Will Escape From Tarkov Come To Steam?

Escape from Tarkov has been available in early access since 2016, slowly amassing players, but since its release it's only been available for pre-order from the game's official site. The survival shooter has exploded in popularity recently, having received a major update in October 2019 which introduced Hideouts as well as several new items and bug fixes, and briefly became the most viewed game on Twitch thanks, in part, to some prominent streamers picking it up over the holidays. This has many players wondering if a Steam release is planned. It's been a while since Russian developer Battlestate Games has commented on this, but all signs suggest that Escape From Tarkov will come to Steam... eventually.

The clearest evidence is from a 2016 interview with WCCFTech, in which developer Pavel Dyatlov says that the game will come to Steam once it reaches 1.0. "We will first release the game on our platform and then we will launch on Steam, that's the plan," Dyatlov said, also mentioning that the game could come to consoles after its PC release.

Escape From Tarkov has remained in early access much longer than originally planned, however, and a year ago players on Reddit speculated that the game has not released on Steam because the developers would receive a lot of refund requests over the state the game was in. More recently, however, consensus among players has been that while the game is in better shape, the developers will still likely only release to Steam once the game is complete.

The FAQ on the Escape from Tarkov page suggests that the game will receive a testing phase on Steam, but it has not been updated since 2015. With all of this in mind, we believe that the game will eventually release on Steam, when it's complete... but that might be a while away yet. For now, you can pre-order Escape From Tarkov--there are a handful of editions to choose from, so check out our pre-order guide for a breakdown of the differences.

If you're just getting into Tarkov and want a boost over the competition, check out our hotkeys and controls guide for a list of the most essential keyboard shortcuts.