Not everyone who wanted to go on a raid was able to do so.
At the beginning of 2026, fans of Escape from Tarkov faced lags, and sometimes it was completely impossible to connect to the servers.
Battlestate Games acknowledged the problem:
There are currently disruptions in the operation of the data center serving Escape from Tarkov, EFT: Arena, as well as the official game websites. Because of this, access problems may occur. We apologize for any inconvenience caused. We will notify you when the data center disruptions end.
Affected users joke that the EFT servers (or the server room) were simply celebrating the New Year vigorously, so January 1st is a difficult day for them.
At the same time, this failure did not affect everyone; for some, the connection to the Escape from Tarkov servers is still available and the system allows them into raids.