Escape from Tarkov Seasons Explained: Kord Breach, the New Wipe System, and What Carries Over

Escape from Tarkov’s Steam player counts hit their highest levels since the November 2025 launch in the days after Season 1 opened, with daily peaks above 46,000 against the 47,800 all-time record, per SteamDB. The driver is the first of the new Tarkov seasons: Season 1, called Kord Breach, went live on August 3 with patch 1.1.0. The launch raises two versions of the same question: when is the next wipe, and what replaced wipes for the players who arrived through the Steam release and never saw one.

Both questions have the same answer. Battlestate Games retired account wipes and replaced them with an opt-in seasonal system, and this guide explains how Tarkov seasons work: what a seasonal character is, how the modifier point system builds your ruleset, what the free battle pass pays out, which rewards become permanent, and what all of it means for the character you already have. The short version of that last one: your main PMC is never touched.

What Are Escape from Tarkov Seasons?

A Tarkov season is an opt-in progression mode where you create a separate seasonal character that starts at level 1 with an empty stash, plays under a time-limited ruleset, and resets when the next season begins. Seasonal characters live on their own servers with their own matchmaking, fully independent from your PvP and PvE characters. Rewards you earn during a season transfer to your whole account permanently.

Seasons are free, PvP only, and scheduled twice per year. You choose whether to play one at all. Your permanent PMC, stash, hideout, and Kappa progress sit untouched whether you play the season daily or ignore it completely.

Wipes vs Seasons: What Changed

From 2017 to 2025, Tarkov ran on mandatory wipes. Eighteen of them reset every account, arriving on average every 163 days. The wipe compressed the gear gap and restarted the early-game scramble, but it also erased whatever you had built, whether you wanted the reset or not.

The 1.0 launch on November 15, 2025 was the final wipe. Seasons keep the fresh-start experience and move it to a separate character, so the reset becomes a choice.

Mode	Resets?	Notes
PvP (permanent)	Never	Your main PMC, stash, hideout, and Kappa progress since 1.0
PvE	Never forced	Optional Prestige system for voluntary restarts
PvP Season	Every season	Fresh level 1 character, separate matchmaking, seasonal ruleset

Season 1 Kord Breach: Dates, Theme, and Patch 1.1.0

Kord Breach runs from August 3 to December 7, 2026, and it arrived with patch 1.1.0. The season is themed around the Black Division faction, with its own storyline, achievements, and special trader offers. Future seasons follow a four-to-six-month cycle, with two seasons per year.

Patch 1.1.0 also reworked systems that affect every mode, seasonal or not:

• An Observer camera lets you spectate teammates after you die, a first for the main game.
• Side tasks now come in non-linear sets of 2 to 4, tied to trader loyalty levels, with larger money and experience rewards.
• Trader buy prices rose about 25 percent, trader sell prices fell about 20 percent, and Flea Market fees went from 3 percent to 5 percent.
• Three weapons arrived: the Norinco QBZ-191 in 5.8×42, the Howa Type 20 in 5.56×45, and the HK 416A5 in RAL 8000, plus four new 5.8×42 ammo types.

The season shows in the player numbers. SteamCharts puts average concurrent players at 12,779 in May, 16,987 in June, 18,827 in July, and 23,702 over the last 30 days. Daily peaks held between 29,000 and 33,000 in the back half of July, jumped past 44,000 the day after Kord Breach opened, and daily peaks passed 46,000 in mid-August, the highest since the 47,800 all-time record set at the Steam launch in November 2025, per SteamDB. Arc Raiders and Marathon went the other way over the same months: Arc Raiders’ monthly average fell from 61,000 in May to 26,000 in the last 30 days, and Marathon’s daily peaks sit near 6,400 against a launch peak of 88,000.

The Six Global Modifiers

Every seasonal character plays under six global modifiers. They are mandatory, they apply to everyone in the season, and together they push Kord Breach toward a harder economy with faster progression.

Global Modifier	Effect
No Insurance	Insurance is disabled. Lost gear stays lost.
Black Division	Black Division operatives roam Ground Zero (level 21+), Shoreline, and Streets of Tarkov, and they replace the Raiders on The Lab.
Armor Shortage	Traders stock less armor.
No FiR for Hideout	Items used to build or upgrade Hideout modules do not need Found in Raid status.
Handyman	Crafting time is cut by 50 percent, and the seasonal PMC starts with the crafting skill at level 51.
Seasoned PMCs	The seasonal PMC earns 25 percent more experience from raids.

The two economy modifiers change standard habits the most. With insurance gone, every kit you bring into a raid is a full-loss risk, and the armor shortage keeps replacement plates expensive. The three progression modifiers compensate: faster crafting, faster leveling, and a Hideout you can build from vendor-bought parts.

Personal Modifiers: Build Your Own Ruleset

Global modifiers set the shared rules; personal modifiers set yours. Before your seasonal character is created, you pick from a menu of negative modifiers that grant points and positive modifiers that cost points. The total must land at 0 or higher, and the choices lock permanently once the character exists.

These are the standout trades, with live values from the official wiki. Battlestate has said modifier values may change for balancing.

Modifier	Points	Effect
No Flea Market	+10	Trading with players on the Flea Market is disabled.
Broken Secure Container	+6	Secure container only holds cash, keys, dogtags, special equipment, certain containers, and Battle Pass documents.
Allergic	+3	You become allergic to 3 random items from the Provisions or Medication category.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome	+2	Energy is consumed 20 percent faster.
Third Leg	+1	Movement speed drops 1 percent; buying from Therapist is 5 percent cheaper.
Street Tax	-1	Once per week, Fence sends 150,000 Roubles, 1,000 Dollars, and 1,000 Euros in protection money.
Polyphagia	-2	Energy is consumed 20 percent slower.
Sturdy Bones	-3	Limb fracture chance drops 25 percent; falls deal 20 percent less damage.
Bushborne	-5	Walking in vegetation generates 75 percent less noise and movement slowdown.
Average	-12	All skills are set to level 25 but cannot be leveled further, excluding the crafting skill.
Kappa Protocol	-12	You immediately receive the Kappa secure container.

The design rewards deliberate builds. Taking No Flea Market at +10 funds Bushborne at -5 and Sturdy Bones at -3 with points to spare, and a sniper build funds different picks than a rat build. Kappa Protocol is the extreme case: a Kappa container on day one, if you can absorb 12 points of handicaps to pay for it.

The Free Battle Pass and TerraGroup Documents

Patch 1.1.0 added Tarkov’s first battle pass, and it is free for every player. Progression is shared across PvP, PvE, and the seasonal mode, so you do not need a seasonal character to level it.

The pass levels through TerraGroup documentation: papers you find in raids, take from Black Division operatives, or earn from Kord Breach missions. An optional paid item called Classified Documents skips standard progression. Some pass rewards may not be available after the season ends, so an unfinished track does not wait for you.

The document system is the season’s biggest friction point so far. The top feedback thread on r/EscapefromTarkov, at 593 points, asks Battlestate to fold document drops into daily task rewards instead of loot RNG, and players in that thread report a cap of 10 documents per mode per day that makes catching up late in the season slow.

Rewards That Carry Over

The transfer rule is simple: once a reward is unlocked, it becomes available on all characters in all modes, permanently. The seasonal character resets when the next season starts. The rewards never do.

Season 1 rewards center on Black Division gear. Each piece unlocks as a trade offer after you complete a specific seasonal quest, and the later pieces also require a character level:

Reward	Level	Unlock Quest
Gatorz Specter MILSPEC ballistic glasses	Any	Reverse Gear
Avon M53A1 gas mask	Any	Forbidden Knowledge
Mystery Ranch 2 Day Assault Pack (Black)	25	Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing
Spiritus Systems LV-119 Plate Carrier (Black Division V1)	30	Digital Puzzle
First Spear Siege-R Optimized M.A.S.S. Plate Carrier (Black Division)	30	Historical Perspective

Cosmetics ride alongside the gear: patches, a gas mask decal, and armor paint.

The Kord Breach Questline

The season ships a dedicated [KORD BREACH] quest chain. It starts with Prapor’s Uninvited Guests – Part 1, which requires Prapor Loyalty Level 2, and runs through the BTR Driver, Fence, and Mechanic, with parallel objectives from Jaeger and Ragman.

Late in the chain the story branches: you choose between Final Stretch and Consequences of Our Decisions before the closing quests. The standout payout sits near the end, where Digital Puzzle rewards both a THICC Items Case and a THICC Weapon Case. Finishing the chain also unlocks the seasonal trader offers and new Operational Tasks.

What PvE Players Get Instead

Seasonal characters are PvP only. PvE players keep permanent progression with no forced resets, and they get a separate Prestige system instead: a voluntary restart you trigger yourself, marked with special recognition and progression markers.

The free battle pass still applies. PvE raids produce TerraGroup documents and level the same shared pass, so the season’s cosmetic and gear rewards stay reachable without ever queuing into PvP.

Gear for Long Raid Sessions

A seasonal grind is hours of raids where footsteps decide fights, and slow storage adds minutes to every map load. These three picks cover audio, display, and storage without overspending. Prices checked August 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

Summary

Tarkov seasons keep the part of wipes that worked, the shared fresh start, and cut the part that did not, the forced deletion of your progress. If you want the level 1 scramble, roll a seasonal character, pick your modifiers carefully, and chase the Black Division rewards before the season closes. If you do not, play your permanent character and level the free battle pass anyway, since it progresses in every mode.

Either way, the days of logging in to an empty stash are over. For a look at how the rest of the genre is handling the same retention problem, our Marathon beginner guide covers Bungie’s approach to onboarding new extraction players. And if the launch-week rough edges of a hardcore shooter do not scare you, our Hell Let Loose: Vietnam settings guide covers the fixes for the genre’s newest entry.