PvP and zones

Other survivors share the world with you. Your compass and HUD always show which kind of ground you're on.

• Safe zones such as Haven, Paleto Hold and the Rust Harbor market: nobody can hurt anybody.
• Contested ground, most of the map: PvP is on, with consequences. Die to a player and you drop your backpack.
• Blackzones, such as the Rot, Humane Labs, the Ashes downtown and Fort Zancudo: no law at all. Die there and you drop everything except your secure pouch. The best loot is in here.

Consequences

Hurt a neutral survivor on contested ground and you're Hostile: marked, and anyone can shoot you without penalty. Kill one and you're a Marauder, with a bounty on your head, and safe zones turn you away. Keep killing and you're Hunted, pinged on everyone's map. Shooting someone who's already Hostile is always self-defense.

Honor

Your honor is the long view of how you treat people. Reviving and treating strangers, trading fairly and finishing contracts raise it. Killing neutrals, executing the downed, betrayal and logging out mid-fight drop it. High honor gets better prices at Haven and lets you hear distress calls further away. Sink low enough and Haven's traders refuse you, the black market deals with you, and in the end every safe hub turns you away.

Robbery

You can hold someone up instead of killing them. They choose to surrender or resist. Robbing costs less than murder, and surrendering is always safer than dying.

Squads and alliances

• Permanent squads of up to twelve, and everyone in yours who is online is out with you: see Squads and comms. Rounds hit friends too, so watch your line.
• Alliances of up to three squads. Walk out and kill a former ally, and you and your squadmates who were out with you become Oathbreakers, fair game for the people you betrayed.
• Squads are permanent. They have ranks and a bank, and can claim territories that fill a squad cache and can be captured in the evening contest window.

Squad territory

There are eight territory sites, such as O'Neil Farm, the Paleto sawmill and the Alamo docks. Stand at the pole on an unclaimed site for a minute to Raise your squad's flag. Taking a site from another squad takes three minutes and only works in the evening contest window, 19:00 to 23:00 server time. A squad can hold two sites. Each costs upkeep from the squad bank every day, fills the squad cache at the pole every half hour, and protects squad buildings nearby, which take far less damage outside the window. The holder's bandana flies on the pole, and Read the marker shows who holds it.

Blackzone loot

Everything picked up in a Blackzone is contaminated. Seal it in a hazmat bag, get out alive, then wash it at Haven's wash bay, the Paleto Hold decon tent, or a quarantine tent you built. Getting out doesn't clean it. A paid air pickup called on the radio and the Rot skiff can pull you out, but they cost money and fuel.

Logging off within a minute of a player fight leaves your body in the world, where it can be killed and looted.