After a long, eight-year wait, players can finally escape from Tarkov in Escape from Tarkov. However, reaching the new end-game location, Terminal, is no easy feat, and neither is battling your way through to its conclusion. And now, following complaints from some in the Escape from Tarkov community who found escaping too difficult, developer Battlestate Games has decided to make things even harder.
As part of the long-awaited 1.0.0.2 update on December 1st of last year, Battlestate Games added four unique endings to Escape from Tarkov’s gruelling 200-ish hour-long campaign. Battling through the chaotic wave of AI-controlled enemies is no simple task, especially since you’ve just been stripped of all your gear, but things become all the more punishing once you reach Terminal’s final hurdle. And according to PCGamesN, after some players said they found it too challenging, the devs decided that it actually still sounded a bit too easy.
If you’ve yet to complete Terminal for yourself, be warned that we’re about to get into heavy spoiler territory here.
When Escape from Tarkov’s full release update dropped, it added a brutal decision that players had to make: a boat had to be taken to reach the titular escape, but it only fit three. The game’s standard player formation is squads of five. Thus, two people had to stay behind, becoming engulfed in a nuclear blast while others sail away to safety (and earning themselves one of Escape from Tarkov’s “bad” endings).
Naturally, considering all the work it takes to get to that point, a sizable chunk of the community complained online. This included Escape from Tarkov streamer Velion, who wrote, “I would really like to see this changed where everyone can escape together. Imagine being able to go into terminal and meeting 2 other players who you work together on a hard map and you survive and make it out.” Directing his feedback squarely at Battlestate Games, he tagged studio head Nikita Buyanov in his Twitter post.
Buyanov immediately replied by simply stating “its changed already,” which would reasonably lead you to assume that leaving Tarkov with all your buddies is now an option.
Turns out that Buyanov considers himself a comedian, as he actually meant that things have “changed” for the worse. As other players online have already pointed out, the number of players who can now escape at the end of Terminal has been whittled down to one.
Of course, you could just play through Terminal by yourself and not have to bother with the hassle of deciding which of you gets to live once it ends, but that feels like it defeats the point. Escape from Tarkov has always been a game about forging bonds and making friends, and watching them all get consumed by a nuclear blast while you sail off into the sunset, Titanic-style, just seems fitting.
