Citizen Grade is the money-driven social ladder inside the Yeouido quarantine zone in NAKWON: LAST PARADISE. It ranks every refugee in the safe zone and decides which districts, equipment, and privileges they can access. Higher grades unlock more of the game; lower grades keep the survivor on the safer, leaner edge of the economy. For wider context, see the overview.
How Citizen Grade Works
Citizen Grade is tied directly to in-fiction money. The dossier-confirmed framing is that money earned during expeditions goes toward two things: rent on a personal shelter and gear upgrades. Money also feeds into Citizen Grade, with higher grades unlocking more privileges, broader equipment access, and the freedom to move through restricted districts on subsequent runs.
The ladder is therefore both a status mechanic and a gating mechanic. Status, because a refugee's grade describes their standing in the community; gating, because a low grade closes off areas of the map and tiers of equipment that a higher grade would open.
Citizen Grade and Money
Money is earned by extracting loot from the night-phase expedition map and selling it inside Yeouido. Items carried into an expedition can be lost permanently if the player dies, so every run is also a Citizen Grade bet: a successful extraction with high-value loot raises the survivor's standing; a failed extraction loses both the carried gear and the income it would have produced. The shelter rent line item adds a steady drain that the survivor has to keep up with to avoid sliding back down the ladder.
What Citizen Grade Unlocks
The closed alpha framing of Citizen Grade is consistent across official materials: higher grades open up restricted districts, give access to better equipment categories, and grant general quality-of-life privileges. The ladder itself is a published number. The closed alpha added nine ranks of Citizen Status, so the system is a nine-step climb rather than an open-ended score. What has not been published is the specific privilege attached to each individual rank.
Grade Direction | Confirmed Effect | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Higher Citizen Grade | Wider district access; broader equipment access; more privileges inside Yeouido. | Sustained by completing expeditions, returning with loot, and paying rent. |
Lower Citizen Grade | Restricted to safer or smaller districts; narrower equipment access; fewer Yeouido privileges. | Drift downward implied if rent is unpaid or expeditions fail repeatedly. |
Why Citizen Grade Matters
Citizen Grade ties the day phase and the night phase together. The shelter side is where money is spent, the expedition side is where money is earned, and Citizen Grade is the visible indicator of how the survivor is doing on the long-run economy. Skipping expeditions to save rent is not a stable strategy because no money is coming in; running risky expeditions for high reward is not a stable strategy either because a death wipes the gear that produced the reward. The Citizen Grade ladder rewards consistency: incremental extraction, careful gear management, and steady rent payments add up to a higher rank over time.
Planned Direction for Citizen Grade
A June 2026 Q&A outlined how the team wants Citizen Grade to grow past the closed alpha's early-game framing. The plan is for advancing your standing to open up a wider range of life events and challenges tied to living in the safe zone, with taxes, fines, and higher-difficulty missions named as examples. The team is also preparing high-risk, high-reward content aimed at survivors who reach the upper grades, so that a high rank carries tougher optional content rather than only quality-of-life perks. All of this is described as in development and subject to change, so treat it as the intended direction for the ladder rather than a mechanic present in the current build.
What Is Not Yet Public
The specific district unlocks per rank, the exact rent amounts, and the per-rank equipment lists have not been published. The nine-rank ladder and what the system controls are confirmed; the per-rank detail is not. Future builds and post-launch coverage are likely to fill in the specifics.