DRIFTER'S
FIELD MANUAL
The Reach doesn't come with instructions. This does. Eight transmissions — read them in order. The first scavenge is the hardest one.
YOUR FIRST RUIN
The Reach maps to your real GPS position. Buildings within 150 meters resolve as ruins. The game pulls them from real-world location data — you don't add them manually and you can't fake the coordinates. Your phone's actual position is your position on the map.
Walk to within range and tap SCAVENGE. The server validates your GPS, checks your cooldown, and runs the loot roll. You get resources. The ruin goes on cooldown. You move to the next one.
Start with convenience stores, hardware depots, and restaurants. Low-radiation, short cooldowns, good for building up inventory without exposure risk. Hospitals and police stations come later — once your RAD management is solid.
RADIATION — WHAT TO AVOID (AND HOW)
Every ruin has a radiation level determined by its type. You don't choose which — the building decides. Hospitals, police stations, and quarantine zones run high. Gas depots and pharmacies run medium. Everything else is low.
Your RAD meter climbs from 0 to 100 as you scavenge irradiated ruins. At 100 RAD, your HP drains. Your HP floors at 1 — you can't die from exposure, but you'll be slower. The warning state at 70 RAD is cosmetic. The actual penalty doesn't kick in until you hit the ceiling.
Clear RAD by resting at your shelter. Some items also reduce exposure — Med Kits, Anti-Rad injectors, anything in the MEDICAL category. Keep one in your stash before you push into high-rad zones.
YOUR FIRST RECRUIT
Every time you scavenge, there's a 15% chance you encounter a recruit. They're NPCs — named, classed, geared — found in the field based on the ruin type you're in. A hospital is more likely to surface a Medic. A police station will throw Brawlers at you.
To hire: you need chips and one specific item. The item type depends on the recruit's class and is shown on the hire card. T1 recruits cost 50 chips. If you don't have the item, come back when you do — the encounter won't repeat on the same ruin, but the Reach has plenty of ruins.
Once hired, your recruit belongs to your shelter. They can travel on scavenge missions, garrison ruins you've claimed, and accumulate XP. They level up through four tiers. They can also die. Both outcomes are permanent.
BUILDING YOUR HIDEOUT
Your first shelter is placed at your current GPS position. It starts as a Hideout — Tier 1 — with a 150-meter detection radius and space for 2 crew members. All ruins within that radius are visible to you on the map, even when you're not nearby.
Upgrade shelters using chips and crafted components. Each tier expands the radius and increases crew capacity. A Tier 5 Citadel covers 1,000 meters and holds 10 recruits. A Citadel in a dense urban core makes you a fixed presence on the map that other factions will notice.
You can build multiple shelters, but upgrades cost more than spreading out. In the early game: one shelter, upgraded as far as you can push it, beats three underpowered outposts.
FACTIONS — CHOOSING YOUR GROUND
There are four factions in the Reach. You choose one at registration. That choice is permanent. Your faction determines which territory you're defending, which ruins your garrison bonus applies to, and which players are enemies on sight versus potential allies.
The Ash Reavers move fast and burn what they can't hold. The Ember Compact treat hospitals and quarantine zones as sovereign territory and will fight to keep them. The Iron Wardens build installations that take more than one attempt to break. Verdant Dawn is slower and longer-range, focused on supply lines across the outer sectors.
The game allows you to run UNDECLARED through character creation. But every ruin being contested right now is being contested by factions. Unaffiliated players have no stake in what's being built. At some point, the ground you're standing on will matter.
ASHREAVERS
EMBERCOLLECTIVE
IRONWARDENS
VERDANTDAWN
TERRITORY — CLAIMING AND HOLDING RUINS
A ruin is claimed when you send recruits to garrison it. The recruits travel to the location in real time, establish the garrison, and the ruin registers to your faction. If no defenders are present when they arrive, the claim goes through without a fight.
Claimed ruins can be contested. If another faction's recruits arrive while yours are stationed, it resolves in dice combat. Garrison size matters. So does class synergy — a Medic defending a hospital is harder to dislodge than an equal-sized force without the bonus.
Abandoned garrisons decay after 72 hours. Pull all your recruits from a ruin and leave it empty, and it returns to open ground. The Reach doesn't hold territory for you. Everything you want to keep requires someone stationed there — or an enemy willing to leave it alone.
GEAR — WHAT TO CARRY AND WHY
Six gear slots: Weapon, Armor, Mask, Tool, Wrist, and Drone. Each modifies specific stats — RAD resistance, HP regen, loot multipliers, travel speed, combat bonuses. Gear found in ruins is class-agnostic. Any survivor can equip anything.
Durability degrades with use. Each scavenge run has a 33% chance per slot of taking a hit. At 0 durability, the item stops working but stays equipped. Repair costs chips — the further it's degraded, the more it costs. Don't let it sit at zero.
Recruits can be equipped from your stash. Before you send someone to garrison a hospital, check their loadout. A Medic with a proper Mask and Armor slot performs differently in defense than the same Medic in default gear. Equipment decisions compound over time.
PRO — WHEN TO UPGRADE
The free tier covers the full game loop: GPS scavenging, shelter building, T1 recruits, and territory at DRIFTER rank. It's not a demo — you can run the Reach indefinitely on free. Every ruin you scavenge, every claim you place, counts on the shared map.
Pro unlocks T2, T3, and T4 recruits — named tiers like Enforcer, Breaker, Dreadnought — along with rank progression past DRIFTER and shelter upgrades past Tier 1. If you're building a garrison worth defending, Pro is where the ceiling lifts.
If your subscription lapses, your assets stay intact in the database. Your T3 recruits don't disappear — they go dormant. Resubscribe at any time and everything returns immediately. There are no destructive downgrades. The only thing that changes is access.
ASH REAVERS
EMBER COLLECTIVE
IRON WARDENS
VERDANT DAWN