Michael Beckwith
Published December 2, 2025 10:56am
Updated December 2, 2025 11:00am
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Escaping from Tarkov is really difficult (Battlestate Games)
After eight years, Escape From Tarkov players can finally do what the title says in the new story campaign, but only one has managed to pull it off so far.
Arc Raiders may be the hot new multiplayer extraction shooter video game at the moment, but last month was a big deal for long-time players of Escape From Tarkov as it finally saw a full launch on November 15, after eight years in open beta on PC.
Not only is the game now available on Steam (you used to have to use its own launcher), but the 1.0 update has added a non-linear story campaign that tasks you with escaping from the fictional Russian city of Tarkov. Given that the game had long since cultivated a reputation of being extremely difficult, it’s not surprising that the same applies to the campaign.
That’s why, after all these years, fans have been popping off over somebody becoming the first person in the world to clear the campaign and thus the first player to escape from Tarkov; a feat that even the game’s director has acknowledged… although not without a caveat.
What is Escape From Tarkov?
While it’s not the first of its kind, Escape From Tarkov helped popularise the extraction shooter genre, which is currently more popular than ever. The game sees you play as a member of a private military company, and in its core multiplayer modes, you go into the city to scavenge as much loot as possible and then exit via an extraction area within a time limit.
If you fail to extract, or are killed by another player or computer-controlled enemy, you lose all your loot. Since it aims to be as realistic as possible, even getting shot once can be fatal. The game’s difficulty remains a common talking point, with veteran players warning newcomers that it has a very steep learning curve.
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This is why seeing someone manage to unambiguously escape from Tarkov in the game’s story campaign is such a big deal for the player base, especially since the final mission takes place on a deviously designed new map called Terminal.
Aside from being very tricky to reach in the campaign, it has only one extraction zone, is filled to the brim with aggressive computer-controlled enemies, there are no human players to back you up, and you have no equipment.
Fortunately, the whole thing was streamed live on Twitch for everyone to see, and you can watch the ending below from the 7:55 mark. So it definitely did happen.
The player in question is Escape From Tarkov streamer Tigz, and you can see how even he can hardly believe he did it, as he remains on edge throughout the ending cut scenes, as his character gets on a boat and flees the city before a nuke drops on it.
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Fans watching were unanimously ecstatic, with many typing ‘Cinema’ in all caps and expressing sincere congratulations. Members of the Escape From Tarkov subreddit were equally amazed, with the top comment saying, ‘What a madlad! Now he never has to play this again and can start enjoying life.’
Tigz’s accomplishment, as the first player to escape from Tarkov, has been recognised by the official Escape From Tarkov X account, as well as game director Nikita Buyanov.
However, Buyanov has made it clear that Tigz only managed to get one of four endings (the second worst one, in fact) and has promised that the first player to find the best ending will ‘definitely have something special from me’.
Back in September, during a Q&A session at Tokyo Game Show (per Insider Gaming) , Buyanov went as far to claim that the best ending is so difficult to reach that only 20% of players will ever likely see it.
How long will it take for someone to reach the best ending? (Battlestate Games)
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