In true pioneer fashion, Arknights: Endfield is a game that wears many hats. It’s a story-rich action RPG with exploration and combat elements, but it also has a robust base-building mechanic. With enough time and plenty of hard work, you can turn the moon of Talos-II into a thriving interstellar colony. Provided, of course, that raiders, native wildlife, and the environment don’t do you in first.
While Arknights: Endfield takes place in the same world and timeline as the base Arknights game, you don’t need to know anything about Arknights to jump in. New characters make up most of the playable roster, and it focuses on a whole other world and industry. In Endfield, you play as the Endministrator, the Endmin of Endfield Industries. Wow, that’s a lot of “end”s.
Though you’ve lost your memories, you, as the Endministator, still help Endfield Industries and others to set up a thriving frontier colony on Talos-II, which is the second moon of gas giant Talos. Despite Endfield Industries’ amazing team of engineers and Talos-II’s abundance of resources, things aren’t going too well thanks to unexpected hostilities. Not only do you need to do the usual RPG stuff of fighting enemies and saving people, but you also need to fix damaged logistics or set up new outposts.
Admittedly, the who’s and why’s of Endfield eluded me on occasion. While I appreciate good in media res storytelling, it employed a lot of terminology and proper nouns that flew over my head during the cutscenes. The intel archive proved useful when sorting out questions I had throughout the story. Focusing on and engaging with Endfield‘s story was challenging, as, despite its strong premise, the actual narrative didn’t hook me. Everything from the story to the characters to the missions felt bland, like I was going through the motions.
The Endministrator is yet another silent protagonist, which is a trope I’ve griped about in the past. They’re a blank slate of a character due to their amnesia, and act accordingly, with Perlica taking the wheel. Characters often talk about how amazing the Endministrator is, or how legendary they were in the past. But time and time again, the Endministrator proves themself…kind of lame.
The Traveler and the Rover, regardless of if you like the glazing they receive, accomplish many heroic tasks in the narrative. It’s understandable why in Liyue, for example, people welcome the Traveler, considering they helped save the city. The Endministrator, meanwhile, never really does or says anything that special or awesome. It can feel undeserved to watch them receive praise or admiration based on a forgotten past we know little about. I understand that Hypergryph might’ve wanted to hail back to the original Arknights—Perlica seems like an expy of Amiya—but Endfield was a chance to do something different. It’s especially egregious since the premise of creating a functioning and livable base on Talos-II is interesting enough on its own. With the precedent of the Doctor, though, I’m inclined to give Hypergryph the benefit of the doubt and let them cook a little with the Endministrator.
Really, though, instead of focusing on glazing the Endministrator, the other characters should focus on themselves. Currently, there are only about thirteen Operators to pull from in Headhunting. That’s not a lot, per se, but it’s still just a beta build. I’m honestly a little surprised at how few Operators are actually interesting as characters, especially since they display so much personality in their menu animations. As a general rule, the characters are agreeable or affable, with minor differences like Chen Qianyu’s genki girl tendencies compared to Perlica’s more subdued temperament. It feels like I’m looking at people who already went through growth or a character arc, leaving no room for further development or intrigue. Like how story and character changes occurred between the beta and completed builds of Star Rail and Wuthering Waves, I’m hoping that when Endfield officially comes out, its cast will grow more character.
Despite the weak story and character writing, Endfield remains a delight to play thanks to the strong aesthetic choices. For one thing, the menus and UI feel very next-gen, with the parallax effect present when speaking with people via comms. Characters change how they pose whenever you tab through their menus, like Zenless Zone Zero does. The character models and overall color palette of the game feel unique for a gacha game, as the anime-like cel-shaded style popularized by games like Genshin has dominated the market. It reminds me of a mix between watercolor, as well as the art style of the illustrator who designed Amiya. Not that surprising, though, considering Wei@W (the illustrator in question) is one of the founding members of Hypergryph and serves as the current creative director for Arknights.
A minor detail in the character models that really stood out to me was how the character’s eyes would make these minute movements when looking at something or someone. It reminds me of how someone in real life might make similar eye movements when gazing upon, say, a large piece of art and they’re trying to focus on various parts of the painting. I’m not sure if the developers had to individually animate each motion or what, but it still amazed me that they chose to put it in the game when no one would’ve said anything if they didn’t.
Now, let’s talk about how it’s like to play the game. Arknights; Endfield has three main aspects to the gameplay loop: combat, exploration, and base-building. The base-building is actually the most important part of it all, since it ties in to the exploration and combat at an intrinsic level. I don’t recommend this game at all to people who don’t like base-building, or aren’t willing to put in the time. You can’t avoid it if you want to get anywhere, both figuratively and literally. But before we get to that, let’s talk about the other components of the game.
While the combat system itself is fairly standard for an action RPG (basic attack, skill, ultimate, dodge), the possibilities when it comes to team composition do remind me of the original Arknights game. The rarity level of a character doesn’t matter as much as their role or skill. Gilberta, for example, is a 6-star Operator, which is the highest rarity in the game. That doesn’t automatically mean she’ll dominate the battlefield, though. Using her with the 5-star Da Pan didn’t feel nearly as good as pairing Da Pan with the 4-star Chen Qianyu because of their complementary play styles. Despite initially writing off Snowshine for her low rarity (and her refusal to leave me in peace when I’m headhunting only added to my dislike), she became a mainstay on all my teams until I built up Xaihi enough to bring her out.
Each character has a combo skill, which triggers under specific circumstances. Using them does not eat up a skill bar, so that leaves you free to use another Battle Skill or save it for when you want to interrupt an enemy. Forming teams that can reliably facilitate each character’s combo skill is far more valuable than simply aiming for the rarest Operator.
My main party is Laevatain, Wulfgard, Perlica, and Snowshine, as I find all three of my attackers synergize so well with each other. Perlica’s Skill imparts an Electric Infliction onto an enemy. As this is an Arts Infliction, this triggers Wulfgard’s combo skill. Combining Electric with Heat creates Combustion, which then triggers Laevatain’s combo skill. All that for the cost of one skill bar is pretty great. A simpler combination only requires Laevatain and Wulfgard, as Laevatain’s Battle Skill can also trigger Wulfgard’s combo skill, which means I can save Perlica’s for later. Like Arknights, it feels less pay-to-win when the format of the combat system encourages this sort of creativity. Even low-rarity Operators have the chance to shine depending on who you pair them with.
Now, as mentioned in the beginning, Arknights: Endfield boasts a really in-depth and robust base-building system. It starts simple, having you rig up power lines and grids so that you can send electricity to different facilities around the base. In the beginning, I had to keep going back to my various refineries and processing units to take materials out. But the game later lets you automate this entire process, complete with conveyor belts like a full-fledged factory. Base-building isn’t exactly where my interest lies, and my eyes skimmed over the explanations when playing it late at night. However, the VR simulation tutorials, as well as the intuitive menus, made everything easy to navigate. They put a lot of work and thought into this part of the game.
And for good reason, too. As mentioned earlier, you can’t get away from base-building. You have to do it, as this is how you get the materials to assemble gear for your characters. Exploration also requires you to put your base-building skills to work, even if it’s as simple as setting down some pylons and relay towers so that you can power up mechanisms to gain access to different areas or rewards. There’s even a way to sort of recreate the tower defense of the mainline Arknights game, as you can set up weapons like Gatling guns provided that, again, you can transmit electricity to them.
Arknights: Endfield plays like a well-oiled machine, with each individual aspect acting as the cog to keep it chugging. Hypergryph did an amazing job fusing the different elements together without letting one shine too much over the other. There’s still a lot to do on Hypergryph’s end—mostly to do with the story—before it’s ready for public release, but, pun unintended, it’s already got a strong base to build on.
Arknights: Endfield is in development for the PS5, Windows PCs, and mobile devices.
Published: Jan 31, 2025 09:00 am