Escape From Tarkov fans all over the world are channelling their inner sleuth, desperately trying to work out what Battlestate Games has up its sleeve. Over the last 48 hours, the developer has been teasing its upcoming event by sending players on a wild goose chase both online and offline, through a series of cryptic clues and puzzles.
The event appears to have started with the launch of the Chronicles of Ryzhy video, which gives us an insight into one of the most popular scavs in-game. At the same time, cryptic messages and strings of numbers began appearing on the Automated Radio Relay Service website set up by the developers. It was later revealed that the numbers were coordinates, leading players to real-life locations in the United States, Russia, Turkey, Japan, and France.
Here, they found messages in a bottle, all alluding to different characters in the Escape From Tarkov universe. We’re not quite sure how they link up – or how they relate to the ARRS just yet – but the community is doing its best to crack the code online.
While all of the letters are from different people, they all have one thing in common: they refer to a TerraGroup experiment, in which Sanitar – one of the Escape From Tarkov bosses – is kidnapping employees for human experiments. This is the same experiment that Ryzhy believes his father was kidnapped for.
Fans believe these messages (documented by ‘NoiceGuy’ on Twitter) hold the key to the next stage of the puzzle, but with the ARRS terminal no longer spitting out code, the community has been left stumped. It’s believed the next step is to work out what the username and password is for the terminal, which should, hopefully, reveal what’s in store over the coming days and weeks.
Whether it’s an in-game event that gives Sanitar more agency, a tease for the Lighthouse keeper, a reveal for a Ryzhy NPC, or Streets of Tarkov, or Escape From Tarkov Arena remains to be seen.
One thing’s for sure, though: Battlestate Games is teasing something and it’s going to be big.