Shooting video games have made many people believe that shooting a gun is a simple and comfortable experience. The reality is much more cumbersome and annoying than we imagine: the noise can hurt our ears, they are heavy and the recoil can unbalance us to the point of knocking us to the ground or hurting our shoulder. And all this without taking into account the possible mechanical problems of the weapon.
Escape From Tarkov is an extraction shooter or extraction game that has gameplay with many elements that aim to get closer to reality. Yes ok Battlestate Games It does not usually lose sight of the fact that it is a video game, it certainly does not deprive itself of introducing mechanics that we have rarely seen in other installments of the genre.
Weapons in Escape From Tarkov
He weapons malfunction It is one of the mechanics mentioned. It was introduced a couple of years ago and is not difficult to understand, although it has confused many players since then: all weapons have a status percentage, which gets worse as we use it. How you do this usually affects how quickly that percentage drops.
As the status drops, the chances of the weapon malfunctioning increase. This causes the behavior of the weapon to change (accuracy, dispersion…) and the parts to stop working correctly, which in turn causes failures when firing, ejecting the cartridge, feeding it and even cocking the bolt. Overheating the weapon also contributes to wear and tear and can even lead to critical failures.
And for all this there is a protocol to follow that involves a series of steps and animations. Escape From Tarkov It notifies the player when there is a weapon malfunction and they must check it to solve the problem, which involves a very elaborate and personalized animation for each one. You can see them all in the video on the Ultimate Weapon Games channel.
The voice of experience…
I have had the opportunity to speak on the subject with Cris_RoLanconsidered one of the best Sherpas in Escape From Tarkov. His former role was to help/guide players who requested it to accomplish their objectives or missions. He informed me of everything discussed in this post and added some interesting information.
He told me that practice does not always correspond to theory. The Official wiki points out that “mechanical breakdowns do not occur in weapons with a durability greater than 93%.” However, Rolan pointed out that this is not true and that there are cases of players who have had failures with weapons in a much better state than indicated. The safest thing is to always keep our weapons cared for and ready.
Finally, he added that this is a mechanic that usually affects new players a lot. It is necessary to have muscle memory and know how to move correctly to survive in a combat in which our weapon gets stuck. Even players with plenty of hours tend to panic when this happens. Thanks for your time and wisdom, Rolan!
One last curious detail
If it’s not funny that it happens in a video game, imagine it in real life. Unjamming weapons can cause finger injuries if you are not wearing protection. So much so, that during the Second World War the term Garand Thumb or Garant’s Thumb was coined, a black bruise on the nail resulting from catching the finger on the bolt of the famous M1 Garand.
We can see it in some soldiers of Escape From Tarkov and characters from both video games and movies: the sniper Mr. Mundy from Team Fortress 2 and Daniel Jackson in the movie Saving Private Ryan. Needless to say, it is not a wound exclusive to this practice.
Definitely: Escape From Tarkov It is a unique video game for better and worse. Its weapon malfunction mechanic is not common in other video games like Call of Duty, Battlefield or the recent The Finals and the reason is quite obvious: it’s not even funny when it happens in combat… although it is very cool and detailed when you are the spectator. It is just another one of those sick details that very few companies put so much effort into.
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