Gray Zone Warfare players can now change factions so they can team up with their friends

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A new character wipe option has been added, so players who picked the wrong side can start over and try again.

Gray Zone Warfare promo image - close-up profile of two soldiers looking very macho
(Image credit: Madfinger Games)

There was major beef in the PC Gamer Slack recently when we, along with everyone else, discovered that faction choices in the recently launched shooter Gray Zone Warfare were permanent: If you and your gaming buddies signed up for opposing sides, well, that was just too damn bad: There was no going back until an eventual server reset, which is months down the road.

Believe me, it got ugly in here.

(Image credit: Future)

We weren't the only ones who found ourselves waging internecine war: Plenty of other players levelled complaints when they discovered they were unable to group up with their friends, too. 

Fortunately for those who chose poorly, there is now an out: The most recent hotfix adds an option to wipe your current character and start over from scratch.

"We've listened to your feedback, and an account wipe option is now live in Gray Zone Warfare," developer Madfinger Games wrote. "After wiping, all your progress will reset and the game will shut down smoothly. Upon relaunching, you will go through the character creation and get Edition Content and starter gear again."

Only characters that are at least one hour old can be wiped, and there's a one-hour cooldown after a wipe, so you'll still want to be reasonably certain about your choices before you lock into anything. You'll also want to be sure about wiping in the first place: "This action is irreversible," Madfinger warned.

A total character wipe strikes me as kind of a nuclear option, but the response is very positive overall. And understandably so: Bad-faction-chooser Morgan said "the fact that you could inadvertently lock yourself out of playing with friends was a priority-one problem." Which is completely correct, mainly because it's not something I (and clearly a lot of other people) would've ever considered during the character creation process despite a missable on-screen warning. Having to go all-in with a particular faction is great in a singleplayer immersive sim, but a multiplayer online shooter? Not so much.

Madfinger said the character wipe option will also fix the "missing head/secure container bug," although it warned that the problem may reoccur until a proper fix is released. More generally, the hotfix also fixes "several GPU-related crashes."

Sadly, while the ability to change factions has corrected one of Gray Zone Warfare's most egregious oversights, it has also opened the door to a whole new kind of beef:

(Image credit: Future)

It's a jungle in here, folks.

Andy Chalk
Andy Chalk
US News Lead

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.