I Have Returned, but I Cannot Lay down My Gun

Welcome, newbies.

I don’t know at what point you’ll be reading this, but I’ll assume you haven’t reached HQ yet and write accordingly.

One of the biggest features of this game is that the tutorial is notoriously hard.

The developers have firmly stated they won’t change this, so you’ll have to adapt.

I’ll provide as many tips and general information as possible to help you.

So this post might not be as interesting as you expect.

Let’s start.

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This is a map of New York. The crooked red circles drawn on it represent the general distribution of character spawn locations.

Simply put, you’ll wake up somewhere within those circles.

Regardless of where you start, the distance to Central Park HQ is pretty much the same, so just focus on arriving safely.

Your first goal after starting is to reach an Armed Safehouse in Manhattan.

If you happen to meet another player before entering Manhattan, consider yourself very lucky.

Most players don’t have that luck, so they usually go through the safehouse during the tutorial.

And as you might have guessed, the first thing to do there is to form a party.

The maximum number of members is three, and if it exceeds four, the field difficulty spikes.

Meeting three other tutorial users is extremely difficult, so just party with anyone you meet.

Too shy to talk to others? Then why are you playing this game? LOL

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I’ll briefly explain the factions in this game.

The factions you encounter change as you progress to higher content.

During the tutorial, you’ll mainly encounter Rioters, Hound, Robber, and Riker.

They’re former civilians, gang members, or prisoners, so they die after a few hits.

As your gear level increases, they start wearing tougher armor, but except for the Rikers, you won’t see them later on.

One important thing to note is that if any party member’s calibration falls below 50%, you’re in trouble.

You won’t encounter weak enemies anymore.

This standard is based on the lowest calibrated member in the party.

As mentioned, the factions vary between higher and lower content, and lower calibration leads to tougher enemies.

Confirmed so far are Russian and Chinese landing infantry (very strong), collapsed PMC, terrorists,

and according to the Dark Zone Wiki, if calibration falls below 30%, you might encounter special operation teams for friendly command collapse, Artemis drones, and Hunters.

They’re seen only in very hard difficulty and urgent missions, and they’re extremely tough.

This might not be relevant to newbies, but it’s worth reading to know what kind of enemies to expect later.

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This doesn’t really concern you until you max level, but it might happen during the tutorial.

This is a screenshot of my in-game UI with a large warning in the top right corner about entering the unauthorized zone.

It means the area you’re in or heading to is changing from a PVE zone to a PVP zone.

This can happen for various reasons:

UAV surveillance going haywire, bomb or EMP attacks, enemy SOF setting up jammers, and so on.

The important part is what happens when this warning is triggered—basically, it becomes a lawless area.

Strong mobs roam around, and PVP is enabled.

You might wonder why I’m explaining this suddenly, but this might overlap with your tutorial progress.

In short, if you enter, you’ll either get beaten up by strong enemies or

get attacked by PVP veterans using operator skills.

And more importantly, the safehouse you visited will ‘lock.’

If you die there, you might have to restart from your character creation point. LOL

The chances are low, but if you’re unlucky, it might be better for your mental health to restart your character.

But once you pass this, you’ll start the happy Dark Zone, so hold on to your life and crawl to HQ if you must.

Just get to HQ… lots of veterans there… the game sucks without them….

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“So, Yoo Jin?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t know what this is, but aren’t we in significant danger?”

“Seems like it. Stay on high alert.”

“Okay.”

The top right corner of the UI.

A warning window striped in red and black, like a nuclear launch button, as if something unprecedented would happen if they didn’t leave immediately.

Unlike any other warning window they’d seen, composed of merely nine characters.

­[Unauthorized Zone Transition Warning.］

Only 1 mile, 1.6 km from Central Park HQ, a foreboding message appeared on their UI, surrounded by the city’s darkness.

Harmony glanced sideways at the chat window.

­We’re screwed!!!

­How does this even happen? How does this even happen? How does this even happen?

­First time seeing someone get this during the tutorial LOL

­HarmonySheIsTheGoddessOfBroadcasting! HarmonySheIsTheGoddessOfBroadcasting!!!

­LMAO

­Starting from the starting point sweet ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

It was already a festive atmosphere.

Just moments ago, some viewers were genuinely concerned about her safety, but what was this now?

She frantically recalled her memory, but none of her acquaintances had mentioned anything about this.

…No.

Maybe they had never experienced this, so they didn’t say anything about it.

Streamer Harmony could only conclude this.

“Uh, no. Can you tell me exactly what the big deal is? Should I just trust the party member?”

“It’s too early to conclude since we don’t know the situation yet.”

“See, even they say so.”

­It’s nothing much LOL Just think of it as adding PVP veterans to the enemies you’ve encountered so far.

“….”

Forget what I just said.

With just one donation line, Harmony instantly felt how deep in trouble she was.

However, she was an experienced streamer, and without needing the backseat bell, she could extract useful information from the chat.

The chat log was scrolling fast. She picked out only the noticeable information.

And what Harmony decided to do was,

“That, the unauthorized zone is like an unlimited PVP zone. It usually clears within two hours, but there are many strong enemies….”

“Anything else? The more data, the better.”

“…If you die here, you’ll respawn at the starting point.”

Through her best available efforts, she conveyed the most useful information to the most trustworthy person.

Of course, the chat was filled with question marks, but she didn’t have time to worry about that.

What’s important about viewers who won’t guarantee her survival?

But she couldn’t completely abandon being a streamer, so she added softly,

“Okay, okay. I’ll ring the backseat bell, so do something quickly. You guys don’t really want to see my lousy play for six hours, do you?”

­LOL true

­But seriously, there’s no way to survive;;; they’ll scan the field thoroughly and find us anyway.

­Even hiding in the subway, you’d get massacred multiple times in two hours LOL

­Gonna get instant noodles LOL

­Even if I say avoid engagement, two hours is too long….

“So we can’t even reach HQ? We’re almost there.”

­If you get close to a safehouse or HQ during the unauthorized zone, you’ll get shot by a machine gun LOL

“Damn it….”

They ran, walked, and sometimes moved stealthily.

She checked the constantly updating map, but the lower Manhattan under Central Park had turned completely red.

Just minutes ago, all the detailed landmarks and safehouses were replaced with one word, unauthorized zone.

The estimated clearance time was 1 hour and 40 minutes.

“…What do we do now?”

Eventually, they headed back to the park they had passed earlier and hid among the supply boxes and containers.

Harmony spoke first.

But as always, Yoo Jin responded calmly.

“The risks associated with combat have become too high. But we can’t avoid it….”

“So?”

“…At least we should position ourselves in terrain that favors us.”

Yoo Jin, who knew New York like her backyard, recalled past memories.

Half-closed subway stations, rooftops of low-rise buildings, complex malls, places where narrow paths and surprise attacks could be advantageous.

Urban warfare in the most common places of a metropolis was extraordinarily complex and ever-changing.

They had to fully utilize that.

───Click.

“Duck.”

“…!”

Harmony didn’t question further.

It was the right choice.

Beyond the vaguely visible entrance, several drones and three individuals appeared.

Heavily armed with state-of-the-art equipment, they constantly analyzed something, looking around as they patrolled.

As the quadruped robot armed with a chain gun and grenade launcher passed, the two finally sighed in relief.

“…What are those?”

“Artemis Technology… a strike team with one Warhound and two Seekers.

With our current weapons, we’d be lucky to survive an engagement.”

“You seem to know a lot…?”

No further words.

Yoo Jin sent a squeeze signal, and Harmony cautiously stood up.

“There’s a subway station to the west of the park. Let’s head there.”

“Okay.”

They looked around, checked the sound once more, and carefully stood up.

With movements as careful as walking on thin ice, they treaded over the snow that had been lightly trampled by someone before.

Snowflakes danced from the sky, and the wind howled, occasionally filled with the irregular sound of metal friction.

They passed a frozen fountain, crossed a street filled with broken taxis and cars, and walked quickly along the side of a building.

However,

“…It’s completely destroyed.”

The large glass canopy of the station entrance, which had once served various purposes, was completely collapsed, blocking the entrance.

But there were plenty of subway stations around, and she immediately searched for another route.

“If we take the road facing the fountain, there’s another station. I’ll take the lead. Just stay vigilant.”

“Okay.”

So the two figures crossed the silence again.

The surroundings were eerily quiet.

Unlike a few minutes ago when there were sporadic sounds of gunfire,

it felt more like the eye of a storm or a premonition rather than mere tranquility.

Keeping an eye on both the path they had come from and the one they were heading to, the two-person party calmly moved toward their second objective.

Unfortunately,

the fangs of fate strike equally.

­[Warning: Pulse Scan Detected.］

­[Armor Weakness Exposed. Position Identified by Hostile Personnel.］

───Thump.

“Get down!”

Thud.

A powerful tackle knocked Harmony down.

A split second later, a blinding flash exploded where Yoo Jin had stepped.

Despite the explosion, choking powder smoke, and body-crushing shockwave, Yoo Jin got up, relying on muscle memory.

She grabbed the still-dazed Harmony by the neck with one hand, held her gun, and ran to find suitable cover, analyzing the cause of the explosion.

The light thump.

It was clearly the sound of a grenade launcher.

“Get up and run if you’re conscious!”

“…W-where to!?”

“The fountain!”

The time gap between the shot and the explosion wasn’t long.

The enemies were closer than expected, and Yoo Jin pulled a grenade from her pouch, pulled the pin, and threw it roughly in the direction of the enemies.

As the flash flared and the explosion continued, the second and third grenades flew through it.

Retracing their steps, they reached the fountain and slid into cover.

“Who the hell are those guys!?”

“A six-shot grenade launcher! Provide suppressing fire! We can’t just keep running, we need to lure them to another nearby station! Stick close when I signal!”

“How many stations are there around here!?”

Sparks flew, fragments scattered, and powder smoke soared into the air.

Quickly assessing the number of enemies and their armaments, she aimed through the red dot sight and shot the enemies’ heads accurately.

Five heavily armed enemies. In a head-on fight, they’d be overwhelmed with their current firepower.

While shooting, she constantly assembled and dismantled numerous possibilities in her mind.

But then, Yoo Jin saw something from the enemies.

A white hexagon that suddenly appeared in the air to block bullets.

A power granted only to ICARUS agents, now in their hands.

That meant,

“They’re Fallen!”

“What!?”

“Hostile ICARUS operators!”

They were players.

Whether they came intentionally to hunt them or decided to shoot everything in sight,

───Thump!

“Run!”

With their ears ringing from the noise, they ran.

Toward the nearby subway station entrance.

­[They’re running. Judging by their gear, they look like newbies?］

­[Since when did we care if they’re newbies or veterans when shooting? Just think of it as weeding.］

­[No, idiot. I think they’re doing the tutorial.］

­[So, who almost got their head blown off by tutorial players?］

­[Maybe they got lucky and aimed well.］

­[They’re heading into a nearby subway station?］

­[If they’d run away, they might have survived. Let’s just catch them. They’ll learn not to hide there later.］

­[Educator is here.］

­[Two entrances. We’ll split up and enter. I’ll check the layout and give further orders, so don’t rush in.］

­[Okay.］

­[Confirmed.］

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