Character creation

Character creation is the first step you need to take before you can enter the Zone. There, you will select your class, difficulty, and starting location.

Class

Selecting a class is an important choice, as it's what dictates your appearance, starting cash/items, debt, and attributes.

As of version 0.14.3 of the alpha demo, these are the available classes:

Class	Pronouns	Starting cash	Debt	Attributes	Starting items
Castaway	They/them	0$	3448575$	None	Lighter, bill of debt
Wanderer	He/him	23$	3015220$	Weird Luck	Expedition light armour, duffel bag, note from Ray
Veteran	He/him	350$	2670450$	Steady Aim, Lingering Trauma	Rebel fatigues, bandage, MRE, 14× 5.6mm FMJ, PK-52 scout rifle, Revolutionary army: orders
Assassin	She/her	64$	5205480$	Sneaky, Brawler, Hemophilia	Cat suit, rondel knife, black market flyer
Artificer	She/her	521$	7109275$	Eather Affinity, collector, Hunger	Field research coat, 6× .45 ACP, snub-nose revolver
Wretch	They/them	0$	9999999$	Intense Personality, Nudist, Thin Skin	Nothing

Additionally, there is a random option that gives you a random name and backstory, attributes, and a duffel bag with random gear inside.

Difficulty

This choice is the most important, as it will determine what happens when, not if, you die.

Alongside the pre-made difficulties, there is also a “custom” choice that allows you to change any of these settings:

Respawn type:
- Load save: when you die, you load your latest save.
- Extraction: when you die, you can pick a certain number if items you keep. You then respawn at the last bed you slept at. What happens to items you didn't pick is determined by the “Drop remaining loot” setting (see below).
Perma-death: if enabled, when you die, your save file is wiped.
Replenish loot: if enabled, most common loot containers will become available for looting again after some time.
Save on level transition: if enabled, the game will auto-save on any level transition.
Lock save slot: if disabled, you can save to any slot when sleeping in a bed.

Additionally, the extraction respawn type has these additional settings:

Keep items on death: the items you can keep on you when you die. As of alpha version 0.14.6, this value can be set to any number between 0 and 10 inclusive.
Fail contracts on death: if enabled, certain contracts will be considered failed when you die, with some of those even having a penalty.
Lose item slot each death: if enabled, each time you respawn, the number of items you can keep on death is reduced by one. If it reaches 0 and you die again, your save file is wiped.
Drop remaining loot: if enabled, items you don't keep can be found in a backpack where you died, else they're lost forever. If you die again before reaching a dropped backpack, its content are lost forever.

The following tables list the premade difficulties in the game as of alpha version 0.14.6. As all of them have the “Save on level transition” setting enabled in that version, it won't be shown as a column.

Load save

Difficulty	Perma-death	Replenish loot	Lock save slot
Mercy	No	Yes	No
Perma-death	Yes	No	Yes

Extraction

Difficulty	Replenish loot	Lock save slot	Keep items on death	Fail contracts on death	Lose item slot each death	Drop remaining loot
Expedition	Yes	Yes	5	Yes	No	Yes
Scavenger	No	Yes	0	Yes	No	Yes
9 lives	Yes	Yes	9	Yes	Yes	No

Starting location

The following starting locations are available:

Intro: this starts you in the River Dock, the intro/tutorial dungeon. See its page for more information. This is the recommended choice for beginners
Observatory: you start at the lower entrance to Observatory, the first safe zone in the game.
Random: picks a somewhat safe spot in a random region from the south part of the world map.