The three factions
Three teams, one zone. The studio named all three and gave each a colour. Whether the side you are put on changes anything else, such as your guns, your vehicles or your unlocks, is not answered in any announcement, on the store page, or in the official videos whose transcripts are public.
Who they are
LONESTAR
“The heavy-hitters in the Western paramilitary world.”
VALKYRA
“Aims to return the Soviet People’s Republic to greatness.”
MANTICORE
“The Kingdom of Persia, Tehran’s shadow army.”
All three described in Steam announcement — TOP QUESTIONS The colours are the studio’s own: it tagged each name with a coloured square in that announcement, blue for LONESTAR, red for VALKYRA, green for MANTICORE.
The colour is the only difference anyone has published
That sounds like a small thing, and one Steam review with 1,095 helpful votes argues it is not. Its author says he cannot read red against green terrain, that it took thirty minutes to work out he could not tell friend from enemy, that he killed a lot of teammates finding out, and that he now plays two of the three sides rather than all of them. He is asking for a way to change the team colours, which is a reasonable thing to read as meaning there is not one yet.
That is one player rather than a measurement, and the counter-argument is in the same thread: plenty of people play VALKYRA without trouble. But it is the one concrete thing anybody has written down about a difference between the three sides, and it is worth knowing which side you are being put on before you decide the factions are interchangeable. The settings page covers what the video options do and do not let you change.
Faction weapons: what the camos give away
Nothing published describes a faction-locked weapon list. What is published is a set of three branded camos sold with the Supporter Edition. The studio named the three camos and stopped there; the pattern below is this page reading the names, not something it said.
| Faction | Camo | The rifle it is on |
|---|---|---|
| LONESTAR | “Lonestar Branded Bushmaster Camo” | Bushmaster, an American maker of AR-15 pattern rifles |
| VALKYRA | “Valkyra Branded A-91 Rifle Camo” | A-91, a Russian bullpup from the KBP design bureau |
| MANTICORE | “Manticore Branded KH-2002 Camo” | KH-2002 Khaybar, an Iranian bullpup from the Defense Industries Organization |
The three camo names are listed in Steam announcement — Pre-Order Now The rifles behind those names are linked above: an American one for the Western paramilitaries, a Russian one for the Soviet restorationists, an Iranian one for Tehran’s shadow army. Lining them up that way is this page’s reading of three product names. The same announcement calls all three “Starter Weapon” camos, so these are the free rifles everyone begins with, not premium guns. Nothing published says a LONESTAR player is issued the Bushmaster, or is kept away from the A-91.
What they are fighting over
The setting is a war-torn state called Kolchia, and the prize is PV-1, a rare resource the fiction credits with fuelling decades of Eurasian conflict. The store page sets it in “the derelict industrial mountains of Eastern Europe”, and the studio has said on camera that it gathered references in Georgia for it. Kolchia and PV-1 named in Steam announcement — TOP QUESTIONS The map page has what that ground actually is.
Three sentences is most of the lore, and the rest is inference from them. VALKYRA wants to return the Soviet People’s Republic to greatness, which reads as a setting where it still exists in some form. MANTICORE serves a Kingdom of Persia, which reads as a monarchy that was never replaced. LONESTAR is the only one the studio describes by temperament rather than by a state. All three of those are readings of the wording, not published history; no announcement, store page or public video transcript gives a timeline.
The factions do get one piece of in-match theatre: you can “construct loudspeakers to blast faction propaganda at your enemies.” Listed in Steam announcement — TOP QUESTIONS
Why three sides rather than two
The studio has not explained the choice. The argument the fan wikis make for it is that a two-way fight settles into a front line and a three-way fight cannot: committing everything against one enemy leaves your flank to the other, so the team that is ahead is the team the other two both have a reason to shoot. That is an argument rather than a statement. What is published is the rule it would be serving: the head count inside the zone decides the match, not kills. How scoring actually works sets out what counts.
The correction worth making
LONESTAR is a faction, and the camo name invites the opposite reading. A “Lonestar Branded Bushmaster Camo” can be parsed as Lonestar making the Bushmaster, which would make it a manufacturer with an entry-level rifle. The announcement that names it is a list of three faction-branded camos, one per side, so the brand doing the branding is the faction. Bushmaster is a real American gunmaker, and nothing published connects it to LONESTAR.
Still unanswered
- Whether any faction has different equipment, economy or progression. Since roles are bought rather than chosen and every description of the vendor is the same one, faction reads as a side rather than a loadout — but that is a reading, not a statement.
- How you are put on a side, and whether it persists between matches. What is known about getting onto the same side as friends is on the squads page.
- Whether faction survives a season reset. What a reset does take is published, and does not mention sides.
- Whether team colours can be changed. The review above asks for the option, which is the only thing anyone has written down about it.
The weapon list itself, with what each one costs to unlock and to field, is on the weapons page, and what the guides say to spend on is on the loadout page.