Does anything get explained ever?

[Carface Is My Spirit Animal]

I feel like I'm missing a lot of context while playing. Who is my character? Was he in a biker gang or something? What are these zombies? Where did they come from? What started all this? I just did a mission of retrieving something from a cemetery and burning the girl from the beginning but I don't know who she was or any background information.

[randal_thor69]

Everything is explained as the game plays out.

[Pakratjr]

Everything is explained as you play the game. At the point you are at you only barely started playing. A lot more to go.

[simon.pete15]

Originally posted by Pakratjr:

Everything is explained as you play the game. At the point you are at you only barely started playing. A lot more to go.

Yup!
There are plenty of cut scene videos which explain Deacons back story. If you skip them, you'll never get it. Some of them are interactive, very slow walking, which is a bit of a pain, but that's just the way it is, nothing you can do. You get some of it from the talking between Deacon and other characters too.
By the time you've finished the story, you'll have roughly 60 hours of playing.
Then you can go back over the map, finish any camp missions you missed, wipe out any remaining hordes, find any missed collectables, etc. You might spend 90 hours playing this game to 100%.