‘Escape From Tarkov' Makes Major Changes After Controversial Wipe

Forbes

11-07-2025

Tarkov is making some changes.
After a somewhat controversial new wipe, Escape From Tarkov is making some big changes to its new hardcore mode after fan backlash, with a lot of players complaining that the game was too hard and had no real incentive to progress.
The recent launch of the hardcore wipe in Escape From Tarkov was initially welcomed by a lot of fans, with the changes making things feel fresh. However, after a few hours it was clear some of the changes had not quite worked out as intended, and now some of them have been reverted.
Perhaps the most controversial change was the removal of quests. This was always meant to be temporary, but a recent technical update has restored quests a little earlier than many expected after a lot of players complained about the lack of motivation to do anything.
With no quests, all players had to do was level up and collect loot, which some felt was not enough incentive to play. Personally, I quite liked the feeling of there being no early quests. Fights were happening in more varied locations on the maps, and there were no raids where you felt your time was wasted if the key spawn you needed was already taken. However, having no quests for an extended period of time might have made things get tiresome quickly.
Another of the big sticking points for players was the extended scav cooldowns the hardcore wipe brought with it. In the early days of a wipe, players expect to have long scav queues, but these being artificially inflated by an increased cooldown timer felt harsh, especially with the extra loot restrictions this hardcore mode has brought with it. As a compromise, those extended wait times have been reduced, which should give you more of a chance to go and scav to find weapons and gear if you are running low.
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The other big change came to the price of insurance, which has been reduced. This was also increased as part of the hardcore wipe, but combined with the other changes of the wipe, it felt quite harsh, especially with how difficult it is to find and keep top level gear.
There has also been a fix for the transit spawn system, which was spawning ungrouped players next to each other resulting in mass fights as soon as you spawn in, which was not ideal to say the least.
Escape From Tarkov game director Nikita Buyanov has also announced that more features that are currently turned off will slowly return over the coming days and weeks. Things such as trader levels and being able to queue directly into certain maps instead of having to transit will return soon, but the goal is to slow down the progression of a new Tarkov wipe, which seems to be working.
The hardcore wipe in Escape From Tarkov has certainly proven controversial, but as a long time player it is refreshing to have something new, especially just before launch when the lack of new content has started to make things feel a bit stale. If you aren't enjoying the current state of Tarkov, the good news is that in a few months things will be back to normal with lots of new content when Tarkov finally launches.