Escape From Tarkov Endings Explained: Every Path, Choice, And Outcome

Escape from Tarkov drops you into the fallen city of Tarkov in Russia’s Norvinsk region, where a political scandal has unleashed warring factions and corporate ruthlessness—and society is hanging by a thread.

Spoilers ahead for Escape from Tarkov. If you care about the story beats, turn back now.

Escape from Tarkov plays like a bleak, slow-burn thriller: a city in the fictional Norvinsk region of northwest Russia implodes after a political scandal, rival groups gut it for scraps, and a private conglomerate called TerraGroup does whatever it takes to bury its secrets. You step into that mess, push through a pile of brutal choices, and land on one of four endings. None of them are exactly cheerful, but they do say a lot about what kind of survivor you decided to be.

The setup in plain English

Tarkov is a war zone run by factions with agendas. TerraGroup is the shadowy corporate power trying to scrub the board clean. Your path forks around a few key players: Prapor, a warrant officer who can open doors if you pay up and play along; Kerman, who wants to blow TerraGroup’s cover; and the Lightkeeper, who holds the keys (literally) to certain high-security areas. Your choices about who to trust and when to deliver critical evidence are what decide the ending.

The four endings, what they mean, and how you get there

• Survivor ending (aka the selfish exit)
  If you hand the case to Prapor during the Falling Skies questline and decide you’re not working with Kerman, the plan shifts to brute-force escape. You deliver 500 million Roubles to Prapor in The Ticket to gain access to the Terminal, fight your way through, and reach the dockyard for a small boat out. TerraGroup, not thrilled about witnesses, sends a private military aircraft that attacks the boat. Everyone dies except you. Then TerraGroup nukes Tarkov to erase what’s left. You live. The city doesn’t. In the end, TerraGroup wins, the truth gets buried, and you essentially chose survival over everything else. Cold? Absolutely. Plausible? Also yes.

• Debtor ending
  You skip the giant payout to Prapor and instead go straight to the Lightkeeper’s doorstep, then fight your way through the Terminal without trusting Kerman with the case. You’re effectively throwing in with the darker operators running Tarkov’s underbelly just to get out. The final steps are very specific: hit Shoreline between 22:00 and 04:00, use the Tower intercom, and swipe the keycard you got from the Lightkeeper. The outcome is still about escape at all costs, but who you owe on the way out is the real price tag.

• Fallen ending
  This one is murky by design right now. You partner up with Kerman, then betray him at the finish line to swing back to Prapor. Consider this one a work in progress while more concrete details emerge, but the gist is: you play both sides and choose Prapor in the end.

• For Humanity ending (the true route)
  The case you’ve been protecting contains the dirt TerraGroup cannot afford to see daylight. Side with Kerman, hand him the evidence, and you get your shot at a clean escape by boat. Plot twist: the captain tries to kill you to keep the truth buried. A soldier you helped earlier steps in, kills the captain, and spells it out — everyone aboard is part of a trusted circle that wants TerraGroup taken down. TerraGroup still tries to wipe the slate by nuking Tarkov, but the boat survives and the evidence stays intact. The story doesn’t fully close the book here; it tees up a future where the truth gets out and TerraGroup finally has a real fight on its hands.

Why this is all so bleak (and kind of brilliant)

Two different endings end with TerraGroup nuking Tarkov. In one, you’re the lone survivor and the truth dies. In the other, the people who can expose it make it out alive. Same hammer, totally different result. It’s a sharp piece of storytelling for a game that often buries its narrative under gunfire and gear checks.

What it might be setting up

The For Humanity ending is intentionally open-ended. It feels like a door cracked for future Tarkov content — maybe an expansion, maybe a separate project set in the same universe. Fans are already reading it like a teaser. We’ll see if Battlestate decides to walk through it.

So, where did you land — survival at any cost, or pulling the pin on TerraGroup’s secrets? I know which one sits better with me, but Tarkov has a way of making every choice sting.