Escape From Tarkov's final mission will be "like Call of Duty, but with all the Tarkov mechanics"

Battlestate Games has been hard at work for the last eight years on trying to deliver a complete extraction shooter experience. But as Escape From Tarkov approaches its long-awaited 1.0 launch, Battlestate's COO Nikita Buyanov says there's one more thing he wants it to be remembered for - its story.

"In version 1.0, players will finally have the opportunity to finish the game: to escape from Tarkov and understand why we've been trying to leave it all these years," Buyanov tells PCGamesN. "Tarkov isn't just a shooter about survival and high stakes anymore - now it's a complete story with meaning, one that's interesting to experience and decipher."

There's a lot to Buyanov's statement. Over the years, Tarkov has relied on telling its story through largely text-based quests delivered by traders, who all have their own interests and conflicts within the game's world. But in 1.0, players will be treated to more animated trader cutscenes - similar to the ones developed for Lightkeeper - to make those interactions feel more alive.

Now when you visit a trader - or you're summoned to one - you'll be greeted by fully animated cutscenes. It's a small change, but one that should make the game's narrative feel much more engaging, especially as the quests branch out and you start to feel the consequences of your actions.

"They'll function just like now, but you'll also receive calls from them - your PMC will respond and visit the traders in person," Buyanov explains. "Trading itself will remain the same, but interactions will now feature full 3D models, animations, voice acting, and more. The traders won't physically appear on location yet - we learned from implementing the Lightkeeper that it's too complex and heavy for the game at this stage."

There's also more to sink your teeth into with new mainline quests that help form the story. "The story players get at release is not a separate story mode," Buyanov says. "It's new quests that form the story. We've added a lot of functionality specifically for them, so they'll differ from the usual Tarkov tasks players are used to. You can complete them in parallel with the new missions or skip them entirely. They don't interfere with each other - sometimes they overlap or complement each other."

The story begins with a quest chain called 'The Tour'. Players will need to complete a series of onboarding missions to gradually unlock all locations, starting from the Epicentre, which basically serves as a tutorial for new players to gently ease them into what comes next. "It's not difficult, considering what awaits them afterwards," Buyanov says.

For someone who lives and breathes this game, Buyanov has remained pretty tight-lipped around the new missions simply because he wants to make sure there's something "truly special" for all players. But one thing we do know is that there are four possible endings to the story - all of which culminate in Tarkov's final map, Terminal.

Terminal is a mostly linear map with some small branches that require players to complete objectives. While the mechanics remain the same, Terminal is said to be much more intense - a deliberate attempt to create something closer to the cinematic experiences found in some of the best FPS games out there.

"In the final mission, we wanted to give players an experience similar to what they'd find in cinematic single-player shooters - something like Call of Duty, but with all the Tarkov mechanics," Buyanov says. "We didn't draw inspiration from anything specific [for this] - it was more of a mindset: 'They do it like this, but we'll do it our way - let's show it can be done differently.'"

With challenging AI enemies, various objectives that can change during the mission, and high-stakes gameplay, Battlestate is out to prove that it can deliver cinematic missions differently to the market leaders. But the difference between Call of Duty and Tarkov is that Tarkov is utterly relentless - and not everyone will be successful.

"If a player fails the Terminal, they'll have a few more chances to access it again and escape Tarkov - but each attempt will require completing additional quests to gain access," Buyanov explains. "That means the price of failure in the final mission becomes much higher."

If you manage to achieve it, Buyanov says you'll be able to roll back your progress to before Terminal so you can carry on playing, but the map won't be available for regular raids - at least, not now.

Completing Terminal will be the ultimate test of a player's skill, but for Buyanov, the story is what ties everything together. Beyond the mechanics and the high-stakes gameplay, what excites him the most is seeing players connect with Tarkov's story on a deeper level.

"What makes me happiest is when people talk about the story and the hidden meanings behind it, " he says. "I've seen players try to piece together and predict the plot based on existing quests and references,  and that's really cool. The team poured a lot of heart and effort into those details, and when people notice and analyse them it proves that Tarkov has found its audience - that we're on the same wavelength."

This is the legacy Buyanov and his team are aiming for: they want Escape From Tarkov to be more than just an extraction shooter - they want it to have a world and a story worth escaping from.

Escape From Tarkov 1.0 releases on November 15.