Why You Should Always Play Interchange at Night

Interchange has always been a problematic map to play on for many years now. At least in my own personal experiences. What boils down to a larger factory with an outside section, only having one primary point of interest, is going to create some problems. Awful spawns, poor distribution of loot, and limited extracts plague this map. My hope is soon, BSG decide that Interchange is the next map to get some updates. Whether that’s on the level of a factory style expansion, or something closer to what Shoreline got this wipe, the mall is a challenging map for reasons that go beyond the difficulty of learning the layout. However, overtime, I personally have begun to figure out ways to make playing on this map far less annoying than it normally might be. Granted, these don’t always work and should be taken with a grain of salt, because there are lots of factors that will go into your experience on Interchange, or really any map in the game to be honest. But the single largest adjustment that I have made is playing Interchange at night. And when I say nighttime, I mean in-game night. So usually after 20:00 or 8pm. The experience feels like a night and day difference, no pun intended, in how frequently you will come across PMCs, scavs, and anything trying to stop you from getting your tasks done; whatever they might be. So, let’s go over Interchange, how playing at night makes a difference, and why you should also consider making the change yourself. And if you are new here, be sure to subscribe for more Tarkov related conversations such as this one.

Right off the bat, the initial spawn rush that is getting inside the mall feels less daunting when at night. When it’s bright, depending on where you start, it doesn’t take much for another player to spot you and begin shooting to put you back in your stash prematurely. I know that most front side spawns can be brutal, but getting the infamous Emercom exit spawn almost guarantees certain death unless you get extremely lucky. However, these situations tend to happen less often when it’s dark. You can take your time; slowly approach the mall without feeling the constant stress of having to look left and right all the time in case someone just so happens to be holding a spawn angle. One reason why this might be the case is because less people usually decide to queue up for any nighttime map, there are naturally less players trying to get into the mall, which means your chances of getting in go up. Again, there’s no science to back this up, but rather years of experience and experimentation to figure out if there is a difference between day and night Interchange. And just from a personal game “feel” perspective, there absolutely is. I have multiple videos where nighttime Interchange is in the background and if you were to go back and really pay attention to the footage, I barely run into any PMCs. Regardless of time, you usually won’t run into the entire lobby unless for some reason everyone has the same quests that day. It’s more likely one maybe two PMCs. Any more than that and you need to go out of your way to chase down gunshots to see more.

A smaller aspect to playing nighttime Interchange that feels neglected is the light difference between daytime and nighttime is almost nonexistent inside the mall. With the improvements to the inside of the mall we got last year, it’s still difficult to spot people from the other side of a hallway, but at least that weird haze and fog is gone. It’s just kind of dark. But here’s the thing: it’s always dark. No matter what time of day you play on. Sure, places where there is a skylight might have the sun peek into them for a time, but it doesn’t change the overall visibility across the entire map. Just certain spots like the main middle hallway or in the three big stores at the edges of the first floor. So going daytime Interchange because you can’t see isn’t a thing and hasn’t been a thing for a long time. Again, it’s a rather small reason, but if the visibility is the same regardless of time, why not try and go when there might be less activity on the map, you know?

Scavs are usually plentiful on this map too. Which is nice because the first quest you get from Ragman is killing 25 of them. And if there are less players at night, that means the scavs are ripe for the picking. You usually won’t have much competition for them. Which makes that first quest and any subsequent ones that require scav kills on Interchange less of a pain if you might be the only one looking for them.

On top of AI, playing the map from the second floor of the mall can also alleviate some of the stress the map brings. There are less reasons to be on the second floor of the mall. In reality, there is one part of a quest to find a book, and then there’s Tech Light in the corner above OLI. Other than that, there is no reason to be up on the second floor. Which makes it a particularly nasty spot for holding angles and just patrolling around. Yeah, there are the huge windows in the front for shooting people, but the odds of seeing people consistently out there for any reason other than running to the railway extract is slim. And if you play at night, good luck seeing them. So, the light can remove that little stipulation.

Now, unfortunately, it isn’t all positive when it comes to playing Interchange at night. There is one major sticking point that can become problematic very quickly. And it’s called “Chumming”. This quest has you going to multiple maps to place gold chains on them as some sort of sabotage according to the flavor text. But what it also has you do is killing 5 PMCs on Interchange during nighttime hours (between 10pm and 10 am). What this means is that eventually, at some point in the wipe cycle, people will have a reason to go to Interchange and specifically go at night. Which if you yourself are not on that quest, means any noise you make people will be making a B-line directly for you. What’s worse is that this is an inevitability; there is no getting around this quest, whether you plan on doing it or not. Other people will, which is going to throw your entire gameplan off. Granted, you don’t really need to go onto Interchange that much in the grand scheme of things. The Interchange arc in Tarkov as we have talked about before, is definitely the shortest out of all the maps. Especially considering many quests have been altered to make you to different maps (I’m looking at you lighthouse, Punisher Part 4). Interchange definitely has some annoying quests like Database Part 1 and Hot Delivery. But because the map is relatively simple and small, PMCs become your biggest pain in the ass regarding getting quests done. The extractions still suck but at least you have the veil of darkness and night to help get you where you need to go. Even Emercom isn’t that bad, unless you have a particularly naught PMC or scav who is hellbent on making sure you don’t walk through that extraction safely.

This is more of a personal note, but I have not only had better luck and success on night Interchange, but I just enjoy the map more. For years, Interchange was my most hated map in the game. Because it always felt like the mad dash to get in off spawn was the most egregious of all maps. I have had some of my shortest raids ever on this map because someone looks to their left or right, spots me desperately trying to get into the mall so I can actually begin to play the map, and then I die. But at night, those kinds of situations occur far less often. I can just get myself to the second floor and walk around, kill some scavs and get a little looting done too. It's kind of a win-win. And overtime, I have come to kind of appreciate the map more for what it is. It’s not perfect, but I still think on paper, it’s the coolest idea for a map in Tarkov. Streets is awesome, don’t get me wrong, and it also has a small mall that might be handled better than Interchange. But you can’t replace the original, and I like what it has become. And it’s thanks to playing the map at night that it has given me this newfound appreciation for its existence.

Interchange at night is a totally different experience than playing when the sun is shining. If you find yourself struggling with competing quests and extracting from the mall, give nighttime a try. Just don’t bring any form of night vision. They kind of don’t work and haven’t had that issue solved. See, at least I saved you the 32k rubles you were about to spend on the night vision from Skier. But seriously, give nighttime Interchange a try. You might run into some Chumming gamers, but if you don’t the pace of the map feels much more in line with what it might’ve been originally designed for. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to watch this video. Let me know in the comment section down below if you have messed with nighttime interchange and what you experience was like on it and be sure to subscribe for more videos about trying to play maps in Tarkov in such a way that doesn’t make me want to bash my head against a wall. I hope to see you in future ones.