Escape from Tarkov arrives on Steam 'soon' - with one big question mark hanging over the move

Escape from Tarkov is coming to Steam, finally, with gamers being told it'll be on Valve's platform soon.

The news was posted on X by the head of studio at Battlestate Games, Nikita Buyanov, PC Gamer noticed.

The tactical extraction shooter has been some eight years in testing, and it's coming up to version 1.0 - that's due in November, and so that could well be when Escape from Tarkov will first pitch up on Steam.

Buyanov previously teased the Steam release on X, but here we get confirmation, and a glimpse of the product page that's preparing to go live.

The question a lot of the fans of the online shooter want to know the answer to is: will they have to pay for the game again?

In other words, if you've already bought Tarkov, when it's out on Steam, will you simply be able to grab it, or will you have to fork out cash to purchase it again? We don't have an answer for that yet.

Buyanov also just shared a couple of teaser screenshots from the incoming Terminal map on X with no comment - but they appear to show that leg armor might be introduced. That could be a controversial move, shall we say - it's been a suggestion aired in the past (and something the devs have considered, supposedly, a long time back) - but it'd be a surprise to see it actually happen.

Another interesting point with the release of Escape from Tarkov on Steam will be to see how many concurrent players the game can rack up. Its presence on Steam will surely help to boost the player count.