Escape From Tarkov wipes always bring new and old players back into the fold and December’s was no exception. However, with an influx of players comes an influx of cheating – something developer Battlestate Games has been tackling for the last four weeks.
In fact, Battlestate has banned more than 40,000 cheaters since the start of this year – a huge amount considering we’re not even all the way through January yet. In a status update posted to Reddit, Nikita Buyanov, Battlestate’s COO, says the team has been busy banning players and texture hacks, all while working on new detection systems.
The team has also been busy stablising the servers and improving backend infrastructure so that players can continue their raids in peace without worrying about desync and FPS drops. Part of this process involves moving Escape From Tarkov to Unity 2019, which Buyanov says will “give more room to game optimisation in the future.”
The status update also gives us an indication of what’s to come in the future, and it seems that Battlestate has some pretty big plans. While the list confirms that Streets of Tarkov, the map shown off at the PC Gaming Show last year, has been delayed again, it suggests that the first iteration of Scav Karma is just around the corner, as is the first Storyline Quest.
A Factory expansion has also been confirmed in the update, along with a scary new boss – something that should put the rats off lurking in the shadows at least.