In order to restore the balance between long-time players and newcomers, Escape From Tarkov institutes a wipe about every six months. Since players keep all the loot they find in a raid each time they manage to extract safely, the gulf between inveterate players and new players grows as time wears on. Before a major wipe, however, Escape From Tarkov hosts pre-wipe events that aim to encourage players to use all their hard-earned loot without the fear of losing it.
As the Escape From Tarkov wipe event kicks off, players can expect the reset to occur in about a week or so, meaning that there has never been a better time for gamers to pull out guns and equipment that they were previously too afraid to lose. In a further effort to eliminate 'gear fear,' Escape From Tarkov will be changing up the typical drop rates of equipment in order to flood the servers with the highest-end items.
How Escape From Tarkov Wipe Events Have Worked In The Past
Escape From Tarkov is changing things up after announcing a new Arena mode, but this recent wipe event should follow a fairly typical blueprint. In the past, the event has always centered around getting better loot into the hands of players as quickly as possible. During the last wipe event, for instance, Escape From Tarkov switched up the spawn location and rates of the various Scav bosses. This meant that players entering what is typically considered a beginner map like Interchange could now encounter tougher bosses like Tagilla and gather more advanced loot from defeating him. This was also accompanied by generally better loot from the NPC Scavs that roam the map, allowing players to become fully geared much more quickly than before.
While most wipe events have implemented at least one unique feature like the aforementioned boss switching, as the days roll on, Escape From Tarkov always removes the restrictions from the various traders and lowers their costs, making it so that any player can shop for whatever kit they so desire. If the first few days of the wipe event are considered exciting, the last few are when things tend to get extremely wild, as players typically bring the absolute best armor in Escape From Tarkov as well as the hardest-hitting guns into every raid.
What To Expect From This Current Escape From Tarkov Wipe Event
In a post on their official Twitter page, Battlestate Games hinted that this pre-wipe event would be centered around airdrops, and is already making good on its promise. In-game, currently, players are seeing far more frequent airdrops than ever before. While there would typically be a single airdrop during a given raid, now there will be as many as six planes in the sky at any given time, raining loot down on players. For those unfamiliar, airdrops contain the best weapons in Escape From Tarkov, and if the past is any indicator, it's likely that Battlestate Games has cranked up the rate of rare loot within the airdrops as well.
As the event wears on, it's fairly easy to predict what will happen. Since the pre-wipe events typically ratchet up in intensity toward the wipe day, players can likely expect more air drops and even better loot. It's also highly probable that players will be gifted the ability to trade with any trader they want and at the maximum discount level, eliminating any need for budget PvP builds in Tarkov. Since players can expect this event to last for about a week or so before the actual wipe, it's the perfect time to break out the loot they've been saving for months.
Escape From Tarkov is available on PC.