Escape from Tarkov: How to unlock Cultist Circle & rewards explained

The Cultist Circle is a new Hideout module in Escape from Tarkov, and understanding its mystery and how to unlock it is essential for your progression.

Harry Boulton

21st Aug 2024 12:10

Images via Battlestate Games

This is part of the ‘Escape From Tarkov’ directory

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The Cultist Circle is a new Hideout module in Escape from Tarkov, letting you exchange items for a chance of valuable loot in return. I've laid out what you need to do to unlock it in-game, alongside an explanation of the potential rewards below!

How to unlock Cultist Circle

1x PAID AntiRoach spray
5x Light bulb
3x Can of white salt
1x SurvL Survivor Lightor
1x Construction measuring tape
1x WI-FI Camera
Security Level 2

Image of the items required to build the Cultist Circle in Escape from Tarkov

Thankfully, I had a fair amount of these items already in my stash, as getting the rest cost me a pretty penny due to the demand. The hardest of the lot to find is definitely the can of white salt, as you'll have to rely primarily on ration spawns for this.

The rest can generally be found on scav runs in sports bags and toolboxes - I find Interchange a fantastic map for this, as it's relatively quiet and has a surprising amount of loot, especially towards the back. I've laid out a specific route on our Interchange map walkthrough, so definitely try that out if you're struggling with any of the items.

Interchange map walkthrough

You also need to make sure that you've at least reached Security Level 2 before the Cultist Circle becomes available, which I've found to take a while at the start of a new wipe as some of the items can be a bit tricky to find.

You'll also have the Cultist Circle immediately built if you're an owner of the Unheard Edition, saving you plenty of time and money in the long run.

How do Cultist Circle rewards work?

The Cultist Circle's systems are left deliberately vague, as it's meant to work based on chance and risk. You can place up to five items in the Cultist Circle to sacrifice, and then you'll be given back a reward of potentially equal return after a three-hour wait.

Image of the Cultist Circle sacrifice screen in Escape from Tarkov

All items given as a reward have the found-in-raid status, too, meaning that you'll be able to use them in any quests going forward.

While it's unclear what the threshold is, there is a system where if the combined value of your sacrificed items surpasses a specific point, you'll have a 25% chance of receiving an item needed for an active task or incomplete Hideout zone.

From what I gather in my own tests, this threshold is dynamic depending on the Hideout and quest items you currently need. If you need an item for a quest that only costs 10,000₽, then clearing that in sacrificial value will give you a chance of earning the item. In contrast, having a high sacrifice value will allow you to earn higher-value quest or hideout items, so it's absolutely worth the risk.

This, combined with a high active sacrifice value, can net you some incredibly valuable items. Having something like Medstation L3 incomplete can give you the chance of netting a LED-X, and this will definitely be helpful with many of Lightkeeper's more troubling tasks.

It's unclear what exactly determines the 'value' of each item, but I would guess that it has to do with its sale price on the Traders. Some items are far more valuable on the flea market compared to their Trader price, so I'd steer clear of sacrificing them.

Image of rewards from the Cultist Circle in Escape from Tarkov

As a test, I exchanged a Broken LCD (worth ~13,545₽) and managed to get 1x NSPU-M (~8,239₽), 1x Osovets (~6,916₽), and 1x Malboro (~1,392₽) in return. This comes to around 16,547₽ in return, working off of Trader sale prices, which is slightly more than what was put in.

Of course, flea market prices can fluctuate and go in your favour, but this isn't too bad of a trade - especially as I got a quest item (Malboro) in return!

You can increase the overall value of your sacrificed items by upping your Hideout Management skill and owning the Sacred Amulet, but the latter is obviously quite a late-game item that most players won't get the chance to own.

It works in a similar way to the Hideout Scav Case in that you don't know what you're gonna get back, but the rewards here seem to be more consistent in their strength - at least if you put in enough to begin with. I know I'll be using this in conjunction with any complex quests, as it should hopefully save me a lot of time searching for an item with a low spawn rate.

About The Author

Harry Boulton

Harry is a Guides Writer at GGRecon, having completed a Masters of Research degree in Film Studies. Previously a freelance writer for PCGamesN, The Loadout, and Red Bull Gaming, he loves playing a wide variety of games from the Souls series to JRPGs, Counter-Strike, and EA FC. When not playing or writing about games and hardware, you're likely to find him watching football or listening to Madonna and Kate Bush.