It Can Take Months To Add a New Gun to Escape from Tarkov, Developer Reveals

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In a recent interview with Epic Games around Escape from Tarkov Arena, Battlestate Games’ Nikita Buyanov explained just how long it takes to develop a single weapon for the popular extraction shooter series. Escape from Tarkov has been on the market for almost a decade, and in that time, it has amassed a staggering arsenal of weaponry, but it’s not all that easy to add more.

Typically, new weapons will be introduced with major updates to the game – otherwise known as ‘wipes’. The weapons, Buyanov says, can take several months to be designed, created, coded, and balanced in Escape from Tarkov, and by association, Arena.

Putting in the Effort

In the discussion with Epic Games, Buyanov, who heads the studio at Battlestate Games, explained:

The process is quite intricate and involves numerous adjustments. Our team, consisting of game designers and testers, is substantial, and they consistently review and polish the game’s balance. We also pay close attention to feedback from our dedicated community who are deeply invested in Tarkov. They frequently share their thoughts and experiences with us.

It’s a very slow and meticulous process.

It takes approximately two to three months to fully design and implement a single weapon in our game, including textures, animations, and all necessary details. However, this time frame can vary depending on the specific weapon being developed. Our fastest creation took only one month because we had pre-existing animations available. On average, belt-fed machine guns take around four months to complete.

He emphasized that the team takes a meticulous approach to developing new firearms, as they are all passionate enthusiasts of firearm technology:

We shoot real firearms very often. This is especially helpful for our programmers who work on the gameplay mechanics.

When you fire a real weapon, you hear it, smell the gunpowder, feel the weight, and experience the recoil, something in your mind shifts, and you start approaching weapon creation in the game with much greater attention to detail.

Fans of the extraction shooter might not agree with the perfectionist claims, but the weapons in Escape from Tarkov are being adjusted and balanced all the time in a bid to keep as many people as possible happy. Every time a major update surfaces, it seems a new meta emerges, and that’s often by design.

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2025-03-18 11:22