Escape From Tarkov was foundational in defining the modern extraction shooter. Its high-stakes, single-life approach to FPS games was a breath of fresh air, but the genre has since branched out. With everything from the likes of Arena Breakout Infinite and Marathon to more divergent offerings such as Arc Raiders and Gray Zone Warfare, by the time EFT 1.0 launched in 2025, it was no longer the dominant name in town. Instead, it can often feel like an unapproachable space dominated by veterans who have been mastering their craft for years. Game Director Nikita Buyanov wants to change that.
“We’re seeing a large number of new players – on Steam, for example – who aren’t used to playing games like this,” Buyanov says in response to a question about his plans to make Escape From Tarkov more accessible to new players. In particular, he states that the biggest problem for a newcomer are “elements in the game that are complicated for the sake of it.” He explains, “They don’t add complexity or depth to the gameplay – they’re simply difficult to understand or get the hang of.”
Buyanov has therefore tasked Battlestate Games with “lowering the entry barrier slightly, at least at the start of the game, so that these players can settle in, find their feet, and gradually join the rest of the community in a hardcore environment.” His comments come as part of the latest installment of TarkovTV, with the EFT developer sharing several answers from Buyanov that weren’t originally included in the video broadcast. Among those, he reveals which mechanics have changed most dramatically from the team’s original plan.
According to Buyanov, the original vision for Tarkov “was for players to constantly face problems: broken weapons, only shooting successfully on occasion, ammo shortages, etc.” He notes that it was planned to be a much more hardcore, survival-driven experience. “Handling weapons was also supposed to be more difficult, with stronger recoil, until the player had leveled up. In the end, everything changed significantly because at some point I realized that the game had to be playable.”
Another element that is changing over time is ‘pixel-hunting,’ the act of closely scouring environmental minutiae for task items. “It was originally introduced deliberately,” Buyanov notes, “I’ve always enjoyed the element of searching for small items in games, like hidden secrets.” Now that veterans have completed such tasks “inside out,” however, “we’re simplifying the system – for example we’ve introduced a proximity marker for task items.”
With that said, Buyanov remarks that there’s very little waste at Battlestate, and that everything seen in past TarkovTV episodes is still in consideration. “We don’t scrap anything, ever. Sometimes you might notice that something shown a year ago has unexpectedly appeared in a patch. Everything is in the works in one way or another.”
As for Buyanov’s other quick hits, he states that EFT’s Lighthouse rework is planned for “within a month” of the first season, which kicked off on Monday August 3 and runs until Monday December 7. He says Battlestate is making plans for a rework to skill levelling: “We are getting a lot of feedback about what needs to be reworked, including things that need to be sped up, and we plan to make these changes gradually throughout the year.”
PvE will be getting its own Prestiges, and the intent is for these to have unique tasks and rewards so they feel “completely different from PvP Prestiges, or at least partially different.” Buyanov adds that it’s “likely” PvE seasons will happen as well. “It all depends on whether we have the resources for it.” Plans are in the works to support EFT modding, and while he can’t talk much about this yet, he mentions, “it will be a ‘sandbox’ environment where players will be able to create mods.”
He says the ‘Guncyclopedia’ is currently scheduled to launch late this year or early next year, but that it needs more development resources. “Originally it was planned as a fairly simple system that would simply let you customize weapons,” he explains, “but we decided to add more functionality, to use the weapon at the shooting range, as well as tools that will be useful for taking screenshots and various other things.”
Lastly, Buyanov also teases plans to introduce “at least one secret ending” – although he stresses that “we won’t say anything about it, and we won’t even say when it will appear.” For the time being, he reiterates that the main goal of EFT will continue to be “escaping from Tarkov.” You can’t say Battlestate didn’t warn you about that one.