Gray Zone Warfare now lets you change factions

Gray Zone Warfare has been the breakout story this week: the tactical shooter has drawn attention from streamers and players alike, and after an initial wave of negative user reviews, its score is steadily climbing as more and more players mount up and head into the hot zone on Lamang Island. One persistent complaint, however, is that the game makes players pick a faction right off the bat – and that choice is locked in, preventing you from playing co-op with any friends who picked something else. Fortunately, the devs have released an update, and now it’s possible to change factions between wipes.

In Gray Zone Warfare, there are three PMC factions: Lamang Recovery Initiative, Mithras Security Systems, and Crimson Shield International. Each one has a base of operations, spaced roughly evenly along the edge of the FPS game‘s large island map. Your choice of faction determines at which of these you’ll spawn, but it also determines who your friends and enemies are. There’s no way to team up with players in other factions.

This has led to frustration this week as players eager to jump into the game have quickly made their faction choice in order to start playing, only to find out too late that their friends had chosen a different team. The subreddit and Steam forum have been rife with comments from players begging for the option to “self wipe” their characters so they can join their friends’ teams.

Madfinger has been paying attention to this, and released a hotfix Thursday that added precisely this option. If you want to switch factions, you can now use an option in the main menu to perform a character wipe that effectively resets your progress to the point at which you first launched the game.

Madfinger says this option can also be used to correct the “missing head” bug, or if your secure container is missing. When you use the wipe option, the game will shut down, and when you open it again, you’ll go through the character creation process again and receive whatever equipment comes with the edition of the game you purchased.

It should go without saying that the choice to wipe your character’s progress is irreversible, and once you’ve done it, you’ll have to wait an hour before you can do it again – so be sure to talk with your would-be teammates to make sure everyone is on the same page before you do it.

If you’re just getting going, check out our guide to the Gray Zone Warfare settings for the best frame rate, as well as our guide to the Gray Zone Warfare Leave No Man Behind quest.

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