Episode 603 Early Access: Tarkov's Nikita Just Changed the FPS Genre Twice in One Show

The first FPS Games Show happened, and the two biggest things in it both came from the guy who's had Escape from Tarkov in beta for a decade. Nikita opened the whole showcase with Fragmentary Order — sci-fi, Unreal Engine 5, maps four to five times the size of Tarkov's, and a promise that it'll be "more complex, more punishing, more painful."

Then Battlestate turned around and launched a publishing arm for hardcore games nobody else will fund, with devs keeping their full IP. We go deep on both: whether a game more complex than Tarkov is a game anyone actually plays, why Tarkov's bloat (two types of croutons, twenty types of Keter ammo) is the thing a fresh start fixes, and why every extraction shooter after Tarkov has failed for the same reason — they weren't hardcore enough.

Also: Bulkhead built this entire showcase because a trailer slot elsewhere runs $300,000 for 60 seconds, then immediately fumbled their own big Wardogs announcement into a clip contest. Plus Tarkov's PvE player base hitting 50%, and Star Wars Zero Company. Timestamps below. Let us know if Fragmentary Order is going to be a bust or a banger.

0:00 - Intro

2:35 - The FPS Games Show

4:21 - The Wardogs beta and what's coming at launch

7:03 - Fragmentary Order: first impressions

9:03 - Tarkov's three real problems

10:52 - It's not Battlestate — Nikita's new studio

12:50 - "More complex, more punishing, more painful"

18:33 - Tarkov's bloat problem

20:09 - How sci-fi is this actually going to be?

25:55 - "Not an extraction shooter" — Nikita's combat simulator

30:18 - Why Unreal Engine 5

37:41 - Is there a release date?

43:14 - When will Fragmentary Order actually be playable?

45:21 - Tarkov is old and it looks it

48:47 - Battlestate Games is a publisher now

58:09 - What does a game publisher actually do?

1:02:04 - "Make hardcore live forever" — mission or marketing?

1:04:27 - Extraction shooters aren't dead, arcade shooters are

1:08:00 - Does this change the Tarkov roadmap?

1:12:44 - $300,000 for 60 seconds

1:14:42 - Genre showcases vs. the big generic ones

1:19:28 - Bulkhead's Wardogs announcement flops

1:23:15 - Who actually wins the $100K?

1:25:18 - Everything else from the show

1:26:39 - Road to Vostok, Ready or Not, Hell Let Loose

1:28:30 - Beautiful Light

1:32:49 - Gray Zone Warfare is "entering alpha"

1:34:50 - Tarkov PvE is 50% of the player base

1:40:05 - Is seasonal PvP actually worse?

1:47:11 - Star Wars Zero Company

1:53:50 - Grievous vs. Darth Maul

1:55:21 - Outro