Escape from Tarkov: Arena beginners guide: Tips for loadouts, learning maps, and avoiding team kills

While Escape from Tarkov: Arena may look like just another fast-paced, multiplayer shooter, chances are it will still feel quite alien even to seasoned FPS players. This isn’t your typical Call of Duty style shooter; instead, it’s a semirealistic tactical FPS shrunk down into a fast-paced environment with smaller maps and a lot of tense action, and unless you’ve played its sister title before, chances are your first few matches are going to be tough. 

The weapons take some time to get used to. The maps have a few unusual quirks, and the low time-to-kill means one small mistake can end your round instantly. It’s going to take some time to learn the basics, but once you master them, Escape from Tarkov: Arena becomes one of the best shooters out there, and fortunately, we have a few helpful tips to speed up that learning process. 
 

Don’t panic if you spend more time dead than alive

 

You are going to die a lot in Escape from Tarkov: Arena, especially when you are first starting out. The difference a few hours of experience makes is incredible, but during those first few matches, you will feel outmatched no matter who you are playing against. The key thing is to not panic or get annoyed if you spend almost every round on the sidelines. 

In fact, while not ideal for your chances of winning, dying early in a round is probably going to help you quite a bit in your first few games, because you can then watch exactly what the rest of your team does. Be sure to look at where they position themselves, the movements they make, and what kits they are using. All of this can be vital information for improving your game, so don’t just grab your phone and scroll until the next round starts. Pay attention to what your team is doing. 
 

Use the standard presets before customizing

 

You can build kits that suit your style. Unlike in a lot of shooters, there aren’t a select few weapons that are considered better than everything else in most situations. Instead, Escape from Tarkov: Arena is, outside of the pro scene, generally more about what loadouts work for you. 

However, the number of customization options, even when you have yet to unlock anything beyond the basic equipment, is truly staggering. Even seasoned Tarkov players probably couldn't tell you all of the attachment options for each weapon, so when you are just starting out, it will be overwhelming—and that probably isn’t going to end well for you.

Fortunately, the developers have made some pretty solid presets that you can use in your first matches so you don’t have to worry about setting up a weapon correctly. Play around with each of the presets for each class, and see not only which weapons work for you, but what level of armor or type of headset you prefer as well as what healing items are useful for your play style. 

Once you’ve figured out your preferences, then it’s time to start building your own loadouts and getting into the incredible number of customization options on offer. It will still be a daunting task, but knowing what you like and don’t like will hopefully stop you from running into a match with a weapon you can’t do anything useful with.
 

Learn the maps in TeamFight

 

Blast Gang, the Counter-Strike style bomb-planting game mode, is without question the best way to play Escape from Tarkov: Arena. It adds extra levels of strategy, requires true teamwork, and really suits the way gunplay works. Once you nail the basics, this is probably where you are going to spend most of your time. 

However, while you are learning the basics, you are probably better off playing the TeamFight game mode. This still follows the 5v5, round-based format you’d expect, but instead of having you plant or deactivate bombs, it's a team deathmatch where the last team to survive wins the round. It’s a much simpler mode—just shoot people in the face, and you are guaranteed to win—and it makes the learning process a lot easier. 

All four of the maps you can play Blast Gang on also have a TeamFight option. Since you tend to explore more in a round of TeamFight than in Blast Gang, it’s handy for developing a better sense of each map. It’s also an opportunity to figure out lines of sight and useful angles much more quickly as well, because you likely won’t just be holding one angle for a significant portion of the round. All in all, playing TeamFight is just a better way to quickly figure out the layout of each map; then you can move on to Blast Gang when you nail the basics. 
 

Listen for everything

While sound is important in any shooter, here it’s arguably even more of a factor as there are a ton of very specific sounds that you can use to your advantage. 

Obviously, you’ll want to be listening out for footsteps, but in Escape from Tarkov: Arena, even the smallest sounds can reveal critical information. If you hit a few shots but don’t take down the enemy, then hear them pull out one of the many available healing items while hiding around the corner, you know you’ll have a couple of seconds to run at them and potentially finish off the kill with almost no risk to yourself. Or you might hear the faint sound of an enemy reloading and know you have the opportunity to do the same. 

Learning these sounds will make you a much better player. To pick up on them, you’ll not only need a good headset in your in-game loadout (your character has a headset that will alter the perception of certain noises) but also complete silence elsewhere—so don’t have music blaring or a sports stream running on your second monitor. Commit to Tarkov!
 

Play with your team 

Escape from Tarkov: Arena is (mostly) a team game, and you are going to want to work with your teammates to succeed. This isn’t a shooter where you can become Superman, run around on your own, and take out the entire enemy team. Low health pools, small maps, and limited ammo mean the chances of killing all the enemies on your own are very slim, so you’ll need some help. 

In Blast Gang, you're going to want to position yourself in ways that benefit your team. Set up cross angles so two of you can shoot anyone who might challenge you, and be sure to rotate with each other. In TeamFight, running around in groups of two or more can increase your chances of survival. However, there are some exceptions to that rule. If you're running a marksman kit, you probably don’t want a pal giving away your position by standing next to you. Or if you're trying to execute a sneaky flank, sending your whole team might backfire. But in the early stages of your time in the arena, sticking at least within sight of a teammate will almost always be a solid idea. 
 

But take an extra second before shooting

 

That being said, you will need to be careful when running around with a pal. Escape from Tarkov: Arena has friendly fire enabled, and generally the only way you can tell who is on your team is by the small blue or red armbands each character wears, so that can lead to a lot of team kills if you aren’t careful. 

When you load into a game, make sure you know which color your team is, and always be sure to look for that color armband before shooting. Obviously, you can use some common sense—if a person rounds a corner close to the enemy team spawn within the first 15 seconds of a round, they likely aren’t on your team—but as the rounds progress, taking that extra split second to check can be the difference between an embarrassing team kill and a victory. 

Escape From Tarkov: Arena is available now on the Epic Games Store.