Game Guide for New Players!

September 1, 2020

Escape From Tarkov is a treacherous, high reward, exhilarating and insanely fun game where each and every single raid will be different. You will experience fascinating shoot outs, combat scenarios and stories that will probably stick with you for a very long time. It is truly a one of a kind video game out there at the moment.

This is a guide to help new players, or seasoned veterans who could use a small spruce up. Enjoy reading it, just as i enjoyed making this guide. It's my first one ever!

So first thing's first. Why are you (Or your PMC) [Private Military Contractor] in Tarkov in the first place? I'm going to leave a lot of the lore out of that question so you can find out yourself!

But long story short, your PMC, either you chose BEAR or USEC, is sent to retrieve something. Spoiler free. You got separated from your group in an intense scenario, and now you are all alone. You must Escape from Tarkov and reunite with your company and friends alive! But first, we're given an option.

Escape from Tarkov offers you two choices once you start the game. BEAR or USEC. Their voice lines are different, BEAR speaks Russian, USEC speaks English. Their clothing is also different.

USEC gets their own clothes, along side with bears.

USEC Options

BEAR Options ( They look wayyy cooler in my opinion, and i always chose USEC haha )

Once you have chosen your preferred factions, lets start with the Hide Out!

The Hideout is your home, your sanctuary, and the safest place in Tarkov according to me. You slowly regenerate your stats here, and arm up for your first, and many, many raids to come.

These are just a few examples of some sections and options that you are able to upgrade to the maximum. They bring a lot of benefits! Do try to upgrade your hideout as soon as you can, but don't go broke, you still need money to fund your raids! The hideout will test your patience and resolve. But it is possible, and you can do it. I believe in you.

Yup. that's a literal wall of graphics cards that you can use to mine bitcoins and reap an insane amount of money. This game is amazing.

You can also chose to play as a Scavenger! Or a Scav, for short. This is a free attempt, with a random gear set that you don't have the option of changing, on any map you want! As a new player, you should use your scav the moment it's available. It's a free raid that you can use with absolutely zero penalties or negative features toward you or your PMC. They have cool down timers in between them.

You can play as a scav, but so can other players...

The normal Artificial Intelligence scavs, the non player scavs, walk and roam the map. They even loot and wiggle at you! They are friendly, provided you don't kill them. But if you defend yourself from another real player, playing as a scav, the NPC's should still be friendly to you. As a PMC, scavs will always shoot you!

Escape from Tarkov boasts quite a few maps for its caliber and type of game at the current moment, with many more confirmed on its way!

But which map do play on first? Well, like in real life, actual special forces and active military personnel always have a plan to enter, and get out. This is called Infiltration and Ex filtration. The best and first thing you should do is know where you are in the map. At the current moment, just knowing where to leave should be your priority, NOT how you can take down Five man squads and get away with it unscathed. (Some can do that, it's actually quite impressive.)

Know your exfil! You may have gotten lucky and one tapped a fully geared player, but you ran out of time trying to find the exfil. Oh no!

Use maps that are available online, get a grasp of the landmarks and call outs. For this, i highly recommend you try offline mode. If you play Online, and get killed. You will be forced to wait in your hideout so your character can heal his injuries, or spend precious money on medication and other health supplies. Money that a new player can't afford to lose on such little things constantly.

The Woods. Long range combat and some medium ranges here and there. Heaven for snipers.

The Interchange. A massive shopping mall with an exterior and interior layout with multiple floors. This contains both long range, and tight CQC.

These are what some exits may look, but you can search them up online for even more information!

Interchange Railway Exfil (LEFT) and Emercom Exfil (RIGHT) Behind the green truck to the left of the Emercom Exfil is the actual exit.

So now you know how to get out right? Try to remember landmarks, they help orient you on where you need to go before the timer runs out!

Wait, a timer? YUP! You can double tap the ' o ' key to see your extraction, and time remaining.

You are under the mercy of the raid's time. Each map has their own maximum time, from a whole hour, to just twenty minutes. Do what you need to do, and get the hell out! If you don't make it to the extract in time..

You are considered Dead or Missing In Action, and you just lost everything you gained / did in that raid. Prevent this at all costs as it would have been a huge waste of time! But not entirely, because you can use this to learn, and figure what you did wrong. Pay attention to the timer, your location, and your resources such as running stamina, food etc.

And now for the fun part, and a highlight to this game in my opinion.

THE WEAPONS AND THEIR MODIFICATIONS!

Good lord look at all those things that you can do to your weapon.

Escape from Tarkov has a unique feature, that pretty much no other game comes near to this level of detail. The true Gunsmith.

With this, you can create the perfect weapon for your needs, and then some. Remember earlier in this guide that showed you the maps, their layouts and their exfils/ extractions? Well, your weapon must suit that mission / map's criteria. Playing on Customs? Bring a decent ranged effective caliber rifle, M4's and AK's are fantastic. Playing Factory? Sub-Machine guns and shotguns. A plethora of weapons that are all available to you are great starter weapons to get a feel of the game. With limitations of course since your PMC level is low, he won't have all the resources available. Yet.

So how do we get extra stuff and rewards that can help us rise the levels and ranks? The Traders.

The traders are NPC's that give quests, are a great source of Experience points, weapon rewards and modifications, and will pretty much carry you on your way toward finally Escaping From Tarkov! Or having way more fun.

Each trader has three requirements.

(Yellow)

The Level Requirement your PMC must reach this level to meet this criteria. Just gain Exp from doing stuff in raids!

(Light Blue)

The Loyalty Requirement is a must! So complete the quests that the traders give you! This is how much they like you, and for you to meet this criteria. It goes up every time you turn in your quest!

(Green)

Money requirement is you selling AND buying from them. These two actions make it go up and meet the criteria.

ALL three must meet the requirements to advance to the next level. Rinse and repeat until the trader is at max level. Level 4.

This is what just one quest from a plethora of quests as an example.

As you can see, some quests are very simple and straight forward, others quite convoluted, and much more difficult. But i believe in you, you know this already. Read the quest, read the description as is it actually helpful, and help you understand what you must do, and if you need to, search the quest's name online for even more assistance! The Rewards can be seen from the bottom, do as many quests as you can! They are not only vital, but a great income, items, and unlocks that will help you a ton!

Who can help you perform these quests? FRIENDS!

Friends are a great way to get team killed- i mean, to watch your back, and operate properly! Friends and teammates are fantastic to have with! Just make sure you communicate properly as there are NO team identifications that you see in other games. You can, and will shoot your teammates if you're not careful! Tips that i can think of is wearing similar clothing, maybe the same helmet, clothing, even armbands can help!

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate! Talk what you see, what you hear and what you're going to do. Reloading? Call it out so your teammates won't have to question the noise that they just heard. But don't share too much, try to keep your coms, communications, clear so others may hear their surroundings. Find a good balance between the two.

Also, try not to sweep your teammates. There have been a lot of moments where teammates would rest their fingers on the shoot button and accidentally fire. Be careful!

Once you reach level 10, the flea market is unlocked!

The Flea Market is a vast and important resource, so get to Level 10 as fast as possible! You can search up pretty much anything, and purchase the things you need! Be careful and triple check before you buy something though, what you thought was in Roubles, may actually be in Dollars! They're color coded so you can't miss it. But just pay extra attention at what the trade is asking for!

Thanks for reading this overly simplified guide on how to help you start with tarkov! It is a very difficult game, but if you do it right, you can come out with good loot!

This was my very first time creating a guide for any game, sorry if there are any inconsistencies or errors, but i believe this is the bare minimum for new people.

November 28, 2020

Very helpful guide for beginners ,

Well done

December 10, 2020

Looks good, this will help beginners pretty much to get into the game

December 27, 2020

This is great work!

January 3

Save your time and money, this game is full of cheaters and ridiculous wait times to get into games. Battle state doesn't give a poo about ever fixing this game. Play something else.

Edited January 3 by LeftyzGhost

January 6

This will be very helpful for the newer players and even some experienced players too

January 10

Guides aren't the problem with the game. The problem is new players running into sweat lords level 40 on factory 3 days into the wipe. That's the issue. The game is basically killing off new players for the sake of old players who for whatever reason only find joy in running altyns with mp7's to kill level 3 players. If you want the game to live you have to have a restricted area for new players only. Allow players to select any map but make at least 1 or two restricted to pre flea market. That way new players can learn the game before they get killed constantly. It's hard for me to continue playing the game as a casual player playing 7 hours a week when 10+ sweat lords run around factory or customs killing low gear low level players.