‘Escape From Tarkov’ Patch Notes Overhaul AI And Add Spring Season

The Escape From Tarkov patch notes for update 0.16.1.3 have been released, and the biggest changes come to the way AI enemies behave in the game, which will hopefully fix a lot of the complaints players have had about them since the launch of the last wipe.

The 0.16.1.3 patch, which is being deployed currently and is likely to go live around 8am ET / 6am PT, is a somewhat smaller patch than usual, but the big AI changes will surely change how it feels to play Tarkov no matter what mode you enjoy. Although, this will likely be great news for those in the PvE mode.

While there isn’t one big change that will likely fix everything with the AI, rather a lot of smaller changes, the most interesting is that AI will no longer instantly detect or lose sign of you as soon as certain conditions are met. This previously meant scavs would lock onto you as soon as you made a noise in their area, and often gave the impression of them being able to see through walls.

Now, depending on a lot of variables, they will gradually become suspicious or lose interest on you based on how obvious you are in your movements. Factors such as weather conditions, distance, angle to the target and more will impact how likely they are to spot you, and the impact of vegetation such as bushes has also been tweaked to improve their detection systems.

There have also been tweaks to the AI difficulty, and some features such as suppressing fire have been removed from basic scavs and instead given only to more powerful AI like raiders and bosses. Sniper scavs and others who fight at long range will also not fire cross map shots at long range, instead choosing to take cover and figure out more about you, which should mean less of those annoying out of nowhere headshots that sometimes take you out.

The list of AI changes is fairly substantial, including a fix that should stop the ridiculous amount of scav spawns you sometimes see, so you may want to read the full Escape From Tarkov patch notes to get all the details.

Elsewhere in the patch, the spring weather season has been added, removing the snow and making things a bit sunnier in Tarkov. There’s also some big performance changes, and new DLSS settings to tweak if you have been running into issues, and a giant list of bug fixes that continues the plan to make Escape From Tarkov more stable in the first half of this year.