The game is set in the fictional Norvinsk region in northwestern Russia, where a war is taking place between two private military companies (United Security "USEC" and the Battle Encounter Assault Regiment "BEAR").

[10] These bonuses include reducing the cooldown timer to play as a Scav, increasing experience gained, and the ability to craft items.

Weapons can be built by the player by customizing all its constituent parts, such as selecting the dust cover, grip, stock and scope,[6] a degree of complexity uncommonly seen in the first-person shooter genre.

There are currently nine available maps for players; each one being a different abandoned region of the city: Customs, a large outdoor industrial park; Factory, the interior of a small chemical plant; Interchange, a huge shopping mall; The Lab, a secret research facility operated by an organization called TerraGroup; Lighthouse, an expansive map with a cargo train station, water treatment plant, chalet homes, and an island with a lighthouse; Reserve, a secret military base; Shoreline, a large map with multiple areas including a hydroelectric power plant, villages, and a health resort; Streets of Tarkov, a section of the downtown area of Tarkov, Woods, a formerly state-protected wildlife reserve; and Ground Zero, a business center of Tarkov, where the TerraGroup headquarters is located and the place where everything began.

[16][17] The primary opposing, playable NPC faction is the Scavs, which are aggressive locals of Tarkov that are typically hostile to both BEAR and USEC.

Normal Scavs have low tier gear and weapons, and are the primary AI opponent and are playable on a cooldown timer.

[24] Battlestate Games have stated that Escape from Tarkov would be a traditional full purchase release without any free-to-play or microtransaction elements.

[27] This was the stage where Battlestate released the game in four preorder tiers, with the Edge of Darkness edition guaranteeing players access to the alpha build.

[28] The game entered closed beta on 28 July 2017, being made available to all players no matter the pre-order edition they purchased.

[29] It received a substantial spike in popularity in early 2020 on Twitch, when a promotional event took place providing players with in-game items for watching streams.

[32] The developers have also published multiple live-action miniseries, the first of which is titled Raid, which consisted of five episodes from 29 March 2019 – 25 February 2021, released for free on YouTube.

[36] In a 2018 preview of the closed beta, Heather Alexandra commented, "Tarkov is punishing, but there's a lot of fun to be found in mastering its complexities and slowly becoming a hardened mercenary.

[39] Messner also emphasized that the survival elements and high difficulty level turn every win into an achievement and every loss into a lesson.

[40] Battlestate Games has been accused of abusing YouTube's DMCA system to remove negative videos of Escape from Tarkov.

[42] The Battlestate Games Twitch account was temporarily banned in December 2019 after an employee pointed an empty gun at his head and pulled the trigger while streaming on the website.

"[43] After apologizing for the comments, Battlestate Games clarified their position in 2020, stating that while the employee's comments did not reflect the company's position or opinion as a whole, there would be no playable female characters due to "game lore and more importantly, the huge amount of work needed with animations, gear fitting, etc."

[48] The following day, Battlestate Games revised their statement to make access open sooner, but in waves as more server capacity is added.

On 18 July, Battlestate Games launched the PvE mode as a purchasable expansion for players who did not own the Unheard or Edge of Darkness editions.