‘Escape From Tarkov’ Starts Testing A Major Engine Upgrade

After being promised months ago and already missing the announced release window, it looks like the hotly anticipated Unity 2022 engine upgrade for Escape From Tarkov is finally getting closer to launching, as a new testing period has begun.

Earlier today on the official Escape From Tarkov social media accounts, the development team at Battlestate Games announced that a new test is being lunched on the Early Test Server (ETS). This new test features what should be the final iteration of the transition to the Unity 2022 engine, which should finally be a major technical update for the game.

This new testing period is now live and available to all players who have ETS access, however if you are looking to test this new version and don’t have access already you are out of luck, as getting into the ETS is not an easy task.

With players also not allowed to share any info on what they play on the ETS we don’t have any indication on what the update looks like, however we have been told in the past that the engine upgrade will bring a number of performance improvements, as well as the potential for better technical systems such as improved lighting and physics.

Hopefully this testing period goes smoothly, and the engine upgrade can be rolled out to the live game as soon as possible. For a while Escape From Tarkov has felt fairly dated, which is fair for a game that has been out as long as it has, and has been crying out for performance improvements. Even on reasonably beefy PCs the game can run at low frame rates and crash reasonably often, so hopefully the new engine upgrade should fix some of those issues, as well as other issues that have cropped up recently.

Despite me currently not being motivated to play Tarkov, I think a new engine would be enough to bring me back to play. The changes may not be groundbreaking, but if it makes Tarkov feel a little better to play, it might be enough to draw me back in.

Of course, it’s worth noting that this update was supposed to arrive before the last wipe, based on the initial roadmap we were given. It has clearly been delayed for some unknown reasons, so it would not be a surprise if this testing period threw up some more issues and pushed the release back even further. So if you are hoping for a big Tarkov patch in the next week or two, you may end up being disappointed.