After more than eight years in beta, extraction shooter Escape from Tarkov finally saw its 1.0 release on November 15. Now, developer Battlestate Games has revealed that the game has sold over 1 million copies in the month following release.
Unlike some early access titles, participating in Escape from Tarkov’s beta required a purchase of one of the game’s various pre-order editions, so the post-release sales will mostly represent newcomers to the game.
Battlestate Games controversially required that players re-purchase the game if they wanted to play it on Steam, even if they already purchased it directly from Battlestate. Escape from Tarkov also saw some controversy around its sales strategy when the studio revealed a $250 pre-order edition that unlocked access to an exclusive PVE mode, and other features that players called out as pay-to-win.
Battlestate has also shared a few other stats from Tarkov’s first month of full release, alongside its 1 million sales figure. The studio revealed that players have spent a total of 135,000,000 hours, equivalent to 15,410 years playing Escape From Tarkov in the past month.
It only became possible to finally escape from Tarkov in the 1.0 version of the game, with the first player to accomplish the difficult feat celebrated on the studio’s social media pages. Since then, over 500 people have managed to escape, accomplishing one of the game’s multiple endings.
Escape from Tarkov isn’t the only extraction shooter celebrating sales milestones recently–parody shooter Escape from Duckov also reached 1 million sales just five days after its release in mid-October. Embark Studios’ new extraction shooter Arc Raiders has also seen a lot of success since it released in October, giving Tarkov a run for its money in the genre it originated.
