The patch notes for Escape From Tarkov 14.5 have been released, and they bring some big changes to both the Woods map and the new map Ground Zero, with a BTR being added to the former.
The biggest changes in the 14.5 patch notes come to Woods, one of the older Tarkov maps that doesn’t get changed all that often. But now it has been given its biggest addition in years, with the arrival of the BTR vehicle that was previously only available on the Streets of Tarkov map.
The BTR will travel around Woods, stopping at the following locations; Scav Bunker, Sunken Village, Old Sawmill, Sawmill, USEC Checkpoint, Emercom Base and Junction. To enable this travel, the gates at the Northern and Southern UN Roadblock exits have been opened to allow the BTR to travel off the map to get around. However, these areas are now under sniper protection so you will be shot if you try to get out of the map on foot. The BTR’s suspension has also been updated given it will no longer only be on the perfectly flat roads on Streets of Tarov.
Away from Woods, the biggest changes come to Ground Zero, the newest map in Escape From Tarkov. As previously promised, the map is no longer unavailable to PMCs once you hit level 20 with a separate matchmaking queue being added for higher-level players. When you queue in for Ground Zero over level 20 you will get a slightly adjusted version of the map that features smarter scavs, better loot, the possibility of airdrops and the possibility of boss Kollontay spawning.
The map has also been added to some later game quests that require you to do tasks on every map such as A Shooter Born in Heaven, The Guide, Peacekeeping Mission, The Survivalist Path – Eagle-Owl, Escort, Slaughterhouse and Information Source.
It also seems that Battlestate Games has already thought up how this dual queue for Ground Zero could be manipulated, and made it so that if any member of your party is over level 20 the entire group will be put into the level 20 or above matchmaking pool. This means that there is no way for players over level 20 to sneak into the lower-level matches to kill new players.
Elsewhere in the patch, the seasons system has been properly implemented which will see the game transition through the seasons of a year. We are currently back to having snow thanks to the current in-game event, but eventually, we will hit spring and then into summer with the new system changing the way Tarkov looks.
Rounding out the 14.5 patch notes are a lot of quality-of-life changes and fixes, including improvements to the sound system, more lighting changes to the mall on Interchange and an overhaul to the skills page giving you more useful information on how to level them up.
