Why there's a quarantined island full of bad men, a hole in the middle of it, and three PMCs fighting over the leftovers. The whole story in one sitting, about as long as a cup of coffee.
Lamang is a small island nation in Southeast Asia. For almost sixty years it's been run by one family, the Sayavongs, who sold it to the world as a tropical paradise while the people who lived there told a very different story.
In 2025 the UN finally showed up to help. A few months later, on the night of November 24, something blew a hole in the island with a blinding flash and a roar. Nobody official will say what. The UN evacuated, slammed a quarantine on the place, and every member country promised to stay out.
The crooks didn't promise anything. Pirates, gangs, smugglers and traffickers moved in to loot what was left, the Lamang army stayed behind to guard whatever it was told to guard, and private military companies were hired by rich clients to get to the middle of it all: Ground Zero. They got close, then something hit them hard. Too organized for bandits, too good for the local army. They lost almost everything they'd taken.
So they're hiring. You're the new hire.
Officially, an "unspecified environmental disaster." Unofficially, the internet has a list: a volcano, a chemical plant, a nuke test, a crashed satellite, a meteorite, a secret experiment gone wrong, and of course, aliens.
The developers' answer: that's for us to find out. The answers are scattered across the island in notes, files, newspapers and task briefings. What's certain is that whatever is at Ground Zero is being kept very carefully hidden, and somebody is willing to shoot PMCs to keep it that way.
MSS · Base: Nam Thaven, south
"Run by soldiers, for soldiers." Mithras doesn't ask much about your past, only whether you can do the job. Built on the Roman legion idea: the spoils get shared out by rank and by how well you did in the field. Pays well, takes only the best. Sounds about right.
LRI · Base: Pha Lang, northeast
Started and paid for by a tech billionaire. Says it's pure charity: finding survivors in and around Ground Zero after even the UN quit. Its armed side is small, very professional security details guarding the rescue teams.
CSI · Base: Kiu Vongsa, northwest
Made its name early in the Syrian civil war. Brags about a 95% success rate; the other 5% is usually "collateral damage." Cold-blooded and effective, and draws anyone who wants action. Only the best make it through their selection to an actual mission.
The story and the main tasks are the same whichever PMC you pick. You can only squad up with people in the same one.
Tap a group to open its boss on the Boss board.
Lewis Pell
Runs your PMC's operation, its public face and the hands-on jobs. Gives the main story tasks, and he smells a rat in the whole UN business.
Anton Jackson
Retired Marine gunnery sergeant. Doesn't seem to like anything or anyone, but he's very good at his job, and looking after the operators is part of it.
Real name unknown
Medicine and food. His jobs dig into what happened to people who disappeared before the evacuation.
Laya Hoang
A Lamang local who grew up in her father's workshop. Blames the UN for the chaos and thinks you PMCs are vultures. Fixes your stuff anyway. Earn her trust; she knows the island.
Real name unknown
Nobody's saying much about Turncoat. The name kind of says the rest.
James Miller
To him, the chaos is a gold rush. No morals to slow him down: if you can pay, you're a partner.
Real name unknown
Gets back gear people lost out there and sells it on. Only shows up at two of the big outposts at a time and moves every week.
What the tasks and intel dig up once you're a ways in. These give away story beats, so open them only if you want to know. Each one stays closed until you tap it.
The UN says everyone got out. The paperwork you find says otherwise. In the days after the Event, the government drew up lists of people who were not to be evacuated: families with ties to the opposition, relatives of LLA fighters, people who'd talked to UN observers. Whole villages near Fort Narith, Savanpha and Nakasa, were ordered held in place "by lethal force, if necessary." Another village was kept back "for observation during Phase 3."
And the UNLRA's own files read like it knew something was coming before it came. Handshake's take: "The subsequent evac felt more like they were trying to get rid of any witnesses."
A top secret report turns up, written for Moscow, about a Soviet project at a research station on the island. Its topics: signal propagation, "systemic resonance," and long-range transmission of information. It says success could take decades, and that the stakes go "beyond immediate strategic value."
The Soviets left in 1991. Thirty-four years later, survivors of the Event say they heard voices speaking straight to them. Make of that what you will.
Lights and ghostly figures in 2020, a government telling everyone to stay away, and later a PMC boss who wants birds, water and soil samples from the village. Handshake thinks it's nonsense, but the client pays. Then there's talk of a cult, a leader in a fancy house, and a drug pipeline feeding tourists who never made it home.
The locals' name for the old Soviet bunker at YBL-1. Long before the LLA moved in, the state used it to lock up and torture its own people. Banshee wants proof, and there's a tape that has it.
The Midnight Sapphire, Hunter's Paradise and Sunset Chalet were where the rich came to play. Some of the jobs dig into a "VIP program" at Hunter's Paradise and a man who went missing just before the evacuation. Without spoiling it: the name of that task is The Most Dangerous Game, and that should tell you enough.
I've read every scrap of paper you boys have dragged back from that island. A dictator, a UN that left in a hurry, a Soviet science project and a bunch of pirates. I've seen worse plans, but not many. Read the notes when you find them. The story's half the fun, and the other half is not dying on the way home with it.
Story pieced together from the in-game newspapers, files and task briefings as written up on the Gray Zone Warfare wiki (CC BY-SA), retold in our own words. Up to date with the files the wiki has for 0.4 "Spearhead"; 0.5 "Rogue Ops" story isn't written up there yet. Found a new note that changes the story? Tell an S3. Not affiliated with MADFINGER Games.