Casualties: Unknown is set in the far future, on a planet the characters only call the Gray Planet. The story is told through corporate memos, biometric reports and the notes of people who have already died there. This file assembles the confirmed setting.
The universe
The game is set in the same universe as Orsoniks’ earlier games Gooey and Gunsaw. Gunsaw takes place on the Gray Planet one or two decades later; Gooey is set on a different planet many decades further in the future. Whether those games are fully canon in their current versions is not confirmed.
The setting includes interstellar teleportation, brain implants, localized gravity nullification, handheld mining lasers, jetpacks, medical nanotechnology and Localized Resuscitation Devices. Regular interstellar spacecraft are never mentioned. The United States still exists and governs the Corporation, at least nominally.
The Gray Planet
The Gray Planet is mountainous, with Earth-like gravity, a breathable atmosphere and an active subterranean biosphere. The game takes place entirely in its cave network, split into eleven layers. The Tutorial and Sandbox modes are set on Earth, in an underground facility, which is why their gravity is identical for gameplay reasons.
Each layer is roughly 300 meters tall and has its own temperature curve, flora, traps and hazards. The Corporation chose the planet as a remote base of operations, far enough from Earth to hide an illegal bioengineering program.
The Corporation
The Corporation is an extremely powerful megacorporation and the creator of the Sawians. It has divisions for children’s toys, food delivery and teleportation logistics, among others. It is the entity that built the Experiments, installed their brain chips and sent them into the caves.
When the Sawian project became a legal liability, the board ordered the population destroyed. A doctor argued that the Sawians could be used as human-like test subjects for an experimental nanomedicine, Braingrow. The project was saved, hidden and expanded. The Corporation’s public-facing story never mentions any of it.
The lost cargo
As the Sawian population grew, the Corporation needed a place to hide its operations. It chose the Gray Planet and began teleporting cargo, trash, traps and equipment to the surface. Calibration errors in the cutting-edge teleportation system scattered just as much material into the cave network below.
The surplus cargo was not a problem until an extremely important piece of technology was lost in the caves. The project’s priority shifted instantly to retrieving it. The Corporation had an abundant supply of Sawians that would have been sent to the planet anyway. That is the mission: descend, find the cargo, survive.
The cargo’s exact nature is still unrevealed. It is the objective of Layer 10, Where We Must Reach, and the reason the Experiments are expendable.
The Sawians
The Sawians are bioengineered hybrids, originally created to test whether such creatures were possible. Later, they became test subjects for unethical medical research. There are fourteen known species; thirteen carry SAW designations in the Corporation’s internal notes. The fourteenth, Icke, appears in Gunsaw and has no known SAW number.
The Corporation classifies them as “gonosimulistic”, capable of reproducing as both sexes, with asexual reproduction possible. Sawians do not experience gender the way humans do and are referred to as they/them.
Species register
| ID | Name | Corporation notes |
|---|---|---|
| SAW-01 | Experiment | Fox, human and rat hybrid. Small, emotional, intelligent. The playable baseline. |
| SAW-02 | Orange | Large, brutish, four-armed. Used for heavy labor and survival testing. |
| SAW-03 | Milky | Marine DNA. Tiny, arrogant, intelligent, with excellent vision. A playable character at launch. |
| SAW-04 | Leapy | Moss DNA. Unstable, cancer-prone and a flight risk. |
| SAW-05 | Chompy | Shark DNA. Aquatic, carnivorous and oddly friendly. |
| SAW-06 | Roza | Snow Strider DNA. Low body temperature and a volatile temperament. |
| SAW-07 | Voyager | Feline DNA. Agile, hides well and dislikes other species. |
| SAW-08 | Baron | Twice human size, extremely powerful, emotionally stable. Hard to clone. |
| SAW-09 | Chik | Insectoid DNA. Hollow bones, wing-like appendages, bright pink fur. |
| SAW-10 | Crystal | Lizard DNA. Crystal growths and a sticky, weight-bearing tongue. |
| SAW-11 | Velvet | Arthropod DNA. Spider-like and dangerous; strict protocol required. |
| SAW-12 | Dune | Arthropod DNA. Cannibalistic, barely intelligent, extremely dangerous. A playable character at launch. |
| SAW-13 | Shelly | Radiation-feeding, mute and intelligent. Communicates through sign language. |
The descriptions above are paraphrased from the Corporation’s in-universe biometric reports, which are written from a hostile and dehumanizing perspective. They are not neutral facts about the species.
Gender and reproduction
The first Sawians were produced by cloning, but the process was resource-intensive, so the population was left to reproduce naturally. Sawians can reproduce asexually, and the lore notes a “lack of sex drive.” A run-start dialogue line, "My parent would be proud...", confirms that at least one Sawian on the Gray Planet was born through asexual reproduction.
Mission timeline
- The breakthrough. The Corporation creates SAW-01 and begins destructive testing.
- The board discovers the project. Intelligent test subjects are illegal. The project is almost terminated.
- Braingrow. A doctor proposes using the Sawians to test experimental nanotechnology. The project survives.
- Expansion. SAW-01 is cloned in huge numbers and spliced into SAW-02 through SAW-13.
- The relocation. The Corporation begins teleporting its operations to the Gray Planet.
- The error. The lost cargo ends up deep in the cave network.
- The deployment. Sawians are sent down to retrieve it. You are one of them.