"Events in the game take place in the poverty-plagued district of Martinaise within the city of Revachol on the isola of Insulinde. Forty-nine years before the events of the game, a wave of communist revolutions swept multiple countries; the sclerotic monarchy of Revachol, which up to that point had been a powerful kingdom with colonies across Elysium, was overthrown and replaced by a
commune. Six years later, the Revachol commune was toppled by an invading alliance of moralist-capitalist nations called "the Coalition". Revachol has since been designated a Special Administrative Region under the Coalition, which holds a strong grip over the city's local economy and keeps its autonomy at a minimum."