Tarkov’s Arena Mode Might Officially Be Dead

Tarkov’s Arena mode has been out for 7 months now. In that timeframe, we have seen the hype for Arena go from unparalleled, down to mere whispers and echoes of what BSG set out to create with the alternative mode of play for Tarkov. It was supposed to be an extension of proper Tarkov; something that was going to compliment the game. Allowing veterans of the game to have something else to play and engage with that was new and refreshing. And it also was going to help newcomers into Tarkov become more familiar with the battle mechanics and help boost their confidence to go and play the real game. But the reality of the situation is that BSG couldn’t execute on their idea for a battle arena style mode for Tarkov well enough on launch, and is now and has been since day one, playing catch up trying to recoup the losses both in terms of player retention numbers, as well as the financial numbers. Making Arena wasn’t cheap; and neither was the amount they spent on promotion for the game mode across various conventions. Speaking for only myself, I never wanted Arena to fail and die off, but this is unfortunately a harsh lesson about managing expectations and what you actually deliver as a product to the mass's day one. First impressions are so important. Arena overtime, has only gotten better. But at what cost? Arena might, and I need to emphasize that, might be dead. And no matter what BSG does to try and bring life back into it, the damage has already been done. And that’s what hurts the most.

But to understand why Arena is struggling, we need to understand the core problems that Arena has had since it launched. Initially, when an Arena style shooter game mode was mentioned by Nikita to be coming for Tarkov, I’m going to take a guess and say that most people who heard this immediately thought either a Counter-Strike or Valorant type of game mode. A round-based system that allowed you to earn money by getting kills, completing objectives and then using that money to purchase extra gear, weapons, and more. Which just by that description sounds incredibly interesting within the context of Tarkov. Imagine having the freedom to select a handful of weapons from each class to use, and then being able to choose a select assortment of attachments to augment your weapon and make it more powerful. Sadly, that is not what we got. Instead, we had to choose one of many different preset loadouts from four different classes that were distinct enough from each other to feel different, but were so poorly balanced that the entire set of tier one presets were actually worse than most scav loadouts you can get in normal Tarkov. Missing parts, no healing, no optics or even iron sights; it was just a mess all around. Sure, it was kind of goofy silly fun the first day you get your hands on it, but then you realize that this is how the progression of the game works for all three tiers of loadouts. And while tier two and three felt better to use, because the weapons actually functioned and you also had better armor and medication, the amount of time you needed to invest into a single class, into a single tree; because loadouts were separated into two different trees that branched out. They plan of changing this completely and adding a way to make your own presets, but this feels too little too late at this point. Cool, but pointless if the rest of the game doesn’t adjust to this new feature. And if there is any experience grinding to be had in order to get the guns or attachments you want, this will become a problem. The exp and the number of games you needed to play was stupid. How you performed at the start barely mattered. Winning was the sole determining factor as to whether you got eight thousand experience points, or fifteen hundred. For a game that by itself is $35, this kind of commitment is something you see shitty free to play games try to use to keep players engaged for as long as possible while drying out their wallet. Tarkov in general has always had a problem respecting your time as a player, and that whole conversation is worth its own video. But arena was at least better because you got a whole match when you finally did manage to get a game. Whereas in Tarkov, you can die in literally eight seconds if you are unlucky. Now, that loadout system is still in the game, albeit, the only thing you can use right now is tier three kits, and you have access to all of them if you are playing unranked, which I assume you are because I tried to find a ranked game for ten minutes and couldn’t get one.

Queue times was another issue with the game day one that has only gotten worse because less people are playing. You’d think there wouldn’t be any issues with a new mode because it’s so populated. But if you tried to queue up with friends the game for some reason struggled to get matches, and even when the queue popped, most of the time there would be one person who doesn’t click ready so the game throws you back to the search screen two, three, four, or even five times in a row. It was frustrating. After some time, this issue did die down and it felt reasonable to find a game within a minute or two, and then the subsequent extra two minutes of loading all the assets, and then another minute to choose your loadout and then you finally get into the game. Again, Tarkov doesn’t really respect your time and Arena was an even more egregious mode to deal with.

Tarkov and Arena have recently been merged together, meaning money, experience earned, and some other oddities can now be transferred between the two games. With this came a new vendor, Ref (who if I might rant for a second might be an AI generated image which begs the question about the other traders, but I’m just being pedantic). Ref is specifically dealing with Arena and provides quests and daily objectives to be completed for money, and other forms of currency that he deals in. Now, GP coins have been removed from all other vendors and he now deals primarily in just them. On top of that, all barters involving GP coins are now on Ref. Making GP coins in general pretty useless, but especially useless in PvE mode because Ref doesn’t exist there. Which is a shame, because there were some really good barters to take advantage of from the traders, but this is a change they wanted to make. I see it as a net-loss for the game, but it does give people a reason to engage with Arena in some capacity.

At the end of the day, all these problems aside, if Arena was at least fun, compelling, engaging and we had a reason to consistently play it every day, people would probably deal with all of its shortcomings that are slowly being addressed. But Arena’s greatest sin is that it’s only fun for so long. After even just two or even one game, I can only speak for myself, but it just makes me want to go play regular Tarkov; have those engagements be more organic. Put something on the line, fight players on the maps I know both love and hate. The essence of what makes Tarkov so fun is how unpredictable the game as a whole can be. You could run into scav boss, you could find a five-man and wipe them as a solo player. You could get deep into an event that has everyone running to one spot on one map. In arena, it boils down to I see the other color, I shoot them. Rinse and repeat. The ranked mode is extremely unappealing because being good at Tarkov isn’t actually being good at the game. With the exception of tapping heads, knowing how to manipulate the audio, net code so you are always advantage; unfortunately, it’s the broken parts of the game that separate veterans and newcomers to Tarkov. And it shouldn’t be that way. In normal Tarkov and Arena.

Don’t get me wrong, again, I don’t want Arena to fail. BSG has put too much time and money into this project to just abandon it. And their pride might be getting into the way a little too which I honestly kind of get. There’s definitely some sunk cost fallacy kicking in real hard with Arena. But they have been very and I mean very slowly trying to fix it and bring the vision they had closer to reality. There’s still a lot of work to do, but eventually I do see Arena being a great alternative to if you only have an hour to play, and just want to shoot some other players for a game or two. Instead of spending ten minutes building a kit only to die after queueing for a raid for over seven minutes. Maybe the customizable loadouts will do it, maybe the extra plant/defuse mode will start to catch on more. Only time will tell.

Arena was a promised idea that didn’t hit the notes it needed to when it came out. People were kind of swept up in the hype and excitement; I was too. But it didn’t take long for the cracks to show, and reveal that the game was fundamentally at its core, broken and not what it needed to be. So, BSG goes back to the drawing board and begins to capitulate on a lot of core concepts they may have not wanted to. Because at this point, it’s lost them money. Why do you think the Unheard Edition exists? It never should’ve gone down like this. I was willing to wait longer to get a better product, but BSG was keen on getting it out when they did. And now they are working backwards; picking up the pieces. But it might be too late. Arena might be dead, before it really got a chance to shine. Thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to watch this video, let me know your thoughts about Arena down in the comments section and be sure to subscribe for more melancholy conversations about games and modes that were half-baked and unfortunately not up to snuff. I hope to see you in future ones.