Faction guide

Faction choice is permanent. Once you join, the other two close most of their content to you. Visit all three before committing.

The three camps

Camp	Paths	Armor	Weapon style
Old Camp	Guard (melee) or Fire Mage	7 tiers (5 melee, 2 mage)	Swords
New Camp	Mercenary (melee) or Water Mage	3 tiers (1 melee, 2 mage)	Axes and bows
Swamp Camp	Templar (melee) or Guru (psionic)	2 tiers (medium and heavy)	Maces

The Old Camp guard chain runs six ranks deep — Digger through Heavy Guard — the longest melee ladder in the Colony. The Swamp Camp novice-to-templar path is even longer overall but splits between melee and psionic at the templar tier. New Camp keeps it simple: two melee tiers, two mage tiers.

Old Camp guards carry named swords (Scar, Whistler, Thorus's two-hander). New Camp mercenaries favor axes (Lee, Gorn, Torlof, Cord, Lares all carry named axes). Swamp Camp templars lean on maces (Fortuno, Lester, Namib, Orun), with Cor Kalom's sword as the exception. The endgame legendary weapons — the two-handed Sword of Innos and Sword of Beliar — are available regardless of faction.

Best faction by build

• Pure melee. Old Camp. Five melee armor tiers from digger rags through senior guard plate, the heaviest physical protection in the Colony.

• Fire mage. Old Camp. The Circle of Fire lives inside the camp. Corristo teaches fire magic up to Circle 5: Fire Bolt, Fire Ball, Fire Rain, Pyrokinesis, Storm Of Fire. No other camp offers fire.

• Bow or ranged. New Camp. The bow arsenal runs 24 weapons deep across small, long, and war bow tiers. Old Camp has crossbows (5 tiers) as an alternative.

• Water mage. New Camp. Saturas and the Circle of Water teach ice and healing spells: Ice Bolt, Ice Block, Ice Wave, Heal. The most versatile school, mixing offense with support.

• Melee plus magic hybrid. New Camp. Mercenary rank and water mage apprenticeship run in parallel. You spend more learning points, but the camp doesn't force you to choose.

• Psionic mage. Swamp Camp. Gurus channel the Sleeper's power: Charm, Control, Sleep, Fear, Telekinesis. Strong crowd control, but psionic magic caps at Circle 4, so endgame damage is weaker than fire or water at full circles.

• Alchemist. Swamp Camp. Cheapest alchemy access in the Colony and the deepest mastery tiers through Cor Kalom and Baal Cadar.

• Dialogue completionist. Swamp Camp. The sect content branches the most aggressively, and the Sleeper mythology threads through everything.

• First playthrough. Old Camp. Diego walks you there from the start, and the guard path is the most forgiving way to learn the game.

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Faction trade-offs

• Old Camp. No water magic, no psionic magic, no Swamp Camp quests. New Camp becomes less cooperative in later chapters.

• New Camp. No fire magic, no psionic magic, no guard-tier heavy armor. Old Camp guards turn hostile if you push late-game New Camp quests.

• Swamp Camp. No fire magic, no water magic, no guard or mercenary armor, and less access to the ore economy. Psionic magic's Circle 4 cap means you'll never match a full-circle mage in raw damage.

Every camp locks out two of the three magic schools. If magic matters to your build, this is the real decision.

Faction guides

• Old Camp guide: the guard hierarchy, fire mage path, and the Colony's heaviest armor

• New Camp guide: Lee's mercenaries, water magic, and bow builds

• Swamp Camp guide: the Sleeper's sect, psionic magic, and the deepest dialogue content

If you joined the wrong one

You can't switch factions. The campaign is beatable from any camp, and the remake's expanded side content means a second playthrough through a different faction sees genuinely new material.

If you want to compare without committing a full run, Wand's Add XP and Add Skill Points customizations let you speed through the early progression on each camp to feel the difference before you invest the hours.