Escape from Tarkovwhich has been in early access since 2017 but will be released in full release in November, is a gritty, grounded tactical shooter set in a fictional Russia in which players loot and fight to survive. If you've ever wondered what the game would be like if the soldiers were ducks instead of people, you're not alone. Team Soda, a development team from the Chinese company Bilibili, has released Escape from Dukov October 16.
This is not a multiplayer type game Escape from Tarkovinstead reimagining the “loot shooter” genre as a single-player “PvE” game. It might be easy to write off the game as a joke or a novelty: the juxtaposition of cute ducklings against a game like Escape from Tarkov It's hard to imagine working. But it has hardcore survival elements that provide a surprisingly deep experience.
Escape from Dukov works because Team Soda isn't necessarily trying to fit the ducks into a realistic world, but rather creating its own brutal yet silly environment. It works. Escape from Dukov reached 500,000 players on October 19.and then doubled that number in a matter of days, attracting over a million players by October 22nd. Team Soda announced on October 22nd.. On October 28, Team Soda announced that it had once again doubled its player base – now two million players.
“It’s all about the PvE atmosphere and accessibility of such a hardcore genre,” said Tongpeng Chen, head of global publishing at Bilibili. “Players choose the difficulty and experience they would like to have in the game, head out into the wild, collect resources, and then return to base to level up, build things, and complete missions.”
“This satisfying cycle of loot, improve, repeat provides consistent positive feedback—much more relaxing than the stress of PVP shooters.” This allows players to truly get lost in the world of the Dooks. According to Jeff, players “live” in Dukovworld”.
Tongpeng Chen told Game Developer that Team Soda's development team consists of four people, led by producer Jeff Chen. Jeff Chen worked at Bilibili for seven years, and the rest of the team previously worked together on Soda crisis And Snake power. “We originally thought that selling 300,000 copies would be decent, but 500,000 would be a dream,” Tongpen Chen said. “The current figure is absolutely stunning and encouraging for our team.”
Tongpeng Chen said there's a certain amount of luck behind the game's success, but Jeff Chen's dedication to the genre means he's an expert—he's logged more than 1,400 hours of gameplay. Escape from Tarkov.
“Jeff noticed that in Tarkov, a lot of players really enjoy the PvE experience, which is also the essence of [Escape from Tarkov]“Not only combat, but also parts of development and research,” said Tongpeng Chen.
Image via Team Soda/bilibili.
“However, this PvE thirst hasn't really been satisfied these days. So our development team put themselves in the shoes of the players and focused on what they really wanted. What players value in a game shouldn't just be money or valuable collectibles. Sometimes the return of a very mundane, everyday item determines the success or failure of a quest or a key progress milestone. Even if the player fails at retrieving and loses valuable equipment, he still has the motivation to go again.”
Escape from Dukov surpassed 300,000 concurrent players October 27, a figure that was reached after a steady rise for several days. These heights of steam pushed Escape from Dukov past games like Battlefield 6, Apex: Legends, And Grand Craft Auto 5which occupy leading positions in the Steam games chart.
In countries like China where the game was developed, the game peaks during peak gaming hours, while during standard US daytime hours the number of players drops to around 40,000. This suggests that Escape from DukovThe main audience, at least for now, is international.
Escape from Dukov was announced by Team Soda, then a four-member team, on January 22. She debuted with a demo of the game that ran for two weeks, starting a day later on January 23. She quickly gained popularity among players, and took the place of the best demo on the Steam platform during this period.. In the following months, Team Soda continued to host periodic demos to test new maps and features in between frequent developer diary entries on their Steam page.
Dukov Publisher Bilibili began life as a social networking site.
Bilibili started out primarily as a Chinese social network and video sharing site, but it is also a live streaming platform. The company began publishing games on the platform around 2014, but released its first homegrown game in 2017. according to financial reports.
A huge part of Bilibili's gaming business is in publishing third party games on their platform – some with exclusive licenses, some without. Bilibili, for example. received the rights to publish the Chinese version Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout in 2020; this version is called Jelly Bean: Ultimate Knockout. In April 2020, Sony acquired minority stake in Bilibili for $400 million.valuing the company at a whopping $8 billion for its “anime and mobile gaming” collaborations. according to a Variety report.
In 2021 Bilibili released Dead cells like a mobile game in China; by 2023, it was passed five million copies sold in the region. In August 2025, on the eve Escape from DukovIn its October release, Bilibili reported mobile gaming revenue of $225.1 million, up 60 percent from last year. This revenue is attributed to “exclusively licensed game play.” San Guo: Mou Ding Tian Xiathe company said in its August financial report..
Lazurny Lanealternate reality World War II a game in which warships are also cute girls (developed by Shanghai Manjuu, Xiamen Yongshi), is one of Bilibili's early games and is still a financial driver for the company. Fate/Grand Orderthe Chinese version of which was published by Bilibili is another. Both are still generating revenue for the company despite being almost 10 years old.
The company has achieved great success in the Chinese market, but Escape from Dukov this is Bilibili's “first world title”, Tongpeng Chen. said on LinkedIn. For a studio operating in the mobile market, success Escape from Dukov– a PC-only game, relatively small and somewhat irreverent – is surprising. “This really signals a bright future for both Bilibili’s own and third-party gaming initiatives,” he said.
