Earlier this week, Battlestate Games released a trailer for The Unheard Edition, which caused an uproar within Escape from Tarkov’s passionate community. That’s because Unheared Edition, which is already being branded as ‘pay-to-win’ content, breaks a former promise to fans about Tarkov’s DLC practices.
Now, Battlestate Games is working to set things right with the community. However, the damage may have already been done.
Battlestate Games has its own definition of DLCs
The previous Edge of Darkness Edition release came with the promise that all future DLC would be included. But after introducing The Unheard Edition, Edge of Darkness Edition was delisted, along with the removal of any mention of free access to future DLCs.
The biggest problem is that Edge of Darkness was meant to include a long-awaited PvE mode. That mode has since been announced as an exclusive mode for owners of The Unheard Edition. According to Battlestate Games’ lead developer, Nikita Buyanov, the highly anticipated PvE game mode that players waited years for isn’t considered a DLC to them.
“First of all, PvE gamemode this is not DLC,” Nikita said in a post shared to the Escape from Tarkov Reddit. “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 (Scav Life DLC for example, which will add a lot of new mechanics and content for Scav gameplay and leveling).”
Players will reportedly receive a discount when upgrading to The Unheard Edition, along with a few in-game items and features that pale in comparison to the PvE game mode, but it doesn’t address the chief concern from fans. Promises were made over seven years ago when the most generous supporters paid $150 for Edge of Darkness Edition which itself was seen as controversial at the time since Escape from Tarkov’s vision was extremely ambitious from the beginning.
Tarkov fans aren’t buying calls to be “True Believers”
For the Edge of Darkness supporters who wasted no time to upgrade to The Unheard Edition before the discount was applied, an additional copy of the game will be sent to them as compensation. r/EscapefromTarkov mod, Zavodskoy, was one of the first to question the reasoning for not issuing a partial refund.
“But selling third party game copies is against your TOS? That isn’t compensation, if they’ve bought Unheard of then they don’t need a second copy of the game? Why can’t they have a partial refund?” Zavodoskoy asked in a comment.
Many of Escape from Tarkov’s beloved streamers have joined the community in airing out their grievances on streams, in videos, and across social media. In response to a leaked interview with Nikita Buyanov that was confirmed real by Battlestate Games Community Manager u/appl3z0r, top Tarkov streamer, Lvndmark, expressed his frustrations with Nikita’s attitude towards the community’s issues and his comment on seeing who the ‘true believers’ are.
While tension between the Tarkov community and Battlestate Games isn’t rare, controversy in the past has mostly been about balancing and in-game mechanics. The community itself usually takes different stances on changes or suggestions for the game and rarely stands united. Longtime players and streamers who are considered pillars of the community are speaking out and mentioning that they’ll be looking to expand their content in other games due to their disappointment in Battlestate Games’ actions.
All Tarkov players will get PvE — someday
In what looks to be a final attempt at quelling the community’s anger, Nikita did release a short apology, naming adjustments that would be made to the Edge of Darkness and Unheard Editions.
With Edge of Darkness players finally getting PvE mode access for free (after Tarkov’s official release), one of the most critical concerns of the community has been addressed. But has too much damage already been done? Based on the players’ responses to the Reddit post, it’s going to take a long time before Battlestate Games can earn back the trust of its once-loyal player base.
According to Nikita, the cost of additional servers to accommodate all of the Edge of Darkness supporters was the primary reason for not granting access to PvE. But, worryingly, there’s no date given for when that access will be granted or those servers upgraded; just a vague “as soon as possible.”
With the release of Gray Zone Warfare on the horizon, the extraction-shooter genre is becoming increasingly competitive. Battlestate Games will have an uphill battle to make amends with its supporters; otherwise, there won’t be a vision left to believe in.
