a couple of things don’t really make sense, the world is supposed to be completely destroyed, with Highsteppe the last bastion. but doing lore quests its obvious that this isn’t true. doing the Highsteppe mayor lore quests show that there are still refugees, non-scav or driven to madness by essence, coming into the jungle refugee camp, saying that they light the torches to help them get there meaning there are still people out there. Where are they coming from? it is apparently possible to survive for 20 years in very small groups in the wild, yet there are no larger groups
At the entrance to the wasteland, there are traders who broke their wagon, who knows where they are coming and going from tho because if high steppe is the only place with people left, wouldn’t they need to be some sort of harvesting group, not straight up traders?
And finally, we come to guild city. As far as we are told by the NPCs, Guild city is still very much an existing city. They still have guards, which multiple of the lore vendors are trying to find out how to get past. It is still the seat of power for markos, as a puppet leader. They are still sending people outside the city to gather essence, paying them hefty sums of dram, indicating they still have a flow of dram aka an economy, as shown by the miner lore quest in the crystal cave. and finally, according to the giant gate inside of HS with a big sign saying “Guild City”, guild city is right next door.
maybe I’m reaching to far on some of these conclusions or we haven’t gotten enough of the story, but as it is now at the very least there are some discrepancies in what the lore says about the situation about