Russian Escape from Tarkov has been released. What’s wrong with a game that is gaining momentum on Steam despite its origins?

Russian Escape from Tarkov has been released. What’s wrong with a game that is gaining momentum on Steam despite its origins?

On November 15, 2025, Escape from Tarkov was officially released on Steam and Epic Games Store. Just one day after its release, the game reached a record number of concurrent players on Steam — 47,800.

At the same time, even before its official release, the game was embroiled in a series of scandals, in particular due to its Russian origin.

What is known about the game’s developers

• Escape from Tarkov is a game developed entirely in russia. Its director, game designer, and composer are russian citizens.

• In addition, during the development process, Battlestate Games studio developers worked closely with the Russian military and design bureaus, including visiting training grounds for consultations.

• According to the game’s plot, the setting is the fictional russian city of Tarkov, which previously served as an economic partnership zone between russia and the EU. Due to the political crisis that arose, Tarkov and the surrounding territories were isolated from the outside world by UN peacekeeping contingents and russian forces.

The “middle finger” to a Ukrainian Armed Forces soldier

One of the most controversial disputes related to Battlestate Games was the accusation of political provocation and ridicule of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

In 2022, after the publication of new screenshots, gaming blogger Artem Lysaychuk and other users noticed an obvious hint: in one of the screenshots, a character shows the middle finger to another character in a pixelated image resembling a Ukrainian military uniform. The main feature is that the character’s hand is depicted with yellow tape (a bandage), which since 2014 has become a universally recognized symbol of belonging to the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the combat zone.

What will happen to the game on Steam?

Earlier, it was also reported that Battlestate Games, despite criticism and accusations of financing the Kremlin’s military machine, announced the release of the first version of Escape from Tarkov on Steam, but with an additional condition for existing players. Players who previously purchased the game through the official Battlestate website will not be able to transfer their progress or account to the Valve platform for free. 

To play via Steam, they have to purchase the project separately again. This scheme, which has been criticized as an attempt to make extra money from Western audiences, especially Western ones, will require fans to spend twice as much, despite the need to link to a Battlestate account in any case.

The game has now received 18,000 reviews on the platform, 69.0% of which are negative.

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