A number of plans for updates to Escape From Tarkov and details about what will be added when it finally releases, have been confirmed by game director Nikita Buyanov in an interview with streamer Pestily.
The interview, which clocks in at a mammoth one hour and 24 minutes, covers a lot of different subjects within the Tarkov universe, but the highlights for many will be the new information that we got regarding further updates for the rest of the year, and what will be changed when Escape From Tarkov finally exits beta.
Nikita confirmed that as usual, the next wipe will come in the summer and there will be another at the end of the year. However, he also said that a lot of the focus for this year is on preparing the game for release, including the storyline quests that will eventually allow you to actually escape from Tarkov, along with content that will only be released with the 1.0 version. This probably means that any upcoming patches might be smaller than we have seen previously.
The good news is that wipes will continue even after the full game has been released. For a while, it seemed that this would not be the case, but with a wipe becoming such a core part of the game it has been confirmed that they will continue. There will of course be a lot more things that carry over from wipe to wipe after the 1.0 release, with Nikita revealing that a lot of this will be through the prestige system they plan to implement. Details of what this will entail are very lacking, but he did confirm that we will have to escape from Tarkov in every wipe.
There are also plans to finally connect the maps, with the final map, Terminal, being connected to at least one other map. However, it will not be an open world, like we have seen in Grey Zone Warfare, which seems to be a solid Tarkov competitor.
Before we hit the 1.0 release there should be a rework of the graphics within Tarkov, with Nikita stating that they want to test it before the full release of the game. There will also be fixes for a lot of the current issues that players are experiencing, with most of the issues that Pestily brought up in the interview either being fixed soon or being noted for further investigation, which is a good sign.
Nikita also revealed that Escape From Tarkov will have multiple endings within the story quest line that is being added at release.
If you are a Tarkov fan a lot of what is said in this interview will be of interest and it is worth checking out. But you can expect to hear a lot more information about what is coming in the next few months on the next Tarkov TV episode that Nikita teased to be coming at some point soon.