Lore

Story
Kyle and his brother are from a black operations unit for Polish special forces, trained from a young age to be effectively a more feasible "super-soldier". Aliens have taken up residence on Earth after wrecking their original home planet, and Kyle and his unit were part of an evacuation defense of refugees and immigrants when they first arrived.

Some time after aliens made contact, they splintered off into a few sub-factions that disagree with each other on their plans for living on Earth, the ones we're probably going to see the most of are more aggressive aliens that want to continue the research into the paranormal they were performing before that lead to ruining their original planet, while the others believe it to be a bad idea and don't like what the hostile faction is up to, even fighting alongside humans.

On the flipside, a massive organized group of mercenaries has stricken a deal with the hostile faction of aliens, and they work together for control and power, and the ability to continue researching into the paranormal essentially.

Kyle has come into being their enemy, and prior to the events of the game has killed thousands of their soldiers mostly thanks to bombing bases (including at least one incident where he used a nuclear warhead to achieve such a goal, I believe) so he is essentially their personal boogieman.

As of when the game takes place proper, Kyle has lost his memory and his primary goal is repairing it slowly over the course of the game while killing anyone who gets in the way or tries to kill him first.

For the paranormal aspect, essentially another dimension heavily coinciding with and controlled by consciousness and subconsciousness is present and alters reality via subatomic particles, generally leading to horrific things such as Kyle's powers, apparitions, etc.

Lore
NOTICE: The information below has been taken directly from the Leaden Sky Discord server, written by Łukasz Zagawa and edited by Foster and Cloacky.

Chapter 1
At the beginning of the year 1999, United States Intelligence started gathering reports about numerous, unexplained disappearances of military personnel. Those who disappeared had left no trace, and it was initially assumed that there simply wasn't anything particularly noteworthy about the occurrence. It was quickly dismissed as an issue, and there was believed to be no reason to cause unjustified and unnecessary panic by reacting to it as such. In short time, however, the numbers grew and within days it had rapidly turned into several thousands of cases of missing soldiers.

In 2002, the number of missing military personnel had reached nearly 50,000. It was raising huge concerns about internal security, yet no investigations had produced tangible results. Disappearances continued, and it was still unknown what had caused them until 2003, when finally a strange connection started to become much more pronounced; Missing personnel usually showed strange behavioural degradation and abnormal tendencies prior to disappearing such as being visibly nervous, seemingly unintelligible ramblings and violent mood swings leading to an excess of physical in-fighting. Despite all this however, no video recordings, documents or other forms of evidence could be found relating to soldiers leaving the base by any means.

Chapter 2
In the late winter of 2003, riots began breaking out on the streets of the United States. It was initially assumed that these events were connected to groups of Anarchists, but it was not discovered what exactly was causing them to occur, nor who was behind them, at that point in time. Interrogations of captured participants didn't yield any useful results, only empty threats and ramblings of aggression towards the authorities who had detained them.

During Spring in the following year of 2004, the U.S. National Guard was called out onto the streets to fight overwhelming numbers of Anarchists and other bandit-like criminals, an event that strangely coincided with an incredibly large number of riots which were reported to have begun across the entire world. Every country was attempting to deal with these riots by way of their own individual methodologies, some of which remained classified to foreign powers. Disappearances of military personnel not only continued, but became worse as the numbers rapidly skyrocketed, and were now no longer just confined to the United States but suddenly began happening among the military forces of other countries around the world as well.

Chapter 3
At the start of the Summer season in 2004, unidentifiable and yet incredibly well armed groups of militant forces took over various cities all over the world including in the United States, Russia and Western Europe. Interrogations of those captured from groups of these third party combatants had only provided the vague and limited knowledge that the militants identify themselves as “Mercenaries.” Some cities which had fallen under “Mercenary” control were quickly retaken by the respective countries' military forces, but between the rioting and the increasing forces of the Mercenaries, events were spiraling far beyond the control of even the world's superpowers and spreading further out from their initial points of occurrence rapidly. At this point, it became obvious to those in positions of power across the world that all of this must be the beginnings of a plan devised by an unknown organization outside of anyone's apparent control and which had no evident ties to existing countries, however there was nothing that could be used to trace the events back to a potential outside source or even prove that no present countries were involved with this group.

It appeared to many, however, as if someone was orchestrating these attacks from within, subterfuge to destabilize and take down opposing countries and to deflect attention from the true source of the problems. This raised even more concerns about internal security, and later in the year classified special operations forces were formed in the United States to infiltrate and perform undercover espionage to recover any information they could about the hostile Mercenaries organization. Those who took part in these operations and succeeded were able to document and confirm that in fact these events were the work of an even larger organization than was assumed before, as it was also uncovered that they had been doing performing numerous large-scale experiments that could only be described as paranormal research, or in the eyes of those who studied the reports, pure madness.

Chapter 4
In the late winter of 2004, the Mercenaries began migrating away from the regions which they had already taken over to the neighboring countries surrounding them. Terroristic bombings had begun, and initially it was unclear whether the source of these bombings was the Anarchists, the Mercenaries or foreign countries taking advantage of the confusion, leading to a catastrophic destabilization of the already extremely fragile peace shared between them and an incredibly high tension between the forces stationed at each country's borders. Through these events the threat of World War 3 had loomed ominously overhead, however through many peace talks and other efforts a global alliance between all countries which had suffered from these attacks was formed instead, which predominantly consisted of the United States of America, Russia and portions of Europe. Having combined their military forces together, the alliance proved much more capable of effectively fending off the waves of attacks that threatened their nations, thus allowing continued investigations from all parties into their common and yet still almost entirely unknown enemy

At beginning of 2005, Russia's military had discovered an incredibly large, underground complex in northern Siberia, which was uncovered to have been used by the Mercenaries as a base or outpost. It was later assaulted and control of it was successfully wrested from the hands of the Mercenaries, Russian special forces having suffered many casualties to claim it, however incredibly valuable intelligence was retrieved from the base, and later study revealed far more about their secret paranormal research. According to the details in the intelligence, it was provable beyond a shadow of a doubt that a wealthy and secret organization was sponsoring the supernatural research the Mercenaries were performing, which had reached a point where they discovered a method to remotely influence people's emotions by creating various hallucinations, causing drastic shifts in temperament, increasing or lowering blood pressure and altering brain functions. Further information gained indicated that with proper utilization of specially designed devices, they were capable of brainwashing people, turning them to their side and training them, a process which was detailed thoroughly and in fact proved that, interestingly enough, the Mercenaries were apparently heavily composed of brainwashed ranks of the missing soldiers who had started going AWOL without any evidence or explanation for their absence several years earlier, all the way back in 1999.

Chapter 5
During the remaining winter season of early 2005, numerous reports detailing the appearance of humanoid, hostile, abominable creatures had cropped up out of seemingly nowhere. These creatures were classified and divided into a few categories, including: Creatures called the “Wicked,” made from multiple different masses of human flesh and bone, they demonstrated extremely high physical resistance as well as certain particularly notable mutations such as arms transmogrified into gigantic blades with razor-sharp edges. Those called the “Demented,” who were more similar to humans in overall form and appearance, as well as intelligence and capability of using firearms, however in terms of temperament they showcased complete madness and hostility similar to the Wicked and other creatures of their apparent ilk. Finally, the most dangerous type were categorized as “Ghosts,” creatures made of pure energy, beyond this fact, however, no real knowledge could be ascertained from reports of creatures under this categorization. Aside from these bizarre creatures, certain individuals had begun presenting strange abilities as well, research into which has, to this day, still proven inconclusive and continues being conducted. Following these reports, the creatures had started becoming far more aggressive and mobile than they were initially, causing chaos and wreaking havoc on the streets of cities even at day, but especially at night when they appeared most active.

Most disastrous of all, however, was the fact that the state these creatures were in was somehow being passed on to others much like a virus or disease, however no pathogens responsible for their mutations has ever been discovered, and it has always been rumored that these beings simply never were of biological, natural origin to begin with. Aside from these new, horrifying creatures and suddenly empowered individuals, anomalies and strange items began being appearing and being identified as well, the mechanics and properties of which are similarly still having research actively and thoroughly performed upon them to this day. Information seems to indicate that these bizarre creations are potentially side effects of the paranormal research which was being conducted by the Mercenaries, however it remains ambiguous due to a lack of any meaningful evidence and as such can still potentially be entirely unrelated and coincidental.

Chapter 6
In the midst of the summer in 2005, there were after-action reports gathered from a United States Army base located in south-eastern Alaska which claimed there was an abrupt appearance of strange, animalistic, hostile creatures which had begun assaulting the base and viciously fighting the on-site personnel with no provocation.

In the battle, several of these creatures were killed by the Army and their cadavers were transferred to a classified location for further investigation and research, which has shown that to our present knowledge there are at the very least three newly identified species of animals that have since been classified, among these new animal species were the following: Sets of mammalian specimens much akin to the Panthera genus of Felidae (sharing most resemblances with the P. Leo species, or the lion.) A large number of mammalian creatures which heavily resembled the order Rodentia, predominantly the Rattus genus. Finally, and most intriguingly, a number of large, unusual creatures which were initially assumed to be abnormally sized birds of prey, but when studied were actually much closer in anatomy and apparent physiology to the long extinct Pterodactylus genus.

They have all showcased some kind of adaptation to disproportionately cold climates considering the genera they most closely have been associated with, as well as nocturnal behaviors and noticeably abnormal choroidal tapetum cellulosum which seem to be related to the apparently superior night vision of the beasts as compared to that of the existing species belonging to the same genera. Study of their DNA has not produced any signs of artificially inflicted mutations and the animals, whilst previously undiscovered and highly bizarre for the climate, were proven to have similar blood chemistry and composition as well as anatomical and physiological structuring to already classified mammals and avians. These scientific discoveries have remained classified and further study upon them continues. Towards the end of the summer, the historic Space Needle structure in Seattle was shot down in a sudden shock attack by a gargantuan, black-colored, unidentifiable aerial vehicle which then began flying at an extremely low altitude incredibly close to the city itself. United States officials responded by immediately mobilizing Air Force units to perform a counterassault, who continued to fight against this as of yet still unknown hostile force over the course of several hours. Unfortunately, the counter-assault ended in complete and total failure, as the enemy aerial vehicle had superior weaponry and armor that existing armaments simply could not feasibly stand up to. As a result, all of Seattle has been taken over by a force that has been assumed to be the Mercenaries, as they were spotted mobilizing ground forces to aid the assault on land. Seattle has sustained an irreparable amount of damage, and the entire city's remaining populace of civilians has ended up kept as hostages by the Mercenaries to force the United States into halting with any intentions it initially had of performing bombing runs upon them to loosen up control over the city.

Chapter 7
Later in the year, in the summer of 2005, the United States remained under heavy siege from the constantly growing Mercenary forces, leading NATO countries to send support units to aid the United States military in fighting back the invasion and to conduct rescue and evacuation missions to save the civilians that were caught up in the crossfire and had no way to escape by themselves. Classified Special Forces units were formed from the most experienced soldiers available, and assigned to the defense of the evacuation zones to ensure as many civilians could make it out of the country and into allied nations as was feasible. A great number of the rescued citizens were able to be safely evacuated out and managed to immigrate and adapt to their new, and hopefully temporary, homes without complications, however many of them fell into criminality and began to form small, armed criminal groups that weren't much of a threat in the face of military presence and thus superiority, but were still causing bouts of civil unrest among the native populaces as well as paranoia and disgruntlement regarding the newly immigrated U.S. citizens.

In the early autumn, sightings of skyscraper-sized, metallic, monolithic towers as well as large aerial vehicles that seemed to patrol around them regularly began being reported all across the world in zones that were under Mercenary control, and were thus immediately believed to be directly related to them. Since then, there have been multiple reports of various military aircraft crashing without any apparent reason or explanation around cities with these towers, alongside the deaths of any military ground forces that had attempted to enter these same territories and made it within a certain distance of the towers. Investigations into these casualties began, and it was discovered that there is some form of unknown force field surrounding and forming a perimeter in vast areas around the Mercenary towers, the fields acting as a sort of shield which caused living matter, vehicles and other objects foreign to the inside of the fields to disintegrate on impact, making the fields impenetrable to anyone from the outside. Their massive diameters were capable of covering entire cities even at their smallest, and those of the largest were found to have reached spans of nearly 30 miles. It was later discovered that the fields were not only capable of destroying matter, but also capable of blocking radio wave transmissions, both incoming and outgoing, leaving anyone who had remained inside the perimeters during the construction of the towers stranded with no communications to the outside world, and anyone on the outside with no way of intercepting Mercenary or any other radio chatter that originated from within. Investigations into the goings-on within these fields were halted due to the circumstances, and it remains unknown to those who are not trapped by them what the current situation is inside of them.