I had purchased Escape from Tarkov and watched a video or two on YouTube. I knew to expect a difficult-to-master game. I also knew that the game was ruthless and exacting. You start with limited equipment and money, and if you die in an online raid all the gear you are carrying is lost. Permanently. To successfully survive a raid you also have to exit it, which means you must make your way across the map to some pre-designated "exit zone". Failure to reach an exfil location means you die...and lose all your stuff.
From the videos I had learned that a map called "Customs" is widely considered the best one for beginners. Clicking on a few of the map choices I saw that a map called "Woods" is considered "Hard". But "Customs" is considered "Insane". A bit more clicking revealed those were the only two choices.
As I am no fool, I elected to make my first sojourn to Tarkov be an offline raid - which means there are no consequences. Nothing can be gained in an offline raid, but nothing can be lost either. I also elected to enter Customs with no AI enemies. I just wanted to explore the map, to get a feel for the environment and the game.
I started in some woods above a little dirt road. Walking along one way was a gate, which seemed to be the edge of the map. There was garbage there. I tried interacting with the garbage. Going the other way led to a little cul-de-sac made where the dirt road met a bigger one. I successfully opened some boxes and was able to take a few items ("looting!"). I remembered to check for my ex-fil location. None of them seemed like anything I'd seen, except "Crossroads". Was that this place? It is where two roads meet, right?
A break in the fence led to an industrial zone with big liquid storage tanks, and buildings. This map was very cool - nice attention to detail. The buildings looked so real. I remember thinking that if they really wanted to make this game be cool they should let the characters enter the buildings.
I wandered around. There was a train in the woods. And another train, or maybe the same one. A timer appeared on-screen and I remembered I had to find an exit zone. Strictly speaking, since it was offline, I didn't have to do anything, but I wanted my first raid, even a fake one, to be successful. But I still didn't know where the crossing of roads was, and I was feeling pretty lost.
It occurred to me that there were probably maps on the internet. I switched over, googled, and pulled up a map of Customs. There was a big river on the map! A river? I hadn't seen a river yet! How big is this place anyway? I scanned the map and my surroundings, trying to figure out where I was...somewhere in the industrial zone. I brought up the list of extract locations. Something called "ZB-1012" was listed and it was down in the industrial zone. Maybe I could find it!
ZB-1012 was near the edge of the map, so first I made my way down to the edge of the map. On the map ZB-1012 looked like it might be on the edge of a building. But which? Probably that big one over there. I headed towards it. The timer was counting down, but if I hurried, I might be able to make it.
Someone was shouting at me! But I'm playing offline with no enemies. They were shouting in Russian, so I immediately knew it wasn't coming from inside my house. Then they started firing at me. I turned around, trying in vain to see who was shooting at me. And then I died.
In my very first game of Escape from Tarkov, playing in the easiest mode possible with no adversaries or enemies, I got lost and was killed without ever seeing my attacker.
This would set the tone for everything that followed.
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