Hardcore looter-shooter MMO Escape from Tarkov got a long-awaited update this week, and it’s a big one: Version 0.8 adds a brand new location, the Interchange, plus tons of new gear, weapons, and skills to the closed beta.
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The star of the update is the Interchange location, a meeting point of multiple highways that features an enormous shopping mall. The mall is truly immense, and the overall map feels like the area was abandoned much more recently than what we’ve seen in Tarkov so far. Sandbags and other fortifications inside the mall indicate that it was used to station troops, and some areas were apparently converted to act as a field hospital and ready fighting positions.
Unfortunately, right now Scav NPCs are not implemented in the map, and players can’t yet use it in Scav mode, so you’ll have to explore it with your main character for now.
In terms of gear, the update includes several notable additions. There’s the Springfield Armory M1A, a 7.62mm assault rifle; the Remington Model 870 pump-action shotgun; the Stechkin automatic pistol or APS; the 100 series of Kalashnikov rifles; and several others.
There’s also now a basic training tutorial mode to help new players learn how to play Tarkov a bit more efficiently, and there are new mechanics and animations for loading cartridges into magazines and checking firing chambers.
Battestate Games say they’ve also begun testing some new rendering methods and physics systems that should help client performance, potentially adding some much-needed frames per second to the experience.
You can check out the full patch notes here, or get the highlights in video form (along with some sludgy guitar) above. Escape from Tarkov is still in closed beta, but you can buy in now if you’re eager to check it out for yourself.