They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and for Escape From Duckov is that. It clearly looks to Escape from Tarkov as inspiration, and comparisons are inevitable when 81% of the name matches. It evens goes so far as to ape so much of the weapons, ammo, attachments, items, systems, and locales that it’s hard for the game to present its own identity in contrast. That said, Escape From Duckov is an accessible top-down PVE extraction shooter, but it leaves me wanting more originality and fun that it claims to have.
Planet Duckov is nearing its final days, and it’s being ravaged by storms and is tearing itself apart. After breaking out of jail, you customize your duck down to beak, feathers, eyes, and tail. I made a mallard looking duck, but instead of normal eyes I gave him shotgun shells for eyes instead, and a chicken tail for no good reason. Now you have to raid the surface of Duckov to scavenge materials, items, and survive to be able to build a rocket to escape the planet. The game has a clear goal, and an interesting premise, and a very interesting motivation to keep going. Unlike Tarkov, this is a game that has a finite ending, but it doesn’t come fast, look to spend anywhere from 40-60 hours in the game before then. The fact that this is story-focused, and not an endless slog of quests, wipe, repeat that Tarkov is known for is to its benefit.
Interestingly, this is played from the isometric perspective; this is a pretty limited viewpoint, and has its share of problems. Your cone of vision is all you have, and everything else is in a fog. This does introduce the element of needing to use your ears instead of just your eyes, where the game has good sound design. However, it still feels like enemies can sneak up on you easily and without much warning. I applaud the developers for not making this top-down view limited, and not completely advantageous. The benefit is that you can see where you’re going at all times.
You’ll need to gear up, and head up to the surface to head into a raid to kill, loot, hopefully finding meaningful items that will net you that next big upgrade, and then extract without dying in order to get it out. Every time you load into a raid, it’s filled with random loot. It’s very much a game of risk vs reward, and just because it’s singleplayer or PVE, doesn’t mean it is easy. You’ll die, and often. Runs can be started by running out naked, at the starting location you’ll find a donation box that lets you stock up on basic randomized items such as meds and a pistol with some ammo. The game bill deaths as “no big deal”, but like with all extraction shooters, dying will result in you losing everything that you brought in and all that was found in-raid. The safety net is in you can dive right back in to do a corpse run to try to retrieve it so long as you aren’t killed again.
You’re given a pet, and it has a secure slot that can hold just a singular item, at first. You can actually load up a backpack full of items that in the event of your death, will make it back to the bunker successfully. I think Tarkov‘s quest design to be archaic and sometimes not thought out well, but it’s a game where it’s gunplay more than makes up for it. Duckov has a better quest design system, but the gunplay via its perspective is never all that satisfying.
Your bunker is a base of operations you’ll keep returning to after successful raids or deaths. This is a place where you’ll return to store your acquired items, restock, turn in quests, and get ready to go back out. Additionally, you’ll build crafting stations like weapons, workbenches, medicinal, and more like it to make items or upgrades that helps you. You’ll also be able to invest in upgrades for your character that improve vision, recoil, reload speed, and more. A talent system that unlocks under certain quest completions allows you to become more than an average duck, essentially introducing perks. You can also expand your storage to hold even more items that you’re looting during raids. Soon enough you’ll have teleporters built that makes traversal even easier, so long as a corresponding beacon is active for you. Duckov actually has some really great progression so long as you aren’t dying in raids.
There’s a running clock at an advanced pace that will turn day into night, as well as randomized weather for each raid. However, the standout element is the game’s storms. There is a countdown clock for when a storm will happen, and you’ll need higher-end gear to survive them, but tougher enemies and better loot is found here. If you aren’t geared for the storms, you can find your bed and sleep until it passes and the world is in a normal state.
There are five maps to traverse in Escape From Duckov, each with its own look and design, but it’s hard not to find the similarities to maps from Escape from Tarkov, though. The first map, “Ground Zero” is literally named the same as the starting map as EFT, despite it looking more like the “Customs” map. Another map you can access so long as you have ferry tickets, is Farm Town. What’s a really neat inclusion, is that there are permanent shortcuts to unlock. For instance, several bridges are broken, but loot enough wood and you can fix them for crossing. Another shortcut is something as simple as opening a barred gate from the other side. After breaking some boxes, I revealed a manhole cover that could be used as a secret extraction from the map. The maps themselves aren’t that exciting, but the way you can unlock new paths is really fun and inventive for the genre.
I’ve put 1350 hours Escape from Tarkov, and I’ve yet to find an extraction shooter that surpasses it. Other games like ZERO Sievert has managed to do their own thing successfully. But here I’m having trouble with its identity in the space, and I hoping something can be done to establish that better.
This game runs like a dream. I had no issues running this at maximum settings at 180fps nearly all times. It doesn’t have a lot in the way of options, but lets you select ambient occlusion, shadows, grass details, lighting, etc. It doesn’t support DLSS, but FSR 1.0 is supported if you need a boost to framerates on lower-end machines. The game also supports ultrawide resolutions out-of-the-box, letting you take advantage of the real estate and more of the game world.
My PC Specs:
– Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
– Intel Core i9 13900K @ 5.8GHz
– ASUS ROG RYUJIN II 360 ARGB AIO Liquid CPU Cooler
– G.SKILL TRIDENT Z5 6000MHZ 64GB (32×2) DDR5 RAM
– ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4080 16GB GDDR6X
– WD_BLACK SN850X M.2 (4 TB)
– LG UltraGear 34GP950B-G (21:9 Ultrawide @ 3440×1440)
Escape From Duckov has a lot of quality of life improvements I actually wish Escape from Tarkov had. The game does good at making you feel more powerful with each successful raid, despite being a cutesy and approachable extraction shooter. It attempts to be tongue-in-cheek, though doesn’t go far enough like it should to stand on its own two webbed feet. There’s fun to be had and I do recommend it, but Escape From Duckov just isn’t all it’s quacked up to be.
A Steam code was provided in advance by the publisher for review purposes
