You can play Escape From Tarkov's answer to Call of Duty and CS2 for free right now, but you don't have long

Escape From Tarkov: Arena has just kicked off its first season, and to celebrate you can jump in for free and try out Battlestate's answer to more high-speed multiplayer games such as Call of Duty Black Ops 7 and Counter-Strike 2. Adopting Tarkov's fundamentals to the arena shooter format, it offers standard elimination modes along with variants such as the CS-style bomb defusal format, BlastGang. Now, it's temporarily a free PC game - but you've only got a couple of days, so don't wait around.

Escape From Tarkov: Arena is a solid competitive game, and more to my speed than the long-form intensity of its older sibling, but it's also a great way to keep your finger on the pulse of Tarkov more generally. In fact, director Nikita Buyanov stated in a recent interview that Battlestate is using Arena as its testing ground for gameplay changes, before moving the successful ones over to the extraction shooter. If you like to stay ahead of the meta in the high-lethality FPS game, this is the place to be.

Battlestate delivered a pretty radical overhaul to Arena's classes in patch 0.3.4 at the end of September, and also increased the limit on how many of each class can be on a team from two to three. It's made many animations faster and snappier, from tossing grenades to raising your weapon. Ostensibly, this was done to reflect Arena's faster pace, but the response to it could eventually see some of the adjustments brought across to Tarkov proper.

Even if you don't care about the extraction side of Tarkov, the chance to try Arena for free is one to take advantage of. Battlefield 6 has so far proved a big winner, but that's moving at a grander scale. The Black Ops 7 release date will bring those tighter, more close-quarters showdowns, but if you're unsure whether you're bought in on the new Call of Duty then now is the perfect time to compare it to Battlestate's offering.

Escape From Tarkov Arena is free to play through Monday October 27. Head here and click the 'play' button to download it and get started. You can also get a 15% discount on the game and its bundle with Tarkov PvE during the same period, which is also available via the Epic Games Store.

Want to get the edge on your opponents? Grabbing the best gaming headset is a great way to do so. Alternatively, we've rounded up the best free Steam games in 2025.

Does EFT Arena match up to its rivals? Or has something else won your heart? Join the conversation in our community Discord server and tell us what you're playing most.