Tarkov Late Spawns Have Sadly Returned

(Intro)

On March 27th, the developers of Tarkov put out the update for version 1.0.4 which introduced some interesting changes across the board. Balance adjustments to many different elements of the game, attempts at optimization with some pain points players have been experiencing, and making lots of fixes to things that you may or may not have dealt with. However, while these changes are appreciated and definitely larger than I figured any patch going forward would be, the main focus of this patch was to address the long queue and load times when entering raids. And their attempts at reducing how long it takes to load into raids have ultimately resorted in a rather unfortunate side effect of old Tarkov returning for the worse. Late spawns have sadly returned, and it seems that from personal experience after this patch, my attempts to get into a single raid before it starts are futile. So, let’s go over late spawns being in Tarkov once again, whether or not this is a bug or again, an unfortunate side effect of them trying to speed up the process in general, and what can be done to maybe tackle this problem. It sucked years ago when it was around, now it’s even more apparent and even more annoying than it was before.

(Late spawns across Tarkov’s history)

Tarkov has sadly had a long history dealing with late spawns. Even as far back as the early alpha days, there were tons of instances of players spawning in late, upwards of several minutes, only to turn a corner and die instantly. Even worse, some players would be dead before they even connect to the raid because their character is standing in the raid waiting for the player to actually connect. Most of the time it boiled down to two things which are both related to the issue even in 2026; server stability and spool up time and all the PCs trying to load into it. For a long time, the solution that the developers ended up with was holding all the players in the lobby until everyone was ready. At least that way, people would all start on an even playing field. Because nothing was worse than trying to loot a high traffic location like the resort on shoreline only to spawn late and have zero chance of getting anything good. Of course, the obvious drawback is that tons of players were stuck in loading screens for minutes longer than they should be. So there is a conundrum; do the developers let players who have better computers into the game as soon as they can and leave the others to still enter the raid but be late to it, or hold everyone hostage in a lobby until the green light signals to all that we can proceed? It's a tough call, and I wouldn't want to be the one who makes that call. Now, fast forward to 2026 and somehow, we are talking about a problem that had long since been gone from the game. The newest major update in the patch notes specifically mentions adding further improvements to speeding up loading times before entering a raid. And it’s very noticeable; on average now, it takes less than two minutes to load in. But what happens now I’ve noticed is I am always at least ten seconds late to every single raid, unless I somehow get stupidly lucky and am the only PMC on the map, which on certain locations like night factory, depending on the time of day can happen. Otherwise, for the last ten days or so, I have not seen the get ready screen in the game once. And it’s quite frustrating knowing that this issue was gone for so long, only to come back because we load in so quickly now. In any other game, it probably wouldn't bother me that much. Or if it was always less than ten seconds, I might look the other way. But sadly, I have been minutes late to a raid before.

Originally, I noticed it was apparent because I was tabbed out of the game, so I was like 'okay, maybe it's because I'm doing other stuff while I load. Let me stay tabbed in and just scroll on my phone or organize my stash while I wait'. And even then, I would get to I think it’s synchronizing with players and then it would just fade in from black, and my character is standing there. Which means that my character is susceptible to dying before I even get into the game, which if that happened is not my fault. Imagine losing an entire gear set before you even step foot into the raid. I don't have to imagine because it's happened to me and tons of players for years. Again, that's one of those circumstances where the game just gets shut off for the day after it happens. I don’t have the patience for that kind of stuff anymore. Don't get me wrong; the fast-loading times are wild; it's one of the game's biggest flaws and has been for almost a decade. Just normal loading times before were anywhere from four to seven minutes with no shenanigans or looking for players. But now, again, less than two minutes in most cases is a beautiful sight to behold. But if it comes at the cost of having players spawning in late, I don’t know if that trade-off is worth it. Especially if this isn’t a bug on the games end and this is just the new norm. I hope we hear something from Nikita in the not-so-distant future about it; at least some kind of confirmation about whether this is intentional and if they plan on making any adjustments to it.

(Is this a bug? Or something that's here to stay?)

The biggest question I have is whether or not these late spawns are a bug with the new loading changes, or simply just a byproduct of them. It's difficult to discern which it might be; because before, it was just an oversight on their part and allowing people to get into raid as soon as they were ready. And then they made some changes to slow people down and wait for everyone to be ready, which as much as it sucked to wait for people, it was appreciated that we all started a raid at the same time. And sure, you can blame people for not having powerful PCs, but at the end of the day, it’s battle state’s game, and how they chose to optimize it. This game when looked through that particular lens is a hunk of crap held together by popsicle sticks, duct tape, and glue. It's never been optimized in any regard; servers, stability, framerate; the fact we’ve gotten this far with the abysmal state of optimization the game is currently at is a feat in of itself. Streets still basically doesn’t work for a ton of people, even with the culling changes with the most recent update. The servers are a whole different set of problems. But the fact we had to wait until after 1.0 to see any changes to loading times is sad and really unfortunate.

(Outro)

There really isn't much else to say. This is more of a PSA to people who may have noticed that they are spawning into raids late, which hasn't really been a thing for years now. It's not just you; there seems to be a decent chunk of people who are currently going through it. Myself included; which is a shame because being late in Tarkov raids is pretty much either a swift death sentence or you just miss out on opportunities to get valuable first. To this day, I don't think the exact reasoning for why this happens has even been solved, I could be wrong, or at the very least there may be more experienced and intelligent people regarding this matter out there who can elaborate on why this might be the case. But for now, we did get faster load times, but it came at the cost of many players being left in the dust in favor of getting the servers up and running much sooner. Which sucks because on one hand, getting into raids in less than two minutes is a wild thing to experience after so many years of constant waiting. But on the other hand, I don't like the idea of any player feeling like they might need to upgrade their computer just to keep pace with those who did so before this change. Especially considering the current computer parts market and how everything is so exorbitantly expensive. So personally, I am torn on whether I would want this in the game permanently in its current state. As I said earlier, if this is not intended, I hope they are aware of it and can find a solution before this gets out of hand. It's only been just over a week, so who knows. Either way, for now, my suggestion would be to stay tabbed into your game whilst you’re loading into raids and just keep your eyes on the timer; get an idea how late you are and plan out your raids accordingly. Not much else we can do sadly. Thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to watch this video. Let me know down in the comment section below your thoughts on both the faster load timers and how much quicker you get into raids, if you are sadly being affected by loading in late and be sure to subscribe for more videos about the classic idiom of six in one hand, half a dozen in the other being literally manifested in Tarkov with a hugely positive improvement with a terrible downside.