Revision 1

Overview

The central backstory of Rooted revolves around a global bacteriological war that destroyed modern civilization. This conflict occurred roughly 80 years before the game's events, placing the collapse somewhere around the year 2020 in the game's timeline (with the game set near 2100). The war involved the use of biological agents on a massive scale, releasing bacteria and spores that proved impossible to contain or neutralize.

The collapse

The bacteriological warfare did not end with a single decisive event. It spread across the globe, contaminating population centers and destroying the infrastructure that held society together. Governments fell, supply chains broke down, and billions of people were killed or displaced. The world that existed before the war, a technologically advanced civilization with autonomous robots, global energy networks, and sprawling cities, was reduced to ruins within a relatively short period.

The ROTOR Corporation, which had dominated energy, high technology, and defense sectors before the collapse, supplied robots to governments and military forces. When human control structures dissolved, these robots did not shut down. Twenty years after the apocalypse, ROTOR machines continue to roam the landscape autonomously, growing in both power and numbers.

Lingering contamination

The bacteria and spores released during the war did not dissipate after the conflict ended. They remain present in the environment, particularly concentrated in urban and downtown areas. These contaminated zones are among the most dangerous locations in the game, requiring players to equip protective gear such as respirator masks and carry antidotes before venturing inside.

The contamination is not static. According to the developers, the bacteria from the war is "becoming more present in the world," suggesting an active spread rather than a gradual decline. This dynamic means that areas once considered safe may become hazardous over time, adding an evolving threat layer to the game's world.

Nature reclaims

With human civilization collapsed, nature has aggressively reclaimed the built environment over the intervening decades. Forests have grown through roads, buildings are wrapped in vegetation, and entire urban districts are overgrown to the point of being barely recognizable. This reclamation is a defining visual element of Rooted's world, creating environments where the remnants of advanced technology coexist with wild, untamed nature.

Open lore

The story of the bacteriological war is not told through cutscenes or NPC dialogue. Rooted uses an "open lore" approach where players discover the world's history through environmental storytelling. Abandoned buildings, forgotten documents, deteriorating infrastructure, and landmarks like the Communication Tower all contain fragments of the pre-war world. Players piece together what happened by exploring and observing, rather than being told through scripted sequences.

This storytelling approach means that different players may develop different understandings of the war and its aftermath, depending on which areas they explore and which details they notice. The Mansion and its Manor Memorial with photographs represent one of the more explicit lore locations, providing a direct window into the lives of people who existed before the collapse.