Escape from Tarkov studio attempts partial U-turn on $250 PvE plans, but fans remain unhappy

The studio behind Escape from Tarkov has attempted to partially U-turn on its plans to add a PvE mode exclusively to a new $250 edition of the game, but players continue to express anger.

Last week developer Battlestate Games announced a new bundle for the game called The Unheard Edition, which contains access to a PvE co-op mode, and numerous upgrades that will give players an advantage during play.

This new edition proved particularly frustrating for players who previously purchased the now-delisted Edge of Darkness edition of the game – which cost $100 and included a season pass which promised access to all future DLC – who discovered they wouldn’t get access to the PvE mode.

The game’s lead community manager then took to the game’s Discord server to claim that the PvE mode doesn’t count as downloadable content, and that even players who were promised all DLC would have to pay $250 for the new mode to get it.

Following a player backlash, Battlestate then announced plans to compensate Edge of Darkness owners with additional features, including high priority matchmaking and access to the new PvE mode for six months, but this offer of time-limited access and “more pay to win stuff” seemingly did little to appease fans

Now, in a new statement on the game’s Reddit page, Battlestate Games CEO Nikita Buyanov has doubled down on the studio’s belief that a new game mode doesn’t count as DLC, but added that it would nevertheless be available for free to all Edge of Darkness members “at the release of the game”.

“First of all, PvE gamemode this is not DLC,” Buyanov wrote. “DLC in our understanding is the major additions to the game, including various functionality and content that are released after the official release of the game as a themed DLC pack.

“Secondly, this specific functionality of the PvE mode is necessarily located entirely on a separate network infrastructure, because, essentially, you play on our servers, only in closed mode. At this stage, it is not possible to launch all players who are EoD holders – right now we simply do not have the required amount of resources for this.

“We observe your dissatisfaction and have decided that the functionality of the PvE mode will be available for free to all owners of the EoD version at the release of the game, when the server infrastructure will be improved to the required capacity.

“Now you have the opportunity to test this mode by purchasing the Unheard edition of the game, or upgrade to this version. We also decided to give a 50% discount when upgrading to the Unheard version from the EoD version.”

Don’t Fall For This, Please Guys.
byu/Mleeimlele inEscapefromTarkov

The new statement has seemingly done little to remedy the situation, with some players arguing that it doesn’t change the situation, given that Escape from Tarkov has been in early access since 2017 and as such “the release of the game” could still be years away, if ever.

The current top-rated thread on the game’s Reddit page (among a large number of other negative ones) is titled, “The path to enlightenment begins today”, which simply shows a screenshot of the game being uninstalled.