Escape From Tarkov’s game director Nikita Buyanov expressed complete apathy at the thought of worthiness for a Steam review-bombing on the long-awaited 1.0 release of the extraction shooter onto the platform. With the final launch set for 15 November, Buyanov confirmed there were no particular plans from Battlestate Games studio to counter an organized action by displeased players to flood the Steam page with reviews.
In a particularly defiant tone, via PCGamesN, directed at the possible organized backlash, Buyanov said, “We don’t have a specific strategy for [review bombing]… There are people who want to bomb us – let them bomb us, we’ll see what comes of it.” The director stated that the methodology concerning Steam would be automated and would have human moderators testing the validity of any mass negative campaign. For him, all thoughts go for the successful outcome of their already planned launch of 1.0, which would “end the history of Tarkov with an exclamation point and finally give players some end-game content.”
Thus well prepared, the director has had time to hone his skills in reading the complexity of player sentiment. Ever since early access in 2017, the game has been under considerable fire for many things that used to hamper the Alpha and still affect its integrity, with the most notable being a problems with cheaters. As if that were not enough, the development team’s pursuit of constant “experimental updates”, which attempt to achieve perfect balance, has not been held in uniformly good regard. Recently, players expressed their rage after it was said that any current owners wishing to play on Steam would have to repurchase the game from the platform.
The studio is aiming to support a smooth transition and diminish real negative comments from the community. As an offset to this, Battlestate has made known efforts in counter-cheating measures-a.k.a., “tricks”-and the 1.0 build will certainly bear these. The well-executed integration of the tricks would remove one of the greatest contributors to the potential receptionSlide negative review of Escape From Tarkov itself and help meet the high expectations thrust upon its official release.
