Been a while, if anyone’s still watching this I’d like to move conversation to what’s in the crater.
From above, you wrote:
So, what exactly would you like to discuss about? 
Sorry if that sounded rude
No worries, it didn’t.
Ok good I don’t want to sound like the rude guy
I think it was probably some swedish military remnants that used a prototype nuclear device from foa 4 to blast open the tunnels because the machines may have been using them to get around and that it wasnt the reaper because it cant fit in the tunnels.
That doesn’t mean that Reaper could be disassembled, transported on trucks or similar way, assembled, activated, went nuts’n’bolts. Also, there’s similar crater in the England where exploded artillery munitions storage (somewhere around topic).
With radioactive puddles - it’s either nuclear waste, remnants of nuclear device (be it warhead or installation), Reaper/Apoc-class rocket ammo (leaves similar dirty spots) been exploding here - either stored or shot.
My primary theory is that Reaper “emerged” there by series of it’s thermbarric fart. as evidenced by destruction within crater itself and burned surroundings, but in-game it’s blast ain’t that wide to reach beyond river to east and burn stuff to the ground or even partially collapse readiness storage bunker (also behind river)
Secondary is - powerful explosion could be result of tampered/sabotaged munitions and there was sort of sorting/rerouting station, full with explody stuff, apoc-class included.
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maybe there in the middle of the crater was a big bunker with and when the reaper went throught the roof of it it caved in and caused an explosion
I always got the impression the Reaper escaped from Himfjäll, stomped it’s way through the tunnel network that presumably would run underneath the island and emerged in the Farmlands by detonating that thermobaric blast inside the tunnel. The resulting blast would’ve annihilated the surrounding area like the crater seems to be.
I myself have seen a few video games where the entire story is you trying to sabotage something and succeeding in doing so only to have the enemy come back way stronger.
I think that this crater here is an entire story all in it’s own where a bunch of military remnants try to blow up all the munitions in the facility, it would make sense that this bunker is a giant storage or factory. It would also make sense that the people who blew up the bunker would have also died there, but they would have had to have worked there or the crater wouldn’t have been so big, they would have had to have known strategic places where to plant the explosives or turn the valves. I know that when you shoot the fuel cells they make a pretty large explosion on their own, now imagine thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of those cells that get place on TANKS exploding all at once.
So I’ll just re-spark this conversation due to new information found primarily trough the Soviet Doll collectables
Spoilers
In the 9th doll Tatiana, who is a captain in the Soviet military, manages to get in contact with her “contact in the Union” it is implied that there was tension, since both of them knew what had to be done. Tatiana gave the command: “Send it,” which isn’t immediately clear what is refereed to but the last sentence in the note says, “The sky just started to fill with a mushroom cloud” which also doesn’t immediately imply what has happened or where it might have happened.
The 10th doll can be found in the Marshlands region at the top of a watchtower overlooking Ånnagruvan and the farmlands region.
In the 10th doll Tatiana says that she can see the crater she created and noted, “It looks surreal”
So this would heavily imply that it was the Soviet that made the crater
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The truth has been revealed. I’m surprised I’m the first to mention it considering how long it been out.
The story is in all the new collectibles since the Russians landed. They tell the story. One of their Captains who came to work with FNIX as a last resort, called in the nuclear strike from mother Russia in order to stop another Russian captain who had gone rogue. Of course she was manipulated in to doing it by FNIX in order to free the reaper that was trapped underneath.
My quick theory is that the Swedish military were responsible for the crater in some way, same with the “Reaper” (possibly). When observing the area, similar to you I noticed many destroyed tanks and outposts, probably due to a battle before, or because of the mysterious blast itself. My guess is the military knew they were going to lose the battle against FNIX and “his” army of machines in that area. In a last-ditch effort I believe the military called down a heavy barrage of missiles or artillery, probably enough to fully level the area completely. With signs of what were a heavy military presence in that area, I believe at some point in time FNIX called in the “Reaper” to deal with the military’s forces, prompting the military to respond with my explanation above. In truth we still don’t know the true cause of the crater, but I just felt like putting my theory out there!
Oh, that’s not correct.
We know when it happened, why it happened and who is responsible for it. And it’s not the swedish military.
It’s in the lore (russian nesting dolls collectibles).
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Thank you for posting this!
I have never been that keen on collecting collectibles in games so I have ignored the hunt for such things I GZ. However your post sparked my curiosity so I (cheated by googling nesting dolls locations) went around the map and picked up all that I haven’t stumbled on and read the whole story. Wow…it’s pretty dark, and in the light of the current war rather ominous and prophetic. We should all thank our lucky stars that the Russians (and the Swedes) haven’t gotten as far in the since of robotics as in the lore of GZ. 
The Crater seems to be a point on the map where the soviets and the FNIX robots had a fight. It’s an area where several firebirds and wolfs roam around. It could be the first fight between the reaper and the soviet forces. It is possible that they modded one of the firebirds into a firebird with attatched explosives. Like FNIX has a modded kind of a tough unit and so it could be that also the soviets have a modded unit of their toughest unit. Inside the remains of the bunker complex is the data for the reaper, so it could also be possible that the soviets wanted to get the informations for the reaper. When the two forces met at the crater’s location it could be possible that the modded firebird was supposed to inflict a crash with the reaper in order to destroy it. When the firebird crashed the same thing could have happend as when the tanks or harvesters shoot their rockets over a hihg distance. This would inflict several explosions around the area, explaining the remaining trees and the fact that this crater is full of FNIX and soviet machines. Maybe like the apocalypse class robots, the modded firebird could be equipped with uranium or other radioactive material, explaining the apocalypse FNIX machines. Maybe in a later update the game gets more boss-like machines and maybe this could mean that the mystery will be solved(they could introduce a rival like: Mechanical Unit дьявольская сова[devil owl]-Delta-666).
I will leave it to this and apologize for my terrible English(I’m german)
If you would have played the story and grabbed (and read) all the collectibles (matruschka dolls for example), you would know the answer.
The answer is out there 
P.s. 
I’m german, too.
Too bad. Maybe they introduce something like a soviet boss machine in an update or a DLC for the three/four remaining unaccessible islands.
They neither confirmed nor denied a possible soviet boss machine. They may think about it.
That’s more than they already said for the remaining islands.
They have a long list with ideas for future content, but nothing is sure yet. And until now there are no plans for these islands.
That’s what they said.
a 18-hole golf course would be easy to put on one of the islands, all you need is the pro-shop, some golf carts, LOTS of open space with 18 sticks coming out of the ground & machines