A Call of Duty Dev Steps Into Tarkov Territory
Rant Gaming Studios has confirmed that Aaron Beck, a former Call of Duty concept artist, is leading the conceptual work on Fragmentary Order, the upcoming shooter from Escape from Tarkov creator Nikita Buyanov. According to the studio, Beck has been collaborating on the project for more than a year and a half, and fans already recognize his distinctive visual style in the game’s early materials. While Rant stresses that Fragmentary Order is not technically an extraction title, its close ties to Buyanov and Tarkov’s legacy mean expectations are sky-high among hardcore FPS fans. This crossover is significant: a veteran Call of Duty dev helping shape a project from the face of Tarkov suggests a deliberate attempt to blend mass-market shooter sensibilities with extreme, systems-heavy survival design. For Call of Duty players curious about Tarkov-like experiences, Fragmentary Order could become a new bridge between familiar gunplay and unforgiving extraction loops.
What Makes Escape from Tarkov Different from Traditional Shooters
Escape from Tarkov helped define the modern extraction shooter game by pushing realism and consequence far beyond typical matchmaking shooters. Instead of quick, round-based respawns, every raid is a high-stakes incursion where your gear is on the line. If you die, you lose the equipment you brought, turning each fight or ambush into a meaningful risk–reward decision. Tarkov’s progression is slower and more granular than Call of Duty’s rapid unlock loops, emphasizing methodical looting, intricate inventory management, and knowledge of maps over instant gratification. Social systems like in-game VOIP—introduced with patch 12.12 alongside major gameplay changes—added layers of tension and possibility, from negotiating truces to setting ambushes. Over time, many players reverted to “shoot on sight” instincts, underscoring how fragile trust is in such punishing environments. This combination of realistic mechanics, punishing loss, and emergent player interaction is what sets Tarkov and its spin-offs apart from traditional fast-paced shooters.
Fragmentary Order and the Hardcore End of Extraction
Fragmentary Order is being pitched as a hardcore sci-fi shooter that leans into the most demanding aspects of Tarkov’s design philosophy. Buyanov has described Arc Raiders as “an extraction shooter for casual people” and stressed that his new project aims to be the opposite of that experience. He says the goal is “the most painful, most challenging, and most rewarding” gameplay, rooted in simulating reality rather than encouraging constant friendliness. Like Tarkov, Fragmentary Order will not force players to fight, but its world is built so that conflict is almost inevitable. Players will need to survive dynamic events, seek shelter, and sometimes cooperate under pressure, but the expectation is that danger can come from anywhere at any time. In this sense, the Arc Raiders comparison is useful: where Arc Raiders often devolves into making friends and sharing the map, Fragmentary Order wants every encounter to feel tense, uncertain, and potentially lethal.
How Call of Duty Design DNA Could Change a Hardcore Shooter
Bringing a Call of Duty dev into a Tarkov-adjacent project raises a key question: how do you make a brutal, realism-driven shooter feel readable and responsive without diluting its edge? Call of Duty’s strengths—snappy gunplay, clear feedback, strong controller and mouse feel, and straightforward progression cues—could greatly benefit a complex hardcore FPS. Fragmentary Order’s early reveals already showcase Beck’s stylised visual language, hinting at a more immediately legible sci-fi world than Tarkov’s grounded, gritty maps. That kind of clarity can help new players parse threats and objectives in a genre that often overwhelms with complexity. The challenge is to integrate CoD-like responsiveness with high lethality, inventory loss, and punishing missions. If Rant Gaming and Buyanov can marry tight gunfeel and intuitive visual design with unforgiving survival systems, Fragmentary Order could become a rare extraction-style experience that’s accessible enough for curious CoD players yet brutal enough for Tarkov veterans.
Why CoD Players Are Eyeing Extraction Shooters—and What Comes Next
Extraction shooters are drawing attention from across the hardcore FPS genre because they turn every match into a story about risk, loss, and escape, not just kills and scorelines. For Call of Duty players, the biggest adjustment is the stakes: time-to-kill is often high, but more crucially, death can mean losing your carefully built loadout, not just resetting to a class select screen. Progression is slower and more deliberate, and even social tools like VOIP can shift a tense standoff into cooperation—or betrayal. The trend is spreading beyond Tarkov and Arc Raiders; Marathon has shown how extraction tension can completely consume competitive shooter fans, while reports suggest the next Halo entry may pivot from a scrapped battle royale toward a Tarkov-inspired, large-scale extraction experience. With Fragmentary Order in development and big franchises experimenting in this space, it’s clear that high-stakes, session-based survival is becoming a central pillar of the FPS future.