Tarkov Blackout: Flashlights vs NVGs Guide for Lab Runs

Short answer: bring both, trust neither. In the Escape from Tarkov Blackout event the power in Labs dies about ten seconds into the raid and the map goes fully black, so the real question of flashlights vs night vision is not which one is "better," it's which one gets you killed slower. Flashlights let you see clearly in close rooms but broadcast your exact position to every player and every Black Division bot on the map. Night vision keeps you invisible but makes you squint through a green soup the moment someone points a light at your face.

The event turns The Lab into a pitch black slaughterhouse, and calling it a "Labs blackout guide" is generous when the actual mechanic is: lights off, doors locked, everyone starving for the same four digit code. You need the door code from the system admin's office to open every keypad room on the map, and it rerolls every single raid, so memorizing it is a waste of the two brain cells you have left after a Labs wipe. Two extracts exist, Parking Gate and Hangar Gate, and both need the power flipped back on before they work, which means someone on your squad has to survive long enough to press a button in a building full of things that want to end you.

The flashlight crowd swears by what they call the flashlight tech, running something like an M600 with a blue laser and just accepting the immersion tax of looking like a lighthouse. It's genuinely more comfortable to play, your eyes don't get cooked the way they do under NVGs, and you can hold that setup for longer sessions without the headache. It also means anyone with actual night vision sees your light coming from three rooms away and lines up a free headshot while you're still admiring how "wide and even" your beam looks.

Every guide on this event agrees on one non-negotiable point: night vision or thermal is not optional if you want to survive Labs seriously, and a flashlight is backup gear at best, not a primary strategy. Ignore this and you are just a moving target that pays for its own funeral.

The enemies you're avoiding are Black Division, a new AI faction that spawns directly on the map, keeps respawning throughout the raid, and hits hard enough to strip your kit in seconds if you get lazy. Black Division and Wedge, the event boss, carry the arsenal storage room key along with keycards and access items you'd otherwise pay a small fortune for, which is exactly why people keep running this event despite the constant risk of dying blind. Wedge's crew also carries gas grenades, because apparently getting shot in the dark wasn't humiliating enough on its own.

If you're building an NVG loadout for this event, stop overthinking the armor slot and start thinking about your eyes. Class 5 armor is plenty since Black Division's ammo doesn't reward you for overspending on Class 6 plates you'll lose in the first fight anyway. Bring a spare set of night vision if you can afford it, because Black Division sometimes drops NVGs off their corpses, and looting a replacement mid raid beats walking out with nothing on your head at all.

Working the Going Dark achievement means grinding five event tasks that involve grabbing quest items, planting hacking devices, and racking up kills on both PMCs and Black Division, which is a lot to ask of anyone still fumbling with a flashlight beam in a hallway. Squad up if you're chasing kill count tasks solo, because Black Division alone will not hand you enough easy kills to hit the numbers before the raid timer runs out.

Here's what actually matters once you're inside and the lights are already dead.

• Turn off your flashlight in open hallways because a dark hallway with your light on is just a spotlight painted on your own head.
• Avoid long sightlines since anyone pre aiming down a corridor with night vision will see your light before you see them.
• Loot Black Division bodies for spare batteries, keys, and occasionally a replacement NVG if yours gets damaged.
• Treat the door code as disposable information since it changes every raid and writing it down for later is pointless.
• Keep at least one grenade ready because tight Labs corridors reward a well timed nade more than a gunfight.

As for Labs extracts during this event, the usual generous extract list is gutted down to two options, and both are locked behind flipping the power switch, so plan your raid around reaching that admin room early instead of looting first and figuring out escape later. Dying with a bag full of loot because you never turned the power back on is the single most avoidable death in this entire event.

Bottom line: flashlights are the fun, immersive, slightly self destructive choice, and night vision is the boring correct answer that keeps you alive. Pick your poison, then blame the game and not this guide when you get lit up from across the room.