The best early game gun in Escape from Tarkov

Escape from Tarkov (EFT) is becoming increasingly popular with each passing day. As such, tons of new players are logging in and trying their hand at Battlestate Games’ FPS looter-shooter. However, the game doesn’t give many tutorials or tips, so you’re left to figure out the game’s intricacies by yourself. While you can navigate the menu anytime you want, it’s in-game mechanics that many players want to know about.

So, if you’re struggling to earn kills or make it out alive in EFT, fear not. We’ve got a guide on the best early game gun: the Mosin Nagant Sniper Rifle.

Where to get the Mosin in Escape from Tarkov

At the start, Escape from Tarkov will only equip you with some pistols and an AkS-74U Submachine Gun. While not awful options, you’ll be hard-pressed to secure any kills on enemy PMCs with those weapons. So, naturally, you’ll want to upgrade as soon as possible.

Though there are a few different routes you can take, we suggest going the overpowered way. The Mosin Nagant Sniper Rifle has long been considered one of the top guns in EFT. It’s accurate, deals a high amount of damage, and doesn’t cost too much to buy.

If you’re looking to purchase the Mosin, head on over to Prapor from the Trading menu. You’ll first want to examine everything Prapor has to offer, as this will help later. Next, locate the Mosin that is available for sale in exchange for Roubles. It should cost 26,856 Roubles to buy the Mosin.

Unless you’ve bought a plethora of EFT‘s other weapons already, you should have that cash on-hand. Once you buy it, you can look into upgrading the weapon with various attachments, such as a stock, barrel, mount, etc. However, if you want to buy ammunition for the Mosin, you’ll need to level up Prapor’s reputation to level 4.

You could also participate in some Scav runs to secure ammunition. The Mosin takes 7.62x54r ammo, which can be commonly found on enemy players. If you’re lucky enough to find ammo, then you’re all set! The Mosin is best at medium range, so try to keep it at that distance.

That’s it for this gun guide! Make sure to keep up with Daily Esports for all Escape from Tarkov coverage!

How to download and start playing Escape from Tarkov

Battlestate Games’ Escape from Tarkov (EFT) is quickly becoming one of the most popular titles in the FPS scene. Praised for its modern twist on survival RPGs, the game is captivating new gamers around the world each day. Set in the ruined city of Tarkov, players must try to navigate their way out of different maps with the most loot possible. However, there are up to 11 other real players and numerous NPCs looking to take your loot. As EFT grows in popularity, more and more people are trying their hand at the game. Here, we’ll help you to download and start playing the game.

Where to download Escape from Tarkov

Escape from Tarkov isn’t available on any major website or application like Steam or the Epic Games Store. Instead, Battlestate Games has its own website and launcher for the title, similarly to how Fortnite does it. As of right now, Escape from Tarkov is only available for PC. Also, keep in mind EFT is currently in open beta, so expect some bugs and glitches.

If you’re looking to download EFT, head over to EscapeFromTarkov.com. The website itself has been a bit buggy as of late with so many people attempting to purchase the game, as a warning. Once you’re on the website, look for the icon that says “Pre-Order” and click on it.

Next, you can peruse which edition of the game you would like to buy. The Standard Edition is $44 and comes with some basic supplies for the game. Above that, the Left Behind Edition is $74, the Ready for Escape Edition is $99, and the Edge of Darkness Edition is $139. The higher the edition, the more stash space you acquire and the better starting loot you receive.

After you pick which version to buy, follow the payment steps the website lays out for you. If you’re all set and paid, make your way to your Profile page and hit the install button, which downloads the Battlestate Games Launcher.

Once the launcher is downloaded, log in to your account and download Escape from Tarkov. The game is around 10 GB, which isn’t anything too meaty. You can only access EFT from the launcher, so don’t delete that once it’s finished downloading. If all goes well, you should see an option to play Escape from Tarkov!

Make sure to stay up to date with Daily Esports for all future Escape from Tarkov coverage.

Escape from Tarkov creator gives terrible excuse for not including playable female characters

We’re in a brand-new decade, but that hasn’t stopped some video game developers from falling back on inexcusable explanations for why you can’t play as female characters in certain games. This time, it’s courtesy of Escape from Tarkov creator Battlestate Games, which offered two convenient excuses for why — despite the requests of many players — it will not let you play as a female character in its ultra-realistic military survival sim.

Excuse number one is that, as the Russian-based developer explained on Twitter, playable female characters can’t be included “because of game lore.” It’s not exactly clear what that means, but Battlestate seems to be suggesting that its game, which is set in a fictional region of Russia and features an armed conflict between fictional private military companies, doesn’t have a narrative that supports female combatants.

That’s despite the insurmountable narrative evidence of female characters who are present in pretty much every piece of post-apocalyptic fiction ever made — because, you know, women exist — and in basically every other military survival sim and battle royale shooter on the market.

Excuse number two is a bit more forthright: “there will be no playable female characters because of... the huge amount of work needed with animations, gear fitting etc.”

The developer is getting predictably eviscerated on social media, especially considering its previous tweet seemed to suggest it had no problem animating in non-playable female characters for storyline quests, thus undermining its “lore” excuse.

It’s also curious that Battlestate is only responding to the idea now because a three-year-old interview with an employee of the development team had been recirculating online in which the employee insisted women couldn’t cut it in the high-tension environment of Tarkov. “We came to the conclusion that women can’t handle that amount of stress,” Battlestate dev Pavel Dyatlov said at the time. “There’s only place for hardened men in this place.” Battlestate has since said the employee was “reprimanded and properly instructed,” presumably only in how to talk to the press.

Battlestate’s response here is not a new one. Nearly a decade ago, developers were making the same exact excuses, most notably back in 2014 when Ubisoft creative director Alex Amancio said Assassin’s Creed Unity wouldn’t feature female playable characters in its four-player co-op mode because it would add “a lot of extra production work.” Of course, future Assassin’s Creed games — including Syndicate, which was released a year later — featured female protagonists. This was conveniently after former Ubisoft animator Jonathan Cooper chimed in amid the controversy in June 2014 to say it would take “a day or two’s work” to add playable female models.

Series like Gears of War, once a testosterone-fueled military series, just released its fifth installment with a playable female main character. Even games like Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds, a game that, like Escape from Tarkov, launched in early access and also remained plagued by bugs and technical issues for months on end, had the resources and insight to include playable female characters from the beginning. It’s also worth noting that Battlefield developer EA DICE had to vigorously fight its own fan base to include playable female soldiers in 2018’s Battlefield V, despite the historical evidence supporting it.

Although it shouldn’t need to be said, women have been able to participate in active military service — yes, even in Russia — for decades now. Perhaps Battlestate should take a few immersion cues from the real-world history of planet Earth; here’s a Wikipedia page to start.

Escape From Tarkov is a hit, despite the developer repeatedly shooting itself in the foot

Tarkov is like being a grizzled, Russian dragon amassing a hoard of treasure—except it's all guns instead of gold.

Instead a 100-person deathmatch format, Escape From Tarkov's "raids" have a different objective: get out alive. You (and possibly your friends) spawn on one side of an expansive map, are given an exfiltration point on the opposite side, and have anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes to get there depending on the map. Along the way, you'll cross paths with up to 14 other players trying to reach their own exfiltration zones, bandits who are typically controlled by the computer but are sometimes actual players, and loot. Lots of ridiculously tempting loot.

While the primary goal is to stay alive and escape, items and equipment don't disappear when the match is over. Everything you have with you can be stored in a stash and used on subsequent raids, sold to NPC merchants for cash or to complete quests, or traded to other players via the Flea Market. It's like being a grizzled, Russian dragon amassing a hoard of treasure—except it's all guns instead of gold, and in order to get more you have to gamble what you already have. If you've played Hunt: Showdown, this will sound somewhat familiar.

In order to offset the risk of dying and losing everything on my body, scavenging becomes absolutely necessary. While the usual stuff like guns, ammo, and clothing have their value, even a can of condensed milk can fetch an astonishingly high payout from one of the NPC vendors. Those who learn how to hunt and survive will slowly amass an arsenal of high-end tactical armor, weapons kitted with advanced mods, and enough rubles to cover the cost of a raid gone bad.

Not me, though. I'm so poor and terrified of losing what meager wealth I've acquired that most times I'm headed into a raid with just a pistol and a dream. Even after 15hours, I've failed to survive a single proper raid.

Below: Even NPC Scavs can have ridiculously good aim now and again (all these gifs have sound).

Fortunately, there's the option to play as a Scav, one of the raiders typically controlled by the computer that wander around as juicy loot piñatas for players courageous enough to take a shot and risk giving away their location. As a Scav, I'm given a random loadout of gear and the same objective to escape alive. If I succeed (which I've managed to do a few times), I get to keep everything I have on me. It's a valuable way for new players to learn the game or to help those who might have gone destitute after a bad losing streak get back on their feet. But even the times I was lucky enough to spawn with body armor and a decent assault rifle, death was almost always assured. 

Geared up 

Combat in Escape From Tarkov takes most of its cues from hardcore military sims like Arma but with an even greater emphasis on simulating how you manage your gear. Instead of just running over to a dead player and quickly pulling items into your backpack and moving on, you have to first spend valuable seconds searching the pack, revealing silhouetted items that have to be individually identified before you know exactly what they are. Tarkov turns every opportunity to loot something into an agonizingly slow series of tough decisions and it's great.

I once found an incredibly valuable silencer, for example, but didn't have any spare inventory slots to carry it. I thought my only option was to ditch healing items and hope I didn't take a bullet. I then realized that two of my magazines were each half spent, so I took the bullets out of one, loaded them into the other, and dropped the empty mag with the remaining ammo to make room for the silencer. That whole time I was a sitting duck.

Getting good at that kind of inventory tetris is very satisfying. I'm starting to recognize most of the hundreds of possible items with just a glance, knowing their purpose and, more importantly, their value—an equation that becomes a lot more complicated when I'm not simply appraising whether one gun is better than the other. I never thought I'd see the day where I'd give up a spare helmet because I found a graphics card, which fetches a considerable sum from other players or NPC vendors.

Below: With so many items to find, it's not always easy to tell what's the most valuable.

That's not even close to how absurdly detailed Tarkov's inventory system gets, though. Every one of the dozens of assault rifles, SMGs, and shotguns can be broken down into its constituent parts like gas tubes, dust covers, grisp, rails, sights, stocks, muzzle breaks—oh god, it's overwhelming. Keeping track of these pieces, their upgraded counterparts, what functions they serve, and what guns they're designed for is daunting, but I also love that Tarkov treats weapons as the highly complicated machines they are.Tarkov turns every opportunity to loot something into an agonizingly slow series of tough decisions and it's great.

The attention to detail extends to how guns handle. Glancing at the control menu made my eyes glaze over the first time, but I've come to appreciate all the ways I can maneuver myself and my gun. The mouse wheel, for example, is used to control how fast I move and how much noise I make, but it can also be used to determine just how low I'm crouching so I can get that perfect angle over a piece of cover.

Because Tarkov doesn't give you an ammo counter like in most shooters, not counting your shots or looting guns and magazines is risky until you take the time to count each bullet using your inventory screen. Fortunately, I can press a button to have my character eject the magazine and weigh it, giving me an approximation of how full it is. One time I looted a shotgun just as I heard footsteps behind me. With just a split second to react, I pressed the button to glance in the chamber, saw there was a round, and blasted my would-be ambusher.

While I'm aware of Escape From Tarkov's reputation for unstable netcode and frequent lag spikes, my experience so far has been smooth—especially when I think back to the glitchy nightmare of DayZ's pre-release state. Aside from a few crashes while loading into a map (I was always able to reconnect and get back into the raid), I haven't encountered many bugs, which is promising.

Below: Managing your stash can be time-intensive, but it's satisfying to own so much loot.

Field surgery 

As if Tarkov wasn't complicated enough, its health system is just as modular as its guns. Like Fallout 4, each limb has its own set of health points. Taking damage might fracture a limb or cause blood loss, requiring bandages or a splint to fix. If a limb's health is reduced to zero (it only takes a shot or two with most guns) all sorts of nasty effects will begin to hinder your combat effectiveness. Lose a leg and you'll have to limp to extraction. Get hit in the torso and your character will begin wheezing, giving away your position. When these complicated systems like inventory management and health start to overlap in the midst of a firefight is how Escape From Tarkov's obsession for detail and realism create brilliant moments of tension.

During a recent Scav run, I was dismayed to realize my only weapon was a Saiga-9, a semi-automatic SMG designed for "shooting sports and plinking"—which can be roughly translated to mean fucking worthless. Still, I forged on and came across nearly 100,000 rubles worth of gear and made it to my extraction site.

Below: Being severely wounded makes you a loud and very easy target.I just wish Tarkov had in-game voice communication (it's an upcoming feature) because I love the idea of diffusing a stand-off with some hasty diplomacy.

Just when I was a dozen or so meters away, a player ambushed me from around a corner and we both unleashed hell. Miraculously I survived, though I was severely wounded. Taking cover behind a shed, I was able to patch up the bleeding in my leg but I was dangerously low on health. I went over to my victim and looted his body and laughed when I discovered he was also cursed with a Saiga-9. 

Taking what I could, including an expensive piece of armor, I rounded a corner only to find another player staring straight at me from across the road. We exchanged fire as I turned for cover, but in that brief moment I'd taken nearly fatal damage. My leg and stomach had been torn to bits, leaving me with a nasty limp, a loud cough. I quickly popped a painkiller to fight the tremors and reduce my wheezing.

Backing away from my second attacker, I tried to flank around the wall separating us in desperate hope I might get the angle on them, but they weren't there. Unsure of what to do, I pushed forward into a bush and went prone. So badly damaged and with so much good loot, my only hope was that this other player was as startled by me as I was of him and also didn't want to continue the fight. Laying in the bushes, I swapped out my body armor to the new one I had looted, dragging over magazines and spare ammo into the chest pouches. Then I waited.

Below: Firefights happen fast. I only won this one because my enemy ended up having a wildly inaccurate AK-74u.

That kind of limp across the finish line doesn't feel possible in other battle royales where elimination, not escape, is the only objective. I just wish Tarkov had in-game voice communication (it's an upcoming feature) because I love the idea of diffusing a stand-off with some hasty diplomacy. But even in its unfinished state, Tarkov unearths a new vein of potential for online shooters.Five agonizing minutes went by and the time limit on the raid was almost up. It was time to run—or limp—for it. Getting up, I stumbled across the barren parking lot to my extraction zone. The 60 seconds it took were so stressful my actual stomach hurt too, but I was too sluggish to take a safer route. I still can't believe I made it out alive.

3 beginner tips to help you start off in Escape from Tarkov

So far, Escape from Tarkov (EFT) is the biggest game of the new year. Bringing in over 200,000 viewers on Twitch at all hours of the day, EFT has taken the gaming world by storm. While a lot of it has to do with the holiday drop system on Twitch, people are still playing the game even though the event has concluded. It’s taken a couple of years, but the community is starting to realize how enjoyable, yet painstakingly difficult, EFT can be. As such, there are thousands of first-time players hopping on EFT and simply don’t know what to do. If you fall into this category, we’ve got some beginner tips to help get you started.

1. Start playing in Offline Mode.

Escape from Tarkov offers little to no tutorial for most of its features. From the Trading system to your Hideout, you’re currently left to figure out most aspects for yourself.

Though it can be daunting at first, EFT really boils down to a few simple concepts. The best way to learn those concepts is to spend time navigating the menu and playing in Offline Mode. Many players don’t even know Offline Mode exists since the game doesn’t tell you about it.

It essentially is a world filled with only NPCs or “Scavs,” as they’re called. If you die to one of the Scavs, you don’t lose any loot, so it doesn’t matter. Offline Mode allows you to explore each map, learn the Extraction Points, and figure out where some of the best loot is.

You can access Offline Mode by clicking on your desired map, clicking next twice, then choosing the option to play Offline. You can also set how many Scavs are on the map and their difficulty level.

2. Examine everything available to you.

From the Escape from Tarkov start menu, you’ll see the Trading option, which you want to click on. Within the Trading menu are eight different kinds of dealers, the Flea Market, and the Auction. Although, we’re more concerned with the dealers.

Each dealer sells and buys different kinds of loot. For example, Therapist sells medicine, maps, and other items that may be useful to you. Though, upon first looking at Therapist’s offerings, you’ll see that most of her contents are blacked out. This is because you haven’t examined those items yet.

To examine an item, click the middle-mouse button or right-click and press Examine. This will allow you to see that particular item in both the menu and in-game. Spend some time examining everything each dealer has to offer. Doing this makes it so you don’t have to examine a certain item in the middle of a match.

3. Learn the Customs map first.

While you’re open to explore a few different maps, learning Customs will give you a bigger advantage. Customs is one of the middle-tier maps in terms of difficulty, but many of your early quests will involve going to Customs. Quests are tasks in Escape from Tarkov given out by dealers that give you XP and increase your reputation with that dealer.

The faster you’re able to learn Customs, the easier each quest will be. To give yourself a little boost, head into Offline Mode like mentioned above and explore each nook and cranny.

Those are our beginner tips for Escape from Tarkov! Keep up with Daily Esports for all EFT coverage.

In the final week of 2019, a nearly 3-year-old video game called Escape From Tarkov rocketed to the top of Twitch. It hurtled past names like League of Legends, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, and even Fortnite to become the most-viewed title on the world’s most popular game streaming platform. So what’s this game all about? Why has it taken so long to catch on? And why has the team of developers behind it, a Russian-based group called Battlestate Games, become so controversial?

A HARDCORE SURVIVAL SHOOTER ...

Escape From Tarkov (EFT for short) was introduced to the world via Twitch stream in late May 2016. At its core, the game is a hardcore tactical first-person shooter. The developers pride themselves on the game’s ballistics, modeling things like ricochets and bullet penetration. Damage is location-specific, so wounds to the leg will slow you down and getting hit in the arm will impact your aim. Taking rounds in a limb is a best-case scenario, though, because by and large, hits to your head or center mass will prove fatal.

That’s where EFT’s elaborate gear system comes to the fore. Throughout the course of play you’ll come upon all sorts of modern military kit, from load-bearing vests and plate carriers to full-face bulletproof helmets. Choosing what you wear into a session changes your tactics considerably, especially when you’re teamed up with other players. That complexity is mirrored in the game’s weapon customization system, which includes features for swapping out virtually every component on a gun, right down to the trigger action itself.

In this way, EFT situates the kind of fetishistic gun porn usually reserved for games in the Call of Duty franchise or VR shooters like Onward alongside methodical, skill-based tactical action common in high-level Rainbow Six Siege, Sniper Elite 4, or Arma 3 play. There’s also a gambling mechanic of sorts, since what you take with you into a match can be looted by other players and vice versa.

But EFT goes a step further, adding in elements of survival games like DayZ and massively multiplayer online (MMO) games like World of Warcraft. You need to forage for food and water to stay alive, and everything you do in-game will help to improve your character’s stats. You can even select perks that give you an advantage in the endgame.

... WITH A LONG PERIOD IN BETA

EFT is still in beta, even though it’s been playable for several years. That means regular server wipes, with stats and inventories being zeroed out so players have to start from scratch.

But, more problematically, that means the gameplay experience has been a bit uneven. The game is known for its notoriously finicky netcode, which tends to throw a wrench into the high-stakes action by causing players to lag, teleport, vanish, or otherwise misbehave against their will.

Late in 2019 came word of a big update for EFT. Known as the .12 patch, it added a new map, a bunch of quality-of-life features, and a hideout where players can hang out between sessions. Most importantly, it also moved the whole project over to the latest version of the Unity game engine, laying the groundwork for Battlestate Games to begin the arduous process of improving EFT’s network and server-side systems.

A MARKETING BLITZ BEGAN AROUND NEW YEAR’S ...

To support the release of the .12 patch, the team at Battlestate went on a marketing blitz, the end result of which is the sudden popularity on Twitch that we saw last week.

Part one of that blitz was the continuation of a thrilling live-action miniseries on YouTube called Raid. The first episode was released in March 2019 and has racked up more than 2.3 million views. The most recent episode, released this week, has nearly 500,000 already. Taken together, the three episodes of Raid help to fill in the backstory of this unusual game world, which focuses on a small unit proxy war between Western and Russian private military contractors. Episode 3 in particular even comes close to recreating the game’s original CG trailer from 2015.

Part two of that marketing blitz was a brief partnership with Twitch. Using the platform’s Twitch Drops feature, those who connected their Twitch accounts to their EFT accounts were able to earn in-game items just for watching streamers play the game. That created a kind of gold rush for fans and streamers alike. EFT quickly rose up the Twitch charts, with heavyweights like Dr. DisRespect getting in on the action.

Battlestate itself presumably sold quite a few copies of EFT thanks to all the attention. But it’s hard to tell how successful the program really was at boosting sales. The game is only available for purchase directly from the developer. Since it isn’t sold on Steam or any other digital platforms, the public has virtually zero visibility into how many copies are being sold.

... HAS BROUGHT ATTENTION TO THE DEVELOPER’S ERRATIC BEHAVIOR

All of this interest in Escape From Tarkov has brought renewed attention to the erratic behavior of the employees at Battlestate Games. Over the years it’s run the gamut from casual sexism to abuse of U.S. law.

In 2018, Battlestate made headlines for willfully abusing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in order to punish a YouTuber critical of its game.

“We know what this instrument is designed for,” a representative for Battlestate told Polygon at the time, referring to the DMCA claim system that YouTube offers for copyright holders to pull down content for legal review. “We had to use this tool in order to stop the wave of misinformation. [...] We don’t want to scare off anybody, it was applied to only this person and only in this case.”

But after a month of investigation, Polygon discovered that Battlestate had repeatedly used the DMCA system against other YouTubers. Two more content creators came forward to show that dozens of strikes had been filed against them illegally, impacting their income and their livelihoods. Neither Battlestate nor its associated company, AbsoluteSoft, responded to Polygon’s additional requests for comment.

Then, on Dec. 30, just as the Twitch Drops promotion was in full swing, a Battlestate team member pointed a real gun to his head during a livestream on Twitch and pulled the trigger, feigning a suicide attempt. The stunt got the company’s channel banned. Polygon has reached out to Twitch to see when, or even if, it will be reinstated.

The most recent incident is actually among the oldest. In 2016, Battlestate’s Pavel Dyatlov was asked by website Wccftech if his company would be adding female avatars to the game. Dyatlov said that “women can’t handle that amount of stress” — referring to warfare — and concluded that “there’s only place for hardened men” in EFT.

After receiving pressure on social media, Battlestate walked back those comments this week. In a series of tweets, a representative said that the studio respects female soldiers and their role in historical and modern conflicts. But, just as it seemed to be opening the door to a more progressive stance, the developer slammed it shut once more. Adding female avatars, Battlestate said, would simply be too much work. The comments bring to mind the controversy surrounding the Assassin’s Creed franchise way back in 2014.

WHERE DOES ESCAPE FROM TARKOV GO FROM HERE?

Outside of its multiple self-inflicted public relations injuries, the biggest speed bump for EFT is its stately pace of development. Fans have been begging for improved server stability for years, and the amount of attention being given to the game is only adding to their frustration. Wait times to enter the game spiked last week during the Twitch promotion. It’s up to Battlestate to capitalize on this sudden attention, and pour money and time back into the product in order to improve the performance.

Aside from that, only time will tell if the big names in Twitch streaming will stay with the game. But the big marketing push seems to be working in the short term. At the time of publication, Escape From Tarkov sits as the fourth most-watched game on that platform, just behind the personality-driven Just Chatting channel.