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I'm no massive fan of the extraction shooter, but I know that what Escape From Tarkov has achieved in a genre that's become so crowded as to be almost cursed is nothing short of remarkable. But with all the genuine homages it's collected over the years, perhaps it's time for something a little more accessible.
Enter Escape from Duckov, the siren song of which has been calling to me from the Steam Next Fest charts all week. For me, the personal selling point was not only the clumsily-placed duck pun, so much as the fact that Escape from Duckov is an entirely single-player experience. Not for me the sweaty, heart-pounding experience of attempting to flee while chased down by a player who's a far better shot than me.
Instead, a rather more sedate experience, the heavy footfall of fast-moving combat boots replaced with the gentle plap-plap-plap of duck feet on soil. There's an unsurprising goofiness to Escape from Duckov, helped along in my case by the fact that I really pushed the character creator to its limits. My duck was decidedly topheavy, its towering cranium and glaring angry eyes not exactly stealthy, but that doesn't really matter in a single-player game.
Exactly how threatening Duckov is compared to Tarkov, I couldn't really tell you, but I'll take a guess that the answer hovers somewhere around 'dramatically less'. While there's a sense of some kind of ruined civilization, and various packs of weapon-toting bandits who are keen to run up on you, those bandits are all also ducks, and the isometric perspective means that you have a good idea of what's coming towards you.
Still, while you're not necessarily going to be challenged from a combat perspective, there's still quite a lot of depth to Escape from Duckov that I definitely wasn't expecting. A web of quests, upgrades, crafting components, and base customization unfurls pretty quickly, and while you're gated off from most of it pretty well, it's immediately apparent that this isn't some low-effort parody. Exactly why it's duck-themed is something I'm still not sure about, but Escape from Duckov seems like a genuine attempt to find a new niche in a genre that I feel has been 'complete' for a long time now.
Games like Tarkov and Hunt: Showdown filled up what little space was available in the multiplayer extraction shooter market pretty early, and they've dominated ever since. Many comers have tried to take a piece of the action, but even some of the biggest studios have crashed and burned in the attempt. Fundamentally, it's a genre where there's not a huge amount of room for innovation beyond the tension that made these games fun in the first place - but Escape from Duckov seems to have found it. The tense atmosphere and simulation-level combat of Tarkov, combined with a community that's had years to sharpen its skills, means that I've got no desire to jump into a multiplayer version. But Duckov not only piqued my interest, it offered a new viewpoint on a genre that I'd personally written off.
