Escape from Tarkov Beginner Guide: What to Do in Raid One

The one goal

Extract. Not loot, not kills, not quests. Learning two extracts per map and reliably reaching one is the entire beginner curriculum, and everything else is built on it. A player who extracts with an empty backpack is progressing. A player who fills a backpack and dies has spent forty minutes for nothing — the extract page is the most important reading in the game.

The order of operations

1. Pick one map and stay on it. Ground Zero exists for this. Learning a single layout — spawns, choke points, exits — is worth more than sampling five maps badly. 2. Bring cheap gear you can lose. Your first kits will be lost. The starting gear the game gives you is correct for this stage, and there is no version of the early game where you should be buying expensive armour. 3. Ignore fights you did not choose. Gunfire draws players. If you hear shooting, that is information about where not to go. 4. Collect the small things. Bolts, screws, duct tape, and wires feel worthless and are the material base for the hideout, which is the only progression that survives a death.

What actually kills new players

Not knowing where they are. The map is the game, and the in-raid map is a tool you have to buy and carry. Not having one is a choice to be lost. Weight and noise. Running is loud and exhausting, and stamina loss in a fight is a death sentence. Walking, and stopping to listen, is not passive play — it is how information is gathered. Fighting the first thing they see. The players who kill you are usually the ones who heard you first. The sound page covers what you are broadcasting.

What to do before the next raid

Two habits pay for themselves immediately. Sell what you do not need rather than hoarding it — stash space is limited and value is not. And pick up every task from the traders, because tasks are the only reliable source of experience and they give your raids a direction. The first 72 hours page is the extended version of this, and the map order page explains which maps to graduate to and when. Do not skip to the hard ones because a video made them look fun; the loss curve is the point.