The game contains several game areas, located both in the Ninth World and outside:
It will be possible to merge temporarily with the mind of those other castoffs through special Numenera, the Meres. In this task, the player will find allies and enemies, with other castoffs on both sides. The game will set the player upon a quest to find his originator before The Last Sorrow can harm the Changing God or the Last Castoff. But not only him, his creations too, and among them, the Castoffs are also targeted by the Last Sorrow. The action of the Changing God caused the awakening of an entity, The Sorrow, that has been pursuing him for quite some time. The player will control a character named the Last Castoff, one of many shell-bodies ( Castoffs) rejected by the Changing God, a man that gained immortality through the power of Numenera by passing from a corpse to another, with each corpse gaining new consciousness when the Changing God departed from it. However, it is said that we will also visit other dimensions and distant worlds. Most of the locations of the game will be located east of the Steadfast and the Beyond, the principal regions described in the Numenera Corebook. This setting, called the Ninth World, provides all manner of opportunities and challenges to those that call it home. Others are dangerous: genetically altered monstrosities, flesh-warping radiation, creatures transplanted from distant stars, and clouds of out-of-control nanobots, just to name a few. Some of these are extremely helpful: advanced tools, valuable means of communication and learning, transportation, defenses, and weapons. Even though the current inhabitants live at about a Medieval level of technology, the leftover remnants of these advanced societies lie all around them. Civilizations have risen and fallen on Earth.
Numenera is set a billion years in the future.