Escape from Tarkov has released on Steam

The legendary extraction shooter from Russian developers Escape from Tarkov has finally reached the most popular game store. Previously, to fight on the streets and outskirts of Tarkov you had to create an account on the official website and download the client from there, but now it’s simpler — you just need to be a Steam user. Moreover, the shooter’s testing phase, which lasted eight years, recently ended. This means the studio Battlestate Games considers their project finished. However, as often happens, something went off plan — and within 24 hours the «new release» was drowning in negative reviews.

The game has long become a genre classic, heavily influencing the emergence and evolution of extraction shooters. Over the past few years, not only clones of varying quality but also parodies have appeared — just recall Escape from Duckov, where ducks fight instead of humans. That’s why fans of virtual firefights were surprised that «Tarkov» wasn’t on the most popular gaming platform. Now the situation has changed: the project was upgraded to version 1.0 and released on «Steam». And everyone who pre-ordered received rewards. Nevertheless, to claim these prizes you’ll still need to create an account in the Battlestate Games Account Center.

Barely out on Steam, the shooter began racking up critical reviews. First, veteran fans were upset that the game can’t be added to their «Steam» library from the developer’s own service. Even if you already own a copy, you’ll have to buy it again and pay about one and a half thousand rubles for the standard edition. Second, the launch-day influx was so massive that Battlestate’s servers and launcher simply «collapsed» — as a result, people couldn’t get into any mode for an entire day. So right now EFT is experiencing both a surge of hype and a wave of refunds from outraged users.