Escape From Tarkov Arena, the PvP-focused spinoff of EFT, has just been blessed with a new game mode, and it'll sound extremely familiar to fans of the king of PC shooters. Yes, Tarkov Arena is bringing the CS2 experience to its players with Blast Gang, a 5v5 bomb defusal mode.
Of course, it goes without saying that FPS game to imitate the tactical action that Counter-Strike pioneered – and nor will it be the last. But it felt pretty inevitable that a CS-inspired mode would eventually crop up in Tarkov Arena. Now, that time has finally arrived.
"Blast Gang is a 5v5 team battle with asymmetrical gameplay. The attacking side needs to plant a special device, and the defending side needs to prevent or deactivate the planted device," Battlestate Games says.
Blast Gang is going to be playable across three of Tarkov Arena's maps to begin with (Bay 5, Bowl, and a brand-new map called SkyBridge), and will also become the first new mode to be added to ranked play. This should come as a relief to hardcore players, who have been stuck with just the Teamfight mode in ranked since Arenas launched.
Blast Gang was also given an early run-out a couple of weeks ago at TwitchCon, where notable community figures and attendees got the chance to play it. This new developer diary includes a few snippets of gameplay and the reactions of those who were able to try it out, and the general sentiment appears to be: 'thank God, because Teamfight was starting to get rather boring.'
While I really don't anticipate Arena making any kind of a dent in Counter-Strike 2's player base as a result, the addition of this new mode does keep things fresh for the multiplayer game's existing audience.
Alongside Blast Gang's arrival, this update also makes some balance changes to some of the presets in Tarkov Arena, and as mentioned, adds the new SkyBridge map.
If you're an Arena fan, you're more than likely a fan of the main game too. So make sure you know when the next free PC games recommends plenty of cost-effective titles that you can jump into right now.
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