Escape from Tarkov (Tarkov) Accounts, skins en kisten

Which edition an account is decides most of its price, and the ladder is the publisher's own: Standard at the bottom, Prepare for Escape above it, Edge of Darkness — the all-inclusive edition that is no longer sold — well above that, and The Unheard Edition, the current top tier, at the top. An edition is permanent. It sets the stash size, the secure container, the starting trader standing and, for the top two, the extras bundled in — the PvE mode, the Arena — and none of that resets. That is why a fresh Edge of Darkness account with no hours is worth several times a fresh Standard one, and why the ladder holds whether the listing states hours or not.

Region is the second axis, and on this shelf it is a real price rather than a composition effect: inside each edition, a RU/CIS licence is the cheap one and an EU or Global licence the dear one. The reason is the publisher's regional pricing plus a lock — a licence bought in the CIS plays from the CIS. A listing that says «RU/GLOBAL via upgrade» is a CIS purchase that was later upgraded to play anywhere, and it is priced as Global.

The PvE mode is the third thing to read. It is bundled with the top editions and sold as an add-on to the others, and a Standard account «+ PVE» is a different product from a plain Standard one. Arena, the standalone shooter, comes bundled the same way.

What does not survive a wipe — level, stash contents, roubles — adds something between two listings of the same edition and region, and not before. Prestige is the exception: the rank earned by finishing a wipe carries over, and the listings that state one are priced for it.

Region first, because it is a lock rather than a preference. If you play from the EU or the Americas, a RU/CIS licence is not a bargain — it is a licence that plays from somewhere else. Filter to your region, or to Global, before you look at an edition.

Then the edition, and know what you are paying for. Standard is the game; Prepare for Escape is Standard with a larger stash and better starting standing; Edge of Darkness is everything — the largest stash, the best container, every expansion — and cannot be bought new any more, which is why it holds its price; The Unheard Edition is the current top tier with its own extras. If you want the PvE mode, check it is bundled or added.

Third, the state of the account. Hours and level tell you whether it was played this wipe; prestige tells you whether it was played to the end of a previous one. A fresh account with no hours is a clean licence with nothing to inherit — and on a game that bans by hardware and by account, «nothing to inherit» is worth having.

Last, the login. Tarkov lives on a Battlestate launcher account or, since the Steam release, on a Steam account; either way the email is the account. Read that the mailbox is included before you read anything else.

The region lock is the first thing that goes wrong, and it goes wrong after payment: a CIS licence bought from Berlin opens the launcher and refuses the servers. The listing's region is not a detail — it decides whether you can play at all from where you are.

The second is the account itself. A Battlestate account is recovered through its email, and so is a Steam one; a listing without the mailbox is an account the seller can take back. Battlestate also bans by hardware and by account for cheating and for real-money trading, and a previously banned licence is worthless — «0 hours» is the reassurance, and a listing that shows hours and says nothing about bans is a question to ask before paying.

The publisher's terms, like every publisher's, do not provide for selling accounts. What protects you is the mailbox, the password you set and the authenticator you add, plus escrow: the payment is held until you confirm the launcher opens, the edition is what the listing said, and the servers for your region answer.

Change the password, move the email to your own, then turn on two-factor authentication — on the Battlestate profile or the Steam account, whichever the licence lives on. Do it before you confirm the order; the confirmation is what releases the seller's money.

Then open the profile and check the edition and the region against the listing, and launch the game from where you actually play: the region lock shows itself at the server list, not in the profile. If the listing promised PvE or Arena, check they are present; if it promised a prestige rank or a stash, open the stash.

Listing is free and you receive exactly the price you set: the platform's fee is added on top for the buyer rather than taken out of your price. Lead with the edition and the region — the two things every buyer filters on, and a lot without them is invisible to the edition slices — then whether PvE and Arena are included, and whether the licence is on the Battlestate launcher or on Steam. State the prestige if you have one; state «0 hours» if it is fresh. Say plainly that the email comes with it: on this shelf that line closes the sale.