Promulgated tardy last year, Escape from Tarkov is, according to the developer's website, "a hardcore and authentic online first-person action RPG/Simulator with MMO features and story-driven walkthrough." Those are a plethora of words and a plethora of genres. But while we haven't endeavored out the game ourselves yet, we cerebrated maybe verbalizing with the developer could shed a little more light on what precisely Tarkov is (and isn't).
In an electronic mail Q&A with Nikita Buyanov, who pulls double obligation as Escape from Tarkov's project lead and developer Battlestate Games COO, we learned about the game's deep story, lack of traditional classes, and how Escape from Tarkov is handling microtransactions and modding
When designing survival aspects of a game, how do you balance mechanics that are frolicsome with mechanics that may become a chore for players?
Nikita Buyanov: To commence with, I'd relish to verbally express that our project is not quite about what's commonly defined as "fun," especially in FPS games. It regales in a different way--by reconstituting a piece of authenticity that is missing from our everyday lives. Our goal is to take the authenticity and plausibility of players' impressions to the maximum extent achievable within the expedient of a video game--i.e. while sitting afore a PC in the comfort of your home.
All the mechanics we are going to implement may deviate from the mundane concept of "fun"--arduous to deduce, even harder to master--but, nevertheless, we are going to test them out first on ourselves, then on players who enter the Alpha and the Beta. Some of them can even make the gameplay worse--but we will have to balance it out against the usefulness of the feature by accumulating extensive statistical data and optically discerning how it all collaborates to engender the authenticity of Escape from Tarkov.
What is the story for Escape from Tarkov? Who are you and what's the world you're in?
That's a hard question. Physically contacting it even briefly would take up an inordinate amount of time, because we have a very elaborate storyline. Right now, we're preparing a sizably voluminous package of materials in English that will semi illuminate the background and circumstances that led to the game events. However, here are some fundamental facts: the game is set in an alternative historical timeline, but in our present time, in the fictional Russian city of Tarkov. And it revolves around the conflict between the transnational corporation: TerraGroup and the Russian regime. This conflict has, over time, escalated into an open localized urban and suburban armed conflict between two private armies, accommodating as proxies for the sides: the USEC and BEAR PMCs respectively.
This conflict will become both the scene and the target of the player's exploration: Why did the city slide into chaos? Why did its infrastructure collapse? Where do the local scavengers emanate from? And many more questions. All of the answers will be gradually unearthed by players as the game scenario progresses and the story unfolds.
Why is this transpiring? Who's the culprit behind it? What can it possibly lead to? The crisis deepens not only in Tarkov, but ecumenical as well, and nobody seems to ken why. There may be some kindred attributes with the events of the world today, but this is a pristine story that was conceived and drafted a long time ago.
The story is narrated as if it transpired in the past, from the third-person perspective; and the player takes control of a person whose recollections and accounts are being retold--a customary PMCs operator, either USEC or BEAR, who has a long road to elude ahead of him. On the way from Tarkov, he goes from fighting for survival to solving a conspiracy theory.
What do you cerebrate disunites Escape from Tarkov from other FPS games out there?
The answer to this question was exhaustively reflected in our endeavors to give Escape from Tarkov a genre definition. It is most facilely perceived as an FPS, but in fact, it is the only game that encompasses the traits of so many genres. Story-centered to the point of bordering a quest, MMO, survival, RPG, simulator - and, on top of that, it features some other things that only we can do (or at least we hope so). This game is an intricate multi-layered cocktail of genres, accommodated in a steel mug of general hardcore approach, and this is what makes it unique.
Zealous as it may sound, we have endeavored, with utmost attention to detail, to reconstitute the piece of that other life we (hopefully) will never experience--a life within an isolated, collapsing city, on the brink of survival, a life within society that is on the edge of extinction. However, we only set the background, environment and goals. What the players will do in the game is plenarily up to them; we don't believe in artificial circumscriptions, and this liberation engenders an unparalleled depth of immersion.
On the subject of character development, what can players expect in terms of classes and specializations?
There will be none. The players start out as a generic PMC operatives with decent, but balanced combat training, and from there on its their cull. There are no rigidly preset specializations or vocations, players build their own roles by culling skills to hone, weapons to master and equipment to utilize predicated on natural predilection, authentic-world experience, and/or anterior experience playing other shooters, thus evolving their own personal play-style. The game does not impose any kind of relegation upon players.
When you die in the game, in some cases you lose everything you've found--what was the cerebrating abaft this kind of penalization?
We punctiliously thought this out as one of the features that significantly deepens the feeling of authenticity this game needs to distribute. If you die, you will lose everything you brought with you and everything you have found. It may be astringent, but it will edify the edification, and next time the player will learn from precedent mistakes. However, since our game is pretty hard and surviving will be much more arduous than dying, especially for players with no anterior experience, we didn't go as far as to introduce a perpetual death or full loot. If killed, the player gets to keep all the skills, weapons, gear and loot stored in the stash, and items locked away in a special secure container.
What kinds of weapons are in the game? Are there conveyances as well?
Only genuine, subsisting mass-engendered and formerly mass-engendered weapons and custom components are in the game. No makeshifts, no fantasy guns, no prototypes that never made it to the market. Only authentic items, proven by at least several years of accommodation. As for the conveyances, no control over them is orchestrated so far. Of course, with our caliber of detail and interactivity, the graphical part of driving gameplay does not pose a quandary; however, we will only accept an equipollently good physical deportment, and that is a whole incipient layer of work we are not yet yare to undertake. Maybe we will do it someday, but not in the prognosticable future.
It looks homogeneous to Escape from Tarkov places an accentuation on realism when it comes to weapon operation in that guns can jam, overheat, etc. Why did you optate to take this more authentic route not always visually perceived in other FPS games?
Well, the reason is so conspicuous that it can be facilely overlooked in search of some deeper motives, but authentically, it's very simple--we dote weapons, virtually everyone on the team is a soi-disant "gun nut". In as much as firearms, dote it or hate it, are the cornerstone of every FPS, it was our dream from the very commencement of the project to determinately have the implements and designates to make the weapons feel like authentic ones and operate like authentic ones.
From the looks of it, it sounds like Escape from Tarkov is multiplayer-focused. What about players who want to play solo?
Escape from Tarkov is indeed fixated on multiplayer and can't be played offline. If a player is firmly set on beating the game solo, he's welcome to endeavor. However, even when playing solo, encounters and interactions with other players are virtually ineluctable. A compelling and tenable game cannot be engendered with NPCs only. If we optate it to function like an authentic society, we require human beings to populate it. Inside the raids, however, it all depends on the play style. You may never encounter other players there and run into NPCs instead--it's mostly fortuity and your stealth skills.
How deep are the RPG and MMO elements?
I won't go into much detail here, but we do have a character leveling system, flexible and detailed repetition-predicated adeptness learning, weapon crafting and handling upgrades, characters' physical characteristics, and MMO elements include an extensive branched quest system, trading with auctions and flea markets, a clan system, and sundry communication denotes for players and clans.
What kind of game modes can players expect and how are they unique in Escape from Tarkov?
There are three modes orchestrated. The first and main one is the story progression mode with inhibited-time scenarios, remotely akin to Destiny or Left 4 Dead, taking place over different locations and gradually leading the player to elude from Tarkov. These scenarios can be re-entered for exploration or looting. Second is the free-roam mode in the astronomically immense open location of about 16 sq. km in size, where you can do assuredly anything (and even carry out some tasks) but without any time limit or key story progression. Third mode is Arena, which fundamentally features a marginally gladiatorial fight. 1v1, 2v2, etc.
One sultry-button issue today is micro transactions; will Escape from Tarkov retain them?
Escape from Tarkov will be a traditional, full purchase. Not a free-to-play, microtransaction designation.
What about modding support--do you orchestrate to offer mod implements to players so they can build their own maps and items?
After release on Steam, we will provide assets and guidelines for engenderment of derivative works; if all the requisites are observed, we will clear these engenderments for additament to the game, but that's about it. Since it's an online game, we can't sanction plenarily uncontrolled modding.
Do you have any orchestrations for a console version?
We do; however, they are just plans with no particular details on how we are going to implement them for now. Relinquishing a plenarily functional, graphically impressive, feature-opulent and unabridged PC version takes priority.
