Escape from Tarkov developer Battlestate Games has announced that it's going to "start taking action" against any and all attempts to disseminate "illegally" data-mined information about the game. This information includes, but is not limited to, boss spawn percentages, ammo damage, and a wealth of other details that aren't actually shown off in the game proper, making it harder for players to create builds and tackle difficult content.
Though it is one of the most unique PvPvE video games on the market, Escape from Tarkov has been going through a rougher patch than usual as of late, after a prominent community member revealed that the game is plagued by a surprisingly high number of cheaters. This came to light months ago, but the game's community and the developer itself are still reeling from the resulting backlash.
Though data mining Escape from Tarkov was tolerated up until now, Battlestate Games is seemingly no longer interested in looking the other way as the community collects information and resources that the devs don't want revealed. The studio's recent official statement warns players that using "illegal" data mining won't be condoned and asks that the community respects the studio's vision of what the game should be like. Specifically, BSG cites the community-driven Tarkov Wikia page as a supported source of information, but this reveals an entirely new layer of problems for the studio.
Notably, it seems that the new, hardline stance against data mining of any sort has come up after LogicalSolutions, a prominent EFT data miner, requested information from NDA-bound closed beta players. To complicate things further, LogicalSolutions is one of the main contributors to the Tarkov Wikia page, which now seems to be the studio's officially approved community resource. LogicalSolutions' data-mined info was used to figure out various important aspects of the game, such as Escape from Tarkov's best Scav run locations, and some members of the community consider his data mines crucial for playing.
While LogicalSolutions' data mining may not have been supported in an official capacity, the information derived this way has been valuable to the community, and it's obviously not actually illegal. BSG is within its rights to ban the data miner, of course, and to take a stand against further attempts to do the same for deliberately obfuscated game information. Now that an Escape From Tarkov rival is being made, however, BSG may find it harder to get players to stick around, but only time will tell how that might pan out.
After claims broke out that 60% of Escape From Tarkov matches have cheaters, it became clear that Battlestate Games is facing an uphill battle in convincing the community that it can resolve the problem. The studio's latest efforts to suppress LogicalSolutions may not make this job any easier for the team, either.
Escape from Tarkov is now available in open beta on PC.