RELATED: Pro Tips From Escape From Tarkov You Should Know

Given the exciting dynamics and thrilling gameplay that arise as the result of competitive play, it might seem foolish to some to play the game offline. However, Tarkov’s offline mode can be an excellent training ground to hone one’s skills and steel one’s nerves. Escape from Tarkovis one of the hardest shooters around, and players need every advantage they can get if they’re going to survive.

10 First Steps

Upon loading the game and selecting “Escape from Tarkov” from the main menu, the player is given the choice of Scavenger or PMC raids. After choosing to play as a PMC (the player’s main character) and choosing a map, the option to play offline is provided. By ticking the “Enable Offline Mode for this raid” box, the player transforms Escape from Tarkov from an online, multiplayer shooter into a solo, offline one.

It might seem strange and even detrimental to disable one of the core aspects of the game. However, offline play has a number of advantages, both for new players and those trying to come to grips with certain mechanics in this notoriously difficult and patience-testing game.

9 Set AI Settings

Online, the player faces two threats: AI scavengers and other players. While playing in offline mode removes the latter, it only removes AI enemies if the player wants it to. The same screen that allows the player to enable offline mode also allows the player to tweak the options for AI enemies, including their difficulty, number, and whether or not they appear in the first place.

RELATED: Escape From Tarkov: Pro Tips For The Interchange Map

Escape from Tarkov includes a number of incredibly deep systems layered on top of one another, and while this is part of what makes the game so entertaining, it also gives it a steep learning curve. It’s tough enough to learn the game’s mechanics without being shot 30 seconds after spawning. Disabling the AI in offline mode and spending a raid exploring an empty map isn’t a bad option for those just getting their feet wet.

8 Choose The Time

Online, the player can choose to begin raids at two different, ever-changing times, twelve hours apart. Nighttime and daytime raids can play out very differently, even on the exact same map. It’s one thing to stalk the woods of Shoreline or run through the construction yard of Customs by daylight. It’s something very different to do so with only flashlights and thermal scopes to light the way.

Offline mode can be an excellent way to familiarize oneself with maps at different times and in different weather conditions. This way, players can gain experience before gambling with their gear and life in regular online play.

7 Increase AI Difficulty To Hone Skills

Even regular AI scavs sometimes feel like special forces soldiers, never mind the lethal accuracy of sniper scavs, bosses, and other players. As a result, the base difficulty of Escape from Tarkov can feel punishing.

RELATED: Escape From Tarkov: Best Budget Builds For PVP

Offline mode allows players to tweak both the number and difficulty of the AI scavs that spawn. This allows players new to the game to practice the basics of gunplay and learn fundamental tactics without getting a shot to the eyes as soon as a gunfight begins. As players grow more confident, they can increase the difficulty, testing themselves and their equipment against an ever more difficult horde of scavengers.

6 You Lose Nothing

In standard online play, anything the player brings into a raid is at risk. If killed and successfully looted by an enemy PMC, whatever armor, weapons, and other gear the player had is lost. Be it a Mosin or SCAR, it’s gone for good.

One of the most important features of offline play is that, live or die, nothing is lost. Some players are terrified of losing their priciest equipment and would rather leave them in their stash than risk them in the field. Offline mode lets players use their treasures to their heart’s content. Throw grenades, waste ammo, trash armor: it doesn’t matter. Everything resets after the raid.

5 You Keep Nothing

There is a flip side to the loot immunity that offline mode provides: just as nothing can be lost, nothing can be gained. Online, the player’s PMC develops with every raid. The longer they survive and the more they do, the more experience they gain. Skills level up, and loot is stashed away.

RELATED: Escape From Tarkov: Pro Tips For The Woods Map

Offline, none of this is true. The game allows players to loot, kill, level up skills, and otherwise grow during offline raids, but after the raid ends, this progress is wiped. None of it transfers to online play. Offline play is an excellent training tool and can be fun in its own right, but it will never lead the player’s PMC to wealth or greatness. The only thing a player keeps from their time offline is their experience — and to be fair, that might be the most valuable of all.

4 Learn The Maps

From the open spaces of Woods and Lighthouse to the claustrophobic corridors of Factory, Escape from Tarkov includes a variety of maps. They are dense, packed with loot to discover and enemy spawns to tangle with, and the variety of possible spawn and extract points can make learning these maps a challenge.

Some players find that a significant barriers to entry is the lack of a minimap, forcing players to either study third-party maps or learn the old-fashioned way by wandering around, dying, and repeating. Offline mode is arguably the perfect solution to this problem, as it allows players to explore, studying the terrain with no fear of losing anything more than time.

3 Learn New Features

From the flea market to gun modding, Escape from Tarkov is already a tremendously deep game, and it can be easy to forget that it’s still in beta. Like any good game at this stage in its development, new features are added and changes are made regularly.

RELATED: Escape From Tarkov: Pro Tips For The Factory Map

While some changes are minor, others (like the addition of inertia to movement) have the potential to dramatically affect how the game is played. Offline mode can be a good testing ground to acquaint oneself with such changes without having to do it when there’s much more at stake. Some players prefer to adapt in the heat of the moment, but for others, this offers a viable alternative.

2 Test Guns

Gunplay in Escape from Tarkov is a nuanced business. There are numerous guns and even more modifications that can be made to those guns, and something as simple as changing the kind of bullet that a gun fires can have a radical effect on that gun’s viability.

With ammunition, sights, bullet drop, recoil, overheating, malfunctions, and even more features to consider, the game offers no shortage of things to test and experiment with. Online, such tests cost valuable ammunition and risk losing the gun itself if something goes wrong. Offline, the player can practice their sniping and flick shots without fear.

1 There Are Some Things Offline Can’t Teach

Offline mode is a fantastic training ground, but all the practice in the world won’t fully prepare a player for their first encounter against another PMC online. Players are more cunning than AI. They are more erratic. They are luckier. Stumbling into an extract camper or six-person squad decked out with the beefiest armor and the newest, shiniest guns is an experience that only online play provides.

Different strategies and skills are required to survive. No FPS wracks the nerves quite like Tarkov. At a certain point, there’s nothing to do but plug one’s nose and take the plunge. There’s loot in the depths that needs taking.

Escape from Tarkovis now available in beta for PC.

MORE: Escape From Tarkov: Things That Can Ruin Your Campaign Playthrough