Escape From Tarkov blindsides players with immediately controversial ‘Hardcore Wipe’ that removes quests and disables most maps

morgan.park@futurenet.com (Morgan Park)
2025-07-09 20:18:00
www.pcgamer.com

Escape From Tarkov got a new wipe today, and it’s not going down too well.

The community is in open revolt in reaction to today’s Hardcore Wipe, a sweeping patch that upends the extraction shooter’s economy, format, and progression in a bid to slow things down. At least, that’s how players are reading the decision to disable all maps but two, limit ammo crafting, and make core features like insurance wildly expensive.

Despite developer Battlestate’s efforts to prepare players for the Hardcore Wipe last week with X posts, those who only read the sparse patch notes were blindsided by Escape From Tarkov’s dramatic decrease in content overnight.

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Chief among players’ laundry list of complaints is quests: The majority of them are simply missing, greatly limiting options for progression at the start of a wipe set to last months. The plan is for more quests to roll out over time, but that’s of little comfort to players who were excited to play a bunch of Tarkov on wipe day.

Then there’s the fact that only two of Tarkov’s 11 maps are available to raid, with travel to other maps only possible through in-game transit points on Customs or Factory. Many seem to agree that maps only accessible through other maps is, conceptually, a neat idea for a hardcore mode, but Tarkov’s excruciatingly long load times throw cold water on the whole thing.

“I tried going to Reserve. This was the experience: Queue was 10 minutes for Customs, five-minute run to transit, 22-minute queue for Reserve just to trade headshots with another player two minutes in,” wrote Reddit user SakeMadaMada.

Insurance might be expensive this wipe… from r/EscapefromTarkov

“And we have no tasks, so basically the game is unplayable haha, pure mindless grind (2x hideout items needed according to reddit) with no fun stuff added.”

Other changes seem squarely aimed at hoarders. The price to insure and repair items has risen “drastically,” according to one player chronicling unlisted changes, a squeeze that coincides with vendors buying loot for less cash than before. The player-driven flea market is also disabled for now, sending a clear message that Battlestate wants money to be a more precious resource.

Such is the goal of the Hardcore Wipe. Battlestate is clearly interested in upending the status quo, an idea that is proving immediately unpopular. Head of studio Nikita Buyanov said on X that Battlestate is monitoring feedback and will make changes as needed.

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