Tarkov Lore
TerraGroup
The corporation that broke a city to keep a secret
TerraGroup is the reason everything in Tarkov happened. A transnational holding company with dozens of subsidiaries and offices in over a hundred countries, it arrived in the Norvinsk special economic zone looking like the crown jewel of foreign investment.
Its local subsidiary, TerraGroup Labs, officially researched biotechnology for agriculture and farming. In reality, the company ran research far outside any legal boundary, much of it inside a hidden facility beneath the city, the map players know as The Lab. Its motto, Vires in Scientia, strength in science, reads very differently once you know what the science was.
When evidence of the illegal work began to surface, TerraGroup chose escalation over exposure. Its security contractor USEC became a private army tasked with destroying evidence, the Russian-backed BEAR was sent to find it, and the resulting Contract Wars consumed the city.
The 1.0 story is ultimately the story of TerraGroup: what it built, what it was willing to do to hide it, and what happens to the people who find out.