The most helpful review from a veteran (10+ hours at review)
▲ Recommended
562 h at review573 h total
15 Jun 2026
As an ex-PVP player, I only play PVE now. It's a peaceful life, as they say; At least, as peaceful as Tarkov can be.
The game has its flaws and AI can be as amazing as it can be horrendous but no other game has that special vibe Tarkov has.
If you have a job and touch grass from time to time, PVE is the way to go. No tryhards, no cheaters and no pressure.
Wanna try PVP? As far as gaming is concerned, you'll never know what true pain is until you try Tarkov PVP. Good luck, you'll need it badly.
The most helpful review from a veteran (10+ hours at review)
▼ Not recommended
632 h at review632 h total
7 Jul 2026
UPDATE AS OF 8/6/2026 at the bottom
After 4k hours of playing this game since 2023 I got false banned on the 1st of June. After a month now of fighting to get this fixed I am just about at my limit. I poured my heart and soul into this game and this community, I bought it again on steam just to have my achievements and hours show on my steam account. I have gone to conventions in cosplay of Killa, I have been an active community member on Twitch and Reddit. To be so belittled and ignored by their support has been insane.
More and more people are talking about the exact same false ban as I am and yet they ignore it at every place. If you message their support through their website you will be ignored with copy paste answers. If you talk about it in the Steam discussion forum they will ban everyone talking about it and just say the ban is justified. They will ban you from their discord for talking about bans. They will block you on twitter which means they are reading the posts but not caring. IF YOU GET THE ERROR 202014 AND YOU GET AN EMAIL THAT SAYS YOU WERE BOTTING YOU ARE 100% GOING TO GET IGNORED BY SUPPORT. THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT REAL PLAYERS. At this point I cannot believe anything other than them running a massive scam ring that functions just to get people to re buy the game because this level of ignorance cannot be unintentional. Either some strange bug is happening with a common program that everyone could have and thus its marking accounts as fairly permanently blocked or they are intentionally banning random players just on the off chance that they will buy it again. More people need to talk about this because in all my years of playing video games I have never ever felt this level of disgust about anything else ever.
EDIT 7/13/2026 7:40 PM: I cant comment on my own review cause I'm banned from the discussion hub. To everyone who thinks false bans are not a thing go actually do some research and you will see that it indeed does happen, Nikita himself has said that false bans are real and they obviously are. LVNDMARK has been false banned with the exact same reason given in the past and he was unbanned in less than an hour. These things happen, but in this case its the absolute disregard from bsg that has disgusted me so.
Also now things are picking up a bit, a streamer called BHorse_ who I actually knew from a streamers chat was false banned same as me. He was able to message the devs and his account is now unbanned, he told me that they know about this and are working on reversing/fixing it but here we are 2 days later and its still going. New posts everyday and or people messaging me asking for help because of my reddit posts about the false bans. People are going through this and im not the only one.
EDIT 7/25/2026:
So one interesting development, a guy who I have been talking to on discord who is dealing with the exact same false ban as me and many others was able to get unbanned. Because he lives in France he was able to request that bsg follow the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) law and requested the data that resulted in him getting banned. Within an hour of sending that email he was unbanned and bsg asked to not go through with the GDPR request........ yeah they really are useless aren't they. They will unban people only because they are threatened to reveal the fact that there is no reason for the false bans. lol. Anyway I guess as an American I can go kick rocks. Cause now they have not responded to any support ticket or email I have sent in weeks.
EDIT 8/2/2026:
Well upon further research the GDPR law applies to everyone and not just EU citizens. I sent an email with a GDPR request for the information that resulted in my ban. On the 30th of July I got a reply requesting all the evidence of my purchase so think receipts and stuff. I provided everything all the way back to PayPal receipt from 2020 from my original purchase all the way to now. Still waiting on a response, but I hope that it means I might get a manual review cause I know im falsely banned.
EDIT 8/6/2026
They responded to my email this morning after I provided all proof of purchase and all they sent to me was a "hardware history" which just lists my GPU's and what version of windows I was on. Nothing else. It seems correct as its all my specs and stuff but the dates make no sense lol it lists entirely random dates pretty much alongside the hardware. No part outlier its all my computer and laptop. But that's it. No confirmation about the screen shots I sent being correct. No added context related to why I was banned. Just "the decision was based on data indicating a breach of the Terms of Service." Ok great except you didn't give me any meaningful data to inform me of what I actually did.... nice. Will update again if they respond to me asking for actual meaningful information like IP login history or location history because they completely failed to abide to my initial GDPR request of data related to my ban. Nothing they provided related to my ban.
Fun game. Really enjoy the PVE.
But pray to god you never need to talk to any support team in this game, or the moderation in the discord. Because no matter how valid your problem is, or how politely you try to word it. You'll be laughed out of the server and timed out by the staff. Submitted a report ticket, my response was along the lines of "We're sorry about your lack of ability to play the game correctly."
Edit:
Just got called a brain dead troglodyte by one of the BSG crew in their discord. Now I understand why this game has such a toxic community. They've learned from the developers.
Edit Two:
As it turns out. The new currency added to the game, called TarCoins. Are only available in PvP. (According to the Reddit, the trusty source of information it 100% is lol) But it also turns out that dataminers figured out that the AI in PvE in Icebreaker (the new event location) are actually twice as aggressive and perceptive to sound. So basically if you're a PvE player. You can get f*cked. You don't get to play the new special events as easily and you don't get access to the new fancy stuff.
UPDATE AS OF 8/6/2026 at the bottom
After 4k hours of playing this game since 2023 I got false banned on the 1st of June. After a month now of fighting to get this fixed I am just about at my limit. I poured my heart and soul into this game and this community, I bought it again on steam just to have my achievements and hours show on my steam account. I have gone to conventions in cosplay of Killa, I have been an active community member on Twitch and Reddit. To be so belittled and ignored by their support has been insane.
More and more people are talking about the exact same false ban as I am and yet they ignore it at every place. If you message their support through their website you will be ignored with copy paste answers. If you talk about it in the Steam discussion forum they will ban everyone talking about it and just say the ban is justified. They will ban you from their discord for talking about bans. They will block you on twitter which means they are reading the posts but not caring. IF YOU GET THE ERROR 202014 AND YOU GET AN EMAIL THAT SAYS YOU WERE BOTTING YOU ARE 100% GOING TO GET IGNORED BY SUPPORT. THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT REAL PLAYERS. At this point I cannot believe anything other than them running a massive scam ring that functions just to get people to re buy the game because this level of ignorance cannot be unintentional. Either some strange bug is happening with a common program that everyone could have and thus its marking accounts as fairly permanently blocked or they are intentionally banning random players just on the off chance that they will buy it again. More people need to talk about this because in all my years of playing video games I have never ever felt this level of disgust about anything else ever.
EDIT 7/13/2026 7:40 PM: I cant comment on my own review cause I'm banned from the discussion hub. To everyone who thinks false bans are not a thing go actually do some research and you will see that it indeed does happen, Nikita himself has said that false bans are real and they obviously are. LVNDMARK has been false banned with the exact same reason given in the past and he was unbanned in less than an hour. These things happen, but in this case its the absolute disregard from bsg that has disgusted me so.
Also now things are picking up a bit, a streamer called BHorse_ who I actually knew from a streamers chat was false banned same as me. He was able to message the devs and his account is now unbanned, he told me that they know about this and are working on reversing/fixing it but here we are 2 days later and its still going. New posts everyday and or people messaging me asking for help because of my reddit posts about the false bans. People are going through this and im not the only one.
EDIT 7/25/2026:
So one interesting development, a guy who I have been talking to on discord who is dealing with the exact same false ban as me and many others was able to get unbanned. Because he lives in France he was able to request that bsg follow the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) law and requested the data that resulted in him getting banned. Within an hour of sending that email he was unbanned and bsg asked to not go through with the GDPR request........ yeah they really are useless aren't they. They will unban people only because they are threatened to reveal the fact that there is no reason for the false bans. lol. Anyway I guess as an American I can go kick rocks. Cause now they have not responded to any support ticket or email I have sent in weeks.
EDIT 8/2/2026:
Well upon further research the GDPR law applies to everyone and not just EU citizens. I sent an email with a GDPR request for the information that resulted in my ban. On the 30th of July I got a reply requesting all the evidence of my purchase so think receipts and stuff. I provided everything all the way back to PayPal receipt from 2020 from my original purchase all the way to now. Still waiting on a response, but I hope that it means I might get a manual review cause I know im falsely banned.
EDIT 8/6/2026
They responded to my email this morning after I provided all proof of purchase and all they sent to me was a "hardware history" which just lists my GPU's and what version of windows I was on. Nothing else. It seems correct as its all my specs and stuff but the dates make no sense lol it lists entirely random dates pretty much alongside the hardware. No part outlier its all my computer and laptop. But that's it. No confirmation about the screen shots I sent being correct. No added context related to why I was banned. Just "the decision was based on data indicating a breach of the Terms of Service." Ok great except you didn't give me any meaningful data to inform me of what I actually did.... nice. Will update again if they respond to me asking for actual meaningful information like IP login history or location history because they completely failed to abide to my initial GDPR request of data related to my ban. Nothing they provided related to my ban.
Don't try to refund the game or their company will permanently ban you... which I did not know. and i've tried to contact their support through email because that is the only way to even get a message through to them and it has been days without getting even a response. ridiculous company
50$ for the base game and another $30 just to play pve.. I bought the game to play PVE and they put it behind a paywall that ONLY unlocks PVE. you get nothing else for an additional $30. greedy devs !
Got Banned for no reason after about an hour of gameplay while i was afk... never got a precise reason for the ban, i just know that its non an anti cheat ban as Im not banned by Battele Eye and i simply don't even use something like colorfilter in the GPU driver or any other way to gain an advantage as it would ruin the spirit of multiplayer games. And im pretty sure that Im not a Bot ;)
BSG support wont help via ticket and when i asked for help on the tarkov community forum i got banned from the forum.
Only thanks to steam i got my money back, the refund policy might be the best thing about steam :)
BSG is one of the scummiest gaming companies, do not buy any of their products: don't make my mistake
Base game if 50 usd, pve expansion on top of it another 30 usd.
They killed SPT because they simply do not know how to make a good single-player experience.
The game itself runs like trash, it needs you to offload part of your computing to a server for some maps because of how bad they would otherwise run, but do not worry you can spend even more money on battlepasses and their godawful microtransactions.
This company doesn't give a ♥♥♥♥ about its players, it's all about the money.
Go ♥♥♥♥ yourself BSG.
As an ex-PVP player, I only play PVE now. It's a peaceful life, as they say; At least, as peaceful as Tarkov can be.
The game has its flaws and AI can be as amazing as it can be horrendous but no other game has that special vibe Tarkov has.
If you have a job and touch grass from time to time, PVE is the way to go. No tryhards, no cheaters and no pressure.
Wanna try PVP? As far as gaming is concerned, you'll never know what true pain is until you try Tarkov PVP. Good luck, you'll need it badly.
unfair, buggy, sus accounts, pure pain...
best weapon/attachment system ever, most realistic guns I've ever seen in a game. Satisfying animations and immersive atmosphere, mil-sim with arcade/loot/boss elements
hardest quests ever created, stupid hard to learn the game, addictive AF and killing players is the most rewarding feeling ever in a video game
probably not the game for you if you have a healthy home life
Game is very punishing and has a steep learning curve. As a new player i found it hard to understand extracts, movement safety, and combat timing which led to a lot of frustrating deaths. Probably very rewarding once learned, but not beginner friendly at all
The addition of a timed battlepass with daily limits is offensive, this isn't a F2P mobile game. Making the limit lower in PvE is not the way to keep player retention.
Latest content update introduced a map that maybe 5% of players can clear.
Then in every subsequent update they made the already overtuned AI on it harder.
BSG constantly change up how AI behaves, like suddenly making it being able to suddenly through smokes or just prefire your face while walking around the corner, And that's AI that beams you with bis ammo and rushes you in a group of 6+ from eight possible angles.
This is beyond ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and until they do something about it, I advise you to stay away. Not worth your nerves.
Not to mention an absolutely atrocious support department that left every one of my 7 tickets with "ah, yes, we know of the problem, we're working on it" with no solution. A solution that they actually had implemented but failed to inform me, defaulting to the basic corporate answer crap.
I love this game, but at some point there is just too much ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to tolerate.
This review will stay negative until something notable changes.
This game has a bad rep for allowing cheating, and I took it as people just venting. But in this case, it's completely warranted. I was dumb and bought it first before doing research and learning it's upwards of 60% of lobbies and they don't even ban cheaters right away. They wait 3 months to arguably allow them to get their money out of the cheats, then do a large ban wave and sell large batches of keys at the same time (how ironic). Basically taking their cut from everyone who made thousands off their cheats, that now have to buy the whole game again and give them their $300 cut... My own fault for purchasing it. At it's core it's a great game, but when your business model "arguably" revolves around people cheating for your income... it's not really playable, and yes, I play other milsims and sit at about a 2.0 in those. It's mathematically almost impossible to go down to a .1 in hundreds of hours and be getting a random grenade tossed into a room where you haven't moved in 5 minutes. I know this will be spammed with the git gud crap, but fair warning to all those contemplating it.... don't... the rumors are true that this game is a literal blue collar job for cheaters who literally make a living off of it.
