Escape from Tarkov director says the launch week’s wobbles were ‘actual stress testing not only of our servers but also our mind and nerves’

Escape From Tarkov released on Steam on November 15, taking the excellent extraction shooter out of beta after a mere eight years, and almost immediately had a bit of a wobble. Players found themselves unable to log in, with demand being such that developer Battlestate Games acknowledged severe server woes, and then came the inevitable review bombing from those who couldn’t play. Welcome to Steam, comrade!

“What a week,” wrote director and Battlestate COO Nikita Buyanov on X. “This week was actual stress testing not only of our servers but also our mind and nerves for sure. But seeing you enjoy the game makes us feel better.”

Stuff like server issues and bugs can be fixed, of course, though people also have issues with Tarkov’s full release that aren’t going away: primarily, existing owners having to re-buy the game on Steam. That’s not going to change, though presumably the disquiet will die down over time (and while it would’ve been nice, existing owners can of course still play through the Battlestate launcher).

Buyanov went on to discuss the near future for the game in the runup to the new year, though stopped short of offering any details on the long-teased Scav Life DLC, which will focus on the game’s unloved third faction.

“We plan to use this couple of months to prioritize and get more and more fixes and improvements into the game,” says Buyanov. “Also there will be winter in Tarkov, new storyline quests, new events. Sometime after there will be the introduction of seasonal characters with the whole new seasons system.”

Tarkov traditionally has weather events, with the landscape typically covered in snow from late November until spring: it makes everything prettier, and crunches underfoot so it’s even easier for other players to hear and headshot you.

Buyanov signs off by announcing the “traditional New Year TarkovTV in December” with “all of the additional info”, and has put up two time-limited codes for some in-game goodies: “SCAVYBOI” and, for a free drill, “ITSADRILL“.