Information

Cash

This is the money you fight with. It sits in a bank that carries from round to round — you do not start from zero every drop.

What pays

• Kills, assists, spotting, heals, revives, repairs, building, running supplies.
• Flying or driving people into the fight — transport is a job, not a taxi favour.
• Walk into a control zone — about $250 on the way in, then a presence tick after a few seconds.
• Hot zone: team-play actions count as if two of you did them. Work together inside it.
• Match contribution scales with what you actually did. Bush camping pays nothing.
• Placement money goes to every faction, not just the winner.

If you go down

Wait for a revive if you can — the kit on your back stays. Give up and you rebuy. Nine tenths of what you spent that round comes back, and nine tenths of the cash still in your pocket. While you are bleeding out you can put a bribe on yourself in $50 hits (F1 in the playtest) so someone has a reason to crawl to you. The medic still gets cash and XP for the pick-up, and a little more if you get a kill afterwards.

Tipping

Separate from the bribe. You can throw cash at the person who healed you or flew you onto the objective. Keep a slice of the $10k in the bank — blowing the lot on one loadout and then dying is how people go broke in night one.

Black market

This is the menu you open after the fight, not a stall on the map. Most of it is built as tabs and not all of it is live yet. Gold lives in here too — same front door.

Challenges dump extra resources into this same pot. The whole loop is optional — you can just buy off the vendor every drop and still play. Bulkhead have said in-match cash and gold will not be sold for real money in Early Access. Camos are earned, not bought off a shelf.

Gold

Gold bars are the money that survives a wipe. The exchange rate moves every day. Cash you still hold at the end of a season is converted automatically, then everyone opens the next cycle on $10,000 again. Gold stays. That is how a new player is not staring down a lobby of millionaires. You can also swap early if the rate looks good. One way. No refunds.

The rate moves. Timing the swap is the whole game. A bar in that playtest sat well under the year high, so dumping cash the day a patch hits is not always the smart play.

Playtest shop

Cosmetics only. Gold does not buy a better rifle in the fight.

Factions

Three PMCs, not national armies. Up to a hundred players split across them, all chasing the same 2×2 km control zone. First to 100 points wins. Pick a side in-game. Play as one community here.

Blue

Lonestar

Western para-military contractors. Private company, Texas grit, loyal to the contract.

Red

Valkyra

Soviet restorationists. This timeline never dropped the People’s Republic — they want it great again.

Green

Manticore

Tehran’s shadow army. Kingdom of Persia, deniable work, not a parade-ground regular force.

Why three

Two teams settle into a front line. Three cannot. Push one neighbour and the other one is in your hip pocket. The side that is winning is the one everybody else has a reason to shoot.

What actually changes

• Uniform, armband, HQ on the map.
• Same vendor. Same guns. No hidden stat bonus for picking a colour.
• Each side gets a free 5.56 rifle that looks the part — Lonestar Bushmaster, Valkyra A-91, Manticore KH-2002. On paper they shoot the same (28 damage, 700 rpm). Cosmetics, not a handicap.
• Bakurani playtest spawns sat in a triangle: Lonestar south, Valkyra east, Manticore west. Blue sits at the bottom and often walks into both neighbours.
• Supporter edition ships a themed skin for that free rifle. Still cosmetics, not power.

Official clips say tap to choose. Playtests also dumped people onto a side. Treat any site ranking one faction as stronger as guessing.