt Showdown) I will start with the strong points of the game, since the list is going to be quite short:
1) Gun assembly and customization is just epic. Whatever gun possible, whatever optics, handle, fore-end, grip, muzzle device you like - PLAY with them. It's really interesting and that's one of the strongest customization mini-games the industry has seen so far EVER.
2) High TTK, long preparation process and high risk (get some loot or quest item OR lose everything) really kicks the adrenaline a lot. It's one hell of an emotional roller-coaster but yet a game. The sensation is close to what you experience in any hardcore mode of existing FPS (Try playing wolfenstein or doom eternal with a single death rule), yet it is in the golden spot between "Nothing happened I'll just start again" and "I am deleting the game it's so freaking hard" Everything else in the game is seriously underdeveloped and I have spent a decent amount of my lifetime hoping that some things might improve, but I was delusional. A. The level design
Maps are unnecessarily big for the amount of content they have. That does give a unique opportunity for sniping, because optics, ballistics and the distance come together here, yet maps are still VERY empty. They have some areas of interest, where people are dragged to, but 80-90% of maps are just empty space you need to cover. The trailers show you some non-stop shootouts, which is not true for the game. Sometimes it really gets dense, but in 20-30% of the raids I barely meet even a bot in a 20-40 min playthrough. There are no points of orientation, there is no built in MAP in the game. You have to spend your first 5-10 hours at each location while actively alt-tabbing trying to figure out where are you. There are a lot of lazy work on the assets of the woods and the buildings: WOODS, SHORELINE and LIGHTHOUSE have so many ctrl+c / ctrl+v objects that despite more than 3k hours in game my spawns often start with a phrase "WHERE AM I". To make things worse, the most of the urban environments are sinking with amounts of visual debris poured onto them. You will see the same pile of garbage spread over 5 maps like more than 100 times. And it does affect the performance hard (that's another story I will cover). Among the 7 maps presented in the game only one looks more or less polished (CUSTOMS). All the rest require serious overhaul, yet the developers never listened to the community B. Graphics
Well, the game looks just bad. More like 2010-game and by far not the thing you expect to see in 2025. The game struggles with the lighting, especially on the bigger maps. Animations are poorly done. Color schemes are not distinctive. There is not a single place in a game, or a location which would make you enjoy the scenery. BSG spent more time painting the graffities of **** on the walls at these locations, than doing any visual design. Everything in this game except the guns looks strongly outdated C. AUDIO
Guns, again are nice. Everything else is a disaster since the first year of beta. You will have phantom sounds, sound glitches, poor stomping sounds, your own breathing being louder than a gunfire in 200m, silent bots and players, broken vertical sound direction. Bad audio implementation will get you killed way more often than you could ever imagine. It's not even close to what we have already seen in CoD4 or Battlefield 3 AGES ago. Come on, it's 2025, fix your freaking game, BSG! D. MATCHMAKING and NETCODE
Servers are always overloaded. Game search in PvP mode might take you up to 10 minutes, yet you are not insured from disconnects, desynchronization and backend errors. You can spent up to an hour of real time just TRYING TO PLAY without it actually happening. And that was and is an issue for more than 5 years before the release. Some shots are often not registered ending up you being dead despite unloading an entire ammo drum straight to the face of an enemy E. AI and BOSSES
The worst of the game design ever is here. AI of the common bots (scavs) is quite stupid. So how do we make hard to beat bosses? Yep, BSG just gave them double or even triple amount of HP, 0.1 second reaction time, no-recoil laser guns, perfect vision from 100-200m and tons of armor. D. Cheaters
The problem is SO big, that you don't even want to try playing PvP. Stay PvE. It is comparable to the worst days of CS GO, and Devs are doing NOTHING to fix it for years. F. PRICE
Up to $250 for what is barely a game. Skip it
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PC Nov 16, 2025
Escape from Tarkov is out after 10 years in "development." This has finally fulfilled an obligation BSG had, they took your money however long ago and finally gave you a fully fledged game, only that game didn't work for the first 16 hours and if it did work you were presented with a most extravagant and spectacular final product - more of the same drivel they've been presenting for the last five years. To begin with, there are two different games being presented here. The PVP Zone and the PVE Zone, the former being what Tarkov is known for but the latter being nearly half of what its entire player base is experiencing. And in terms of the PVP and a PVE experience, Escape from Tarkov ultimately fails in both. If you look at PVP, you get low frame rates and abysmal optimization that makes the gameplay feel more sluggish than it actually is, and if you consider that this game has been in "development" for nearly ten years, this lack of technical polish is an affront to the people who opted in early hoping that it would get better and the new audience of players that expect, rightfully so, not to have to troubleshoot a game built in Unity. When looking at the PVE zone you get the same technical issues, that aren't such a problem due to the solo player experience not needing such fluidity, but on top of that you get an A.I system that could have easily come out in the late nineties, for how bad it is. The most common enemy in the game, Scavs, are glorified shooting targets you'd see in a firing range, the A.I PMC's, meant to substitute the presence of other people are the same, creating a dull and boring experience where, in this "hardcore" and "realistic" experience you get instances of a poorly designed walking simulator with guns. After that, you get to the problems that both games face: A stash system that rewards paying for more expensive versions of the game to increase it, side quest that drag out and force you into repetitive activities, in game trader models that are hideous and an annoyance to interact with since you have to sit through another loading screen in the main menu just to receive quest and or turn in quest items, queue times for matches that easily go into ten minutes, lack of any real end game progression, a confusing and convoluted skill system, dull and uninspired locations, and finally the disappointment that is the boring main quest that churns out more repetitive task to a rather plain story. Although there is still some good in Escape from Tarkov, the weapon customization system, the gunplay, and the in game health system, it is ultimately crushed under the weight of a bloated and bland experience meant to flesh out the core game, but consequently only ruins it. Escape from Tarkov needed a fundamental change for it's 1.0 release, but Battlestate Games stuck to what worked eight years ago and their bet failed. Escape from Tarkov is not worth the money they are asking especially when comparing the price to another extraction shooter that released in almost perfect technical condition and has come the closest to perfecting the PVPVE system, Battlestate Games claim to have "pioneered"; I'm obviously talking about Arc Raiders.
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PC Summary Escape from Tarkov is a hardcore and realistic online first-person action RPG/Simulator with MMO features and a story-driven walkthrough. With each passing day the situation in the Norvinsk region grows more and more complicated. Incessant warfare in Tarkov has sparked massive panic; the local population has fled the city, but those w...
Platforms:
- PC
Initial Release Date: Nov 15, 2025
Developer:
- Battlestate Games
Publisher: Battlestate Games
Genres:
