A surprise round of server maintenance for Escape From Tarkov has been announced, with the game set to go offline for multiple hours later today.
In a post on X the official Escape From Tarkov account announced that server maintenance will take place later today, starting at 11 pm BST / 6 pm EDT and running for around two hours. During this time you will not be able to play Escape From Tarkov and the servers will be down. As with all server downtime, there is a chance that it could be extended if the team runs into issues while updating the game.
There is no word on what is being changed with this downtime, but given that it is listed as maintenance and not a patch or technical update there’s a good chance that there will be no noticeable changes when the game comes back up later today. Hopefully, it is to reduce the massive queue times for the PvE mode, with updates to servers likely being a way to improve those now that all Edge of Darkness owners have access.
That being said, we are expecting a significant new Escape From Tarkov patch in the coming days. During the recent TarkovTV stream, it was revealed that a new patch will arrive in “early June” that will make some smaller changes before the next Tarkov wipe arrives in August.
In a roadmap released on X following the stream, it was confirmed that the early June update will focus on linking Escape From Tarkov and Escape From Tarkov Arena with cross-progression and a new trader for both games being added. Hopefully, this will be the boost that Arena needs to grow the game, as it seems to have lost a lot of players since launching last year.
A rework to the armor system and the ability to purchase the PvE mode as a microtransaction are also expected to launch this month, as well as a lot of balance changes to both the main game and Arena. However, it wouldn’t be a surprise if a lot of these changes were dropped throughout the month rather than just one as has been the case with a lot of smaller changes over the last month or so.
Of course, many fans will now be waiting for the next wipe to arrive in August before returning to play Tarkov. The wipe will likely be smaller than many previous ones due to the team preparing for launch, but we do know that it will include new hideout locations and weapons.
