The Basics of Escape From Tarkov Explained in 13 Minutes

What is Escape From Tarkov? Escape From Tarkov is an immersive first-person shooter, set in a fictional Russian Norvinsk Region. The atrocities that the mega Corp Terra Group have been conducting behind the scenes have set the area into a warzone, fighting over territory as well as survival of the inhabitants that live there. Your primary method of play is a PMC; either from the American United Security (USEC), or from the Russian Battle Encounter Assault Regiment (BEAR). Your goals in the game are to complete quests for the variety of traders in the game, level up with each of them as well as your account, and to survive. That’s the primary focus of the game; being able to handle the harsh world that is Tarkov, dealing with the AI citizens that have armed themselves to defend their land, themselves, and combating other players to get out safely.

I. Getting Started.

When you first boot the game up, either with a fresh account, or immediately after a wipe, a time when the developers reset everyone, you will be asked to choose which faction you would like to play as. Apart from one specific location on a certain map, this choice is primarily cosmetic in nature. USECs speak English and BEARs speak Russian (and some broken English). From there you will be able to choose a face and voice that your PMC will use throughout your experience. Note that the voice can be changed at any time, however the face can NOT be changed. So, make sure you choose one you don’t mind staring at for potentially months on end. After that, you will be loaded into the main menu. From here you have some options to click on. Escape From Tarkov, which is your main method of loading into matches, or raids as they are called. Character, which will take you to your personal stash, trading will bring up the menu that allows for buying and selling of goods from the vendors in the game, and hideout which will take you to your personal shelter that can be upgraded with a variety of modules to make your life easier in the world of Tarkov.

II. Settings

Before we do anything, let’s open the settings tab in the bottom right of the screen. Here we are going to click over to the game tab. On this menu there are a bunch of options at your disposal to change and adjust to your liking, but we want to focus on two: the FOV of the game, and the head bobbing option. Both are on sliders, and for FOV, you want to pull the game out even just a little bit. Whatever is most comfortable for you. But head bobbing? Drop that all the way down to its lowest setting, 0.2. This slider adjusts how much the screen bobs up and down when walking shooting, reloading, and performing other actions. If you leave this setting at its default, you will get sick from all the screen bob in no time. So, remember to lower this setting. For now, that’s all we’re going to do in the settings tab for the time being. You can also adjust the graphics of the game to help with performance and visual fidelity, but that is all again personal preference and what your PC can handle.

III. Stash (Character Screen)

Let’s start with the character screen because you’ll find yourself spending a lot of time here. On the left you have your character and the gear that is currently equipped. Your PMC can wear a helmet, headphones, body armor, a chest rig, two primary weapons, a pistol, melee weapon, armbands, eye covers, and a backpack. And one huge game mechanic as well, the secure container. Depending on which version of Tarkov you purchased, you will be given a secure container. Anything inside that box will be safe upon death. Now, initially again, depending on which version of the game you purchased you will be given a variety of basic equipment to help get you started in the game. These items range from weapons, ammos, medications, helmets, armors, rigs, and backpacks. By dragging them onto the empty character silhouette on the left, you will equip your PMC with that piece of gear. Under normal circumstances, you don’t normally want to bring more than one weapon into a raid with you because weapons can be expensive in the early game. Especially when you don’t have a ton of money. Speaking of, there are three currencies in the game: Rubles, which is what you will mainly use, Euros which is the least used, and Dollars which one of the traders only uses. Money is used to buy things from the traders but is also used for quests and upgrading the modules in your hideout. Money is a funny thing in Tarkov because many care so much about that number that they will be hesitant to use it sometimes (myself included). But the philosophy in Tarkov is that money comes and goes, and if you want to make money, sometimes you need to spend money. And as you progress through the game you will notice this later on.

IV. Weapon Modification

One of the core components of Tarkov that makes it so interesting for many, is the level of depth that comes from being able to customize and change how your guns look. There are literally thousands of attachments that can be swapped out to make so many kinds of guns in the game. And while you are seeing some examples in the background, this level of freedom isn’t open until very late into the game. You will be spending a lot of time early on, with only a couple attachments if at all on your weapons. But once you get far enough in, the possibilities are almost endless.

V. Building a Basic Kit

So, let’s say you are level 1, fresh account and want to go into a raid relatively light. Something like a pistol, body armor, chest rig, and a backpack is not a bad starting loadout. But of course, use whatever you willing to lose. You’d think that bringing in more powerful weapons and armor would help you stay alive, and in most cases, you are correct. However, Tarkov is kind of a different beast in that even if you bring the best of the best, depending on how far into a wipe cycle we may be in, even that won’t be enough to keep you alive. Each piece of equipment kind of speaks for itself. Helmets and body armor will keep you alive should you take damage from AI or other players. Chest rigs are used to hold your magazines, spare ammo, medication, or grenades. And backpacks are for storing loot of any kind. Note that there are also chest rigs that have armor built into them, and that those cannot be worn with normal body armor. If you’re ever in raid and can’t get their chest rig on, it might be because you still have armor on, and they were using an armored rig. So, a light early game kit could look something like this. Nothing crazy, just a pistol, basic armor, chest rig and some magazines. Now, one important thing to note about magazines and reloading. You need to have space in either your chest rig or pockets depending on what kind of mag you’re reloading. So, if it’s a magazine for a rifle, that takes up two vertical cells, if there isn’t a slot for that mag in your rig, the magazine in your weapon will be dropped onto the floor and you will reload another mag from your pouch into the weapon. To put it simply, never fill up your chest rigs completely with stuff. This way you’re not fumbling around looking for a lost mag.

VI. Map Select and Insurance

But now that we have our kit, it’s time to enter a raid. By clicking on Escape From Tarkov, you will be taken to the map selection menu. There are a total of nine maps in the game that you can play on. All but one is always accessible to you. The exception being Terra Group Labs, which requires a Labs access card to get into. But other than that, every map has two times that you can play on. One is usually daytime with the chance of it being sunrise or sunset, and the other time being during the night. Now most of the time, you will want to play this game when it’s daytime, because while at night it is a totally different experience, if you don’t have the right equipment for nighttime raids i.e. night vision goggles, you will struggle to navigate and find your way around maps. But once you select your map and time, you will have the choice of insuring your gear. Because the main gimmick of Tarkov is that when you die, unless it was in your secure container, whatever was on your person is lost when you die. Unless that is, you insured your gear. What this does is give you a chance of having your loot returned to you should no one find it and take it with them. Granted, the cost of insurance depends on the gear you are insuring as well as your reputation with the traders. Because as you level up the vendors and unlock better gear for purchase, the cost of insurance also goes up. So, depending on what your money situation is, it might be wise to only insure your gun, or just your armor. Regardless, it’s a way of sometimes getting your gear back after a couple days. And when that happens, it feels good.

VII. In Raid Health and Medicine

And finally, we have loaded into a raid. Now the game truly begins. While you are in-raid, there are a lot of things you will need to pay attention to, and it can be overwhelming. But for the sake of simplicity, we will focus mainly on keeping yourself alive and in good health. Literally. Looking at the health tab, this is where you will see all the problems your PMC has. Whether that’s damage, bleeds, fractures, lost limbs, whatever is wrong, this is the place to find it. And depending on the situation you will need to use different medications to patch yourself up. Fixing bleeds is simple. There are two kinds of bleeds, light and heavy. Light bleeds are fixed with bandages, and heavy bleeds are fixed with a tourniquet. While light bleeds need to be fixed, they aren’t as scary as heavy bleeds. These can quickly kill you if they are not addressed in a timely manner. So, taking care of heavy bleeds as soon as you can be valuable. Same thing for fractures. These happen when you either take damage in your arms, legs, or take enough fall damage that one occurs. And depending on where the fracture is, what it does will change. If it’s on the arms, it will take longer to aim your weapon and your aim will be shaky and not steady. And if it’s on your legs, you will limb and be unable to sprint or even just walk normally. Using a splint will fix fractures, but using painkillers will also remove the negative effect of a fracture. And this is important because leg fractures can cost you your life, so if you don’t have a splint, use a painkiller. Just know that if you sprint on a broken leg, you will take damage with every step, so keep that in mind.

VIII. CMS Kits

The worst thing that can happen to you while you are in a raid, is losing a limb. This happens when you take enough damage that the hp of a specific body part hits 0. Depending on the limb, there are more negative side effects. To make it easy, if it’s the head or thorax, you die. Stomach will rapidly reduce your hydration and food until you hit 0. These can be increased by eating and drinking anything you find both out in the world or even back in your stash. Just make sure you check to see what they are going to do to your food and water before you consume them. Because not all food simply raises those values. Back to losing limbs, losing arms makes aiming harder and losing legs makes mobility harder. But there are two vital pieces of treatment that can fix limbs that are zeroed out. CMS and Surv12 kits are injury treatment that will repair body parts and allow you to re-heal them. This process takes 16 seconds for the smaller CMS kit, and about 20 seconds for the larger Surv12 kit, but the Surv12 kit has more uses and will give you a larger HP pool once the limb is fixed, meaning you will have more total HP than if you use the CMS kit. But the CMS is only 2 cells large while the Surv12 has 3 cells. So, there are some pros and cons to each one. Either way, use these to fix your limbs while in raid, and you’ll be back in action in no time. The only body parts you can’t fix are your thorax and head. If these ever hit 0 and you are still alive, leave the raid immediately. As even just a single point of damage to these parts will kill you.

IX. Surviving your raids

At its core, Tarkov is about survival. Staying alive and extracting from your raids is the most consistent way to earn EXP, level up, and not lose all your money. So, sometimes, killing a single scav, collecting some loot and quest items and extracting is a solid raid. It doesn’t have to be a slaughter where you kill the entire map, that’s not the point of early game Tarkov. There is nothing wrong with running away from fights. Staying out of people’s way, and just trying to get your quests done. Granted, Tarkov is full of uncertainties, and you can go into a raid with a game plan, and that can get thrown out the window almost immediately because Tarkov had different plans for you. But being adaptable and willing to change your strategy for the sake of survival is a skill you will hone as you play more of the game. Remember, you are going to die a lot in this game. Especially if you are new. But being able to look back, reflect and learn some lessons from a tough death is part of the game, and how you become a better player. Don’t be discouraged and pay no attention to your survival rating. It resets every wipe and means absolutely nothing. Tarkov is about playing the game and having raids that are so interesting and tell a story that you want to share with your friends. If you find yourself doing that, then then even in death, your experiences in the game are fulfilling.

X. Conclusion

Those are the basics of Escape From Tarkov. I know that was a lot of information thrown at you, and we didn’t go over every single mechanic, aspect and element but with time and some dedication you will learn it all quickly. And if you need more help, please go check out the official Escape From Tarkov Wikipedia. It is a wonderful resource that is essential for new players and will answer almost any question you have about the game. Ammo charts, quest locations, armor tiers; you name it. Link will be in the description. But I hope this was informal for anyone who might be new to Tarkov and jumping in for the first time. And if you are a veteran of the game, I appreciate your time as well. Thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to watch this video. Please let me know in the comments if you enjoyed this video or found it to be useful. This is my first ever real “guide” and any constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated. I might’ve missed some things that might be deemed important, so I apologize if I did. And be sure to subscribe for more videos about all the upcoming changes and the conversations we will have about them. I hope to see you in future ones.