Escape from Tarkov Preview – Survive or Die Trying!

by Jim Smale · Published May 23, 2025 · Updated May 29, 2025

Escape from Tarkov Preview – Dive into the gritty, adrenaline-fueled battlegrounds of Tarkov, where survival hinges on strategy, firepower, and sheer determination. Whether you’re scouring for loot or outmaneuvering deadly foes, every move counts in this unforgiving world of tactical combat.

Escape from Tarkov Preview Pros

Awesome graphics.
55.3GB Download size.
Own in-game achievements.
Uses the Battlestate Games Launcher.
Two faction choices – Bear and USEC.
Character creator – face, voice, and nickname.
Graphics settings – resolution, aspect ratio, screen mode, monitor, graphics quality slider, texture quality, shadows quality, object LOD quality, overall quality, clouds quality, anti aliasing, NVIDIA DLSS, AMD FSR 2.2 and 3.0, resampling, HBAO, SSR, anisotropic filtering, NVIDIA reflex low latency, sharpness, lobby FPS limit, game FPS limit, high quality color, z blur, chrom aberrations, noise, volumetric lighting, grass shadows, mip streaming, streets of Tarkov lower texture resolution mode.
PostFX support.
You can remap the mouse and keyboard, Invert the axis and sensitivity sliders for the mouse.
Set and equip phrases for in-game.
Field of view slider.
Head bobbing slider.
First-person extraction shooter gameplay.
The Handbook is in of the most in-depth encyclopedias of all items and elements of the game. Look at models, descriptions, add to wish list, etc.
Your hideout. This is an awesome homebase system whereby you get resources and materials from the world and use them to upgrade and create your Hideout. The effort pays off as you get buffs and abilities along with other rewards for doing so.
Two ways to play the game – PvP and PvE. There is no difference other than the obvious PvP is real players and PvE is CPU-controlled.
In-game chat system via text or voice when in the game playing only, outside of the game, and in the main menu,s you can use text chat.
When deploying in PvE or PvP, you choose to play as a Scav or USEC/BEAR. Scav gives random gear to start, and PMC/Bear is your character and uses your selected gear.
You choose your spawn point area before you drop.
Groups can be formed, or you can join a random one.
Decent loading times.
You can visit other players’ Gym/house layouts.
Loading screens will have some information on areas, missions, or controls.
A full 3D game world.
They have nailed the tense atmosphere mostly due to the fact that you know a death is everything bad, you lose all your stuff, and you have to queue back up for another game.
Practice mode can be turned on for some of the locations, and this allows you to spawn in on your own and just explore and get the controls down.
You can insure items so you don’t lose them upon death.
A fascinating world to explore.
Great soundtrack.
Search and loot boxes, furniture, clothing, bodies, etc. It’s not instant and adds to the tension.
Earn skills for repeating the same actions and level up to get benefits, we are talking skills like endurance and looting.
I love the fact that it’s a level playing field because it’s more about skill and getting the shots rather than just having the best loot.
A pure adrenaline experience and the best horror game in the genre.

Escape from Tarkov Preview Cons

Some of the most daunting menus and load out screens I have ever seen, it’s just a sea of words and items, and it is just insane how much is there.
It will take months to get good, and it will be a long, arduous task, totally worth it, but go in knowing this.
There are no introduction or tutorial options in the main game screen.
Matchmaking can be a bit up and down, which affects loading times.
No native controller support.
Couldn’t see a benchmark test for the graphics and performance.
When a character dies, they have a real-time cooldown of around 30 minutes for the SCAV character only, The PMC characters can jump straight back in.
Had many games where it took 5 minutes to find and join a game, and then I lasted 31 seconds.
When dead you go back to the title screen and lose everything.
There is no dedicated beginner map, so new players can just learn the ropes and mechanics at play with AI.
Even the PvE servers are slow to create matches, and you can kill just as quickly as you can with real players.
I can only play one game every few hours to give my blood pressure a chance to go back to normal.

Escape from Tarkov Official Site

Escape from Tarkov

Developer: Battlestate Games

Publisher: Battlestate Games

Store Link:

Official Webstore