One of the biggest bugbears Gray Zone Warfare players faced in the first couple of days of play was that once you had chosen your faction at the beginning of a game when you first set up your character, there was no way to change it, which had the knock-on effect of not being able to team up with your friends if they had chosen a different faction.

Can you change factions in Gray Zone Warfare?

Thankfully a new patch has just been pushed (2nd May) that fixes this oversight and we can now switch allegiances as much as any top-line politician can.

It’s not quite all plain sailing, you need to wipe your character and sign up with a new faction and will lose all your items and progress, but it is a start. I guess deserters have to pay some price.

Here we are going to look at the three different factions in-game and try and make head or tail of which you should choose to sign up with.

Gray Zone Warfare Factions

Each faction in GZW has a tasty back story to help you decide which one suits your own ideals.

Lamang Recovery Initiative

‘Founded and funded by a tech billionaire, LRI publicizes itself as a strictly philanthropic exercise to search for pockets of survivors in and around Ground Zero after even the UN abandoned the island. The armed section of the organization is composed of small, highly professional security details that accompany rescue and clean-up teams to protect them from some of the other, far less altruistic factions operating in the area.’

Mithras Security Systems

‘Mithras bills itself as a PMC run by soldiers for soldiers, and it doesn’t ask too many questions about an operator’s motivations or history. The only real bar to Mithras membership is a lack of field experience in military competence. It prides itself on only accepting the best and pays accordingly. The organization is inspired by the Roman Legion system, where the spoils of war were shared among the troops. From the highest-ranking officer to the lowest-ranking foot soldier according to their status within the unit and performance in the field.’

Crimson Shield International

‘This Private Military Company rose to infamy during the early stages of the Syrian civil war. While they boast an impressive 95 percent success rate, some of their methods can be seen as somewhat questionable, often resulting in collateral damage. That said, no one can deny their effectiveness and cold-blooded approach to any job that needs to be done. This gung-ho nature attracts not just ex-military personnel but anyone with a lust for adventure and action. However, thanks to their strict elimination process, only the truly exceptional soldiers ever make it as far to be deployed on an actual combat mission.’

Best faction to choose

If you are playing with friends the only choice really is to choose the one they are in, otherwise you won’t be playing with them.

Each faction comes with its own lore and not much else, so see which one sounds the most like you would be and jump in. There are no faction-specific bonuses at this stage of Early Access.

They do all start off at different corners of the map however and this could influence you, but they all get the same gear and benefits as each other so, unless you like a particular topographic region, any will do.

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