PVE Timmy / lvl 43 / max lvl traders / Max hideout / EOD edition (1200 hours outside steam / ~800 hours in SPT)
I tested a lot of things in the release version, and my review will cover all the points that led me to leave a negative review. (Ofc with some emotional drama but I tried my best to make sure my complaints are justified from the perspective of PVE player)

1. Most non story achievements are broken; some simply cannot be completed, some others pop up, but after leaving the raid, these achievements are displayed as uncompleted with fulfilled conditions. (ofc without steam achievement completion) also those bugged achievements will pop up every time you start a raid on BSG servers. I bought steam version mostly because of achievements and I got this.

2. There is no prestige in PVE because quote: “there is nothing prestigious about playing PVE.” Okay lets get rid of kappa quest for PVE, lets remove option for hideout and character customisation for PVE because PVE players don't deserve content if they wanna play less broken game... I got it. A poll on your social media showed that people mostly prefer PVE because it's more enjoyable and their experience doesn't depend on factors like cheaters, network errors, long matchmaking and people who prefer to camp quest spots and extraction points. This game is perfect for COOP PVE, but for some reason, the developers treat PVE mode like an annoying burden. I think it's dumb to cut content for PVE if people are paying more to play it.

3. PMC AI is still broken, they will fully lock on you and shoot from a distance of more than 500 meters through foliage just because you happened to look in their direction. I heard that they have an AI of a raiders from labs or reserve bunker, it's CQB zones where it's make sense that they instantly react on you if you lose barriers between you two, but on open maps it breaks the immersion. (UPDATE: It seems like they've changed their behavior for the winter season or in general. Now I can track PMC bots with my scope from a long distance, and they won't shoot at me right away. Plus, in the last 3-4 raids, they didn't shoot in situations where there was no clear visual contact through the foliage.)

4. Tarkov Arena... Imagine buying game and PVE dlc for it just to find out that some content for this game can only be obtained through grind in different game that have nothing to do with what you originally bought. And lol, If you buy battlepass or bother with opening content in it, you will be surprised that most of the content you open in Arena - is locked on trader Ref lvl 4 in base game, that means you will only get desired stuff if you grind arena for ~100+ hours. And it will be like that every time you wipe your profile. Plus there is no way for you to get missed content from Arena because it won't spawn on PMC bots (the exception is TEP 300 headphones that have a chance of spawn on some bosses).

5. Story quests and progression. Even in PVE you will get errors in dialogues with traders and some bugs with quest items, but it's not the main problem, main problem is time locks for each quest. 8 hours of crafting, 30 hours of waiting, 54 hours of crafting, find cultists that spawn once per 30 raids, 24 hours of waiting, 11 hours of crafting, 70 hours of hideout module upgrade, 11 hours of crafting, 50 hours of crafting, and even MORE hours and tricks just to artificially slow down your progress... I think this needs no comment, because it's just stupid. Rn I have a cool, refreshing queue of 3 crafts (50 hours, 6 hours and 11 hours) exciting right?

I love this game for it's atmosphere, every loot item, strong soundtrack, detailed world with cool interactions, amazing mechanics and setting. It's unique and it could be great hardcore tactical RPG looter sandbox, but devs think its more cool and "hardcore" to keep the game 35fps bug mess that poorly managed and plagued with fun-restrictions and bad decisions.

Before the release I mostly played SPT "Single Player Tarkov" (third party mod that even verify that you have license version of the game) It is more stable, more fun, you can adjust game balance and make it casual or make it more hardcore (not with bugs and errors as the devs do), you can unlock all paid and unobtainable limited time content that you got flashed with in the game UI sometimes (and prestige stuff also shown to you but you have no option to earn it in PVE). Also, you can install mods with even more content, fun stuff, restriction removes or balance adjustments and it was peak fun with no network errors + good fps. But there is no build for release version yet. I hope it will be made soon.

I Came Back… and Somehow It’s Even Worse

I played Escape from Tarkov about 2–3 years ago and quit back then because the amount of cheaters was just insane. You literally couldn’t play the game normally. Moving slowly, being quiet, playing tactically, none of that mattered when someone with cheats sees you through walls and drops a grenade on your head with perfect precision while you’re crouch-walking behind a building. It felt ridiculous, frustrating, and honestly just mentally draining.

For context, this isn’t coming from someone who played for an hour and rage-quit. I have over 200 hours on Steam already, and back in the day I probably had another 500–600 hours. I really wanted to like this game. I invested the time. It just didn’t pay off.

Battlestate kept saying they were “working on it” back then. Same story every time: we’re improving anti-cheat, we’re taking action, things will get better. And since the game finally launched on Steam, I thought, alright, maybe now they actually fixed something.

Nope. If anything, it feels worse than before.

But cheaters aren’t the only problem now. The whole in-game economy feels messed up. There are all these artificial restrictions where you suddenly can’t buy or sell certain items unless you hit a specific level. It was already painful enough when you had no access to the flea market until level 15, but now with extra limitations it’s even harder to make money. The early game is just miserable, you’re broke, stuck with scraps, and the game keeps telling you “come back when you level up.” It completely kills the fun.

And then there are the errors. Constant random errors. Crashing out of raids, bugs while managing the hideout, weird issues that break the flow completely. It just feels unstable in ways it absolutely shouldn’t.

So yeah… after coming back hoping for improvements, I honestly regret even reinstalling it. Between the cheaters, the awful economic changes, and all the technical issues, I can’t recommend this game to anyone. At this point I’m done. I'm dropping this so-called “game” and uninstalling it.

played the game for 2000 hours across multiple wipes since 2021 and im disappointed that the long awaited and incredibly hyped up 1.0 full release basically addresses none of the game ruining problems that have plagued tarkov for years at this point.

As much as i love this game and will probably continue to play it (although nowhere near as much as i have historically) i cannot in good faith recommend it to anyone thinking of getting into it because of its "full steam release". The level of polish on the game is nowhere close to what you would expect from a product thats been in constant development for over 7 years.

The performance is mediocre at the best of times, cheaters are of course still running rampant, audio (despite being reworked countless times at this point) is still just plain ♥♥♥♥, bugs that happen every second raid that have been in the game since i began playing are still unpatched (scavs gltiching through doors, loot being unsearchable in containers/bodies), and the most glaring issue of all in my opinion: matchmaking. its a complete joke that you spend 5-10 minutes gearing up for a match, and can then spend 20 minutes in a loading screen for a match that has a MAXIMUM playtime of 30 minutes. All in all you spend more time preparing and waiting to play the game than you do actually playing it.

Again all of these problems arent new and also arent unheard of among the community or devs. It is in my opinion a completely unnacceptable betrayal to your longtime supporters who have spent hundreds of dollars on deluxe editions of the game to release your highly anticipated flagship title in such an undercooked state. It truly hurts to have to say i cannot recommend the game considering how many fun moments and good times ive had in this game. But the truth is that there are now more polished and easily enjoyable games on the market. Which in a way is a good thing, I believe that part of the reason tarkov has stagnated in this way is due to lack of any real competition. I hope that other studios can push BSG to greater heights and i eagerly await the day i can recommend the game again.