Any game built around gacha mechanics needs to have a certain hook to keep things interesting in the long term, especially if there’s potential to invest your hard-earned dollars into it. For all their systemic sins, Game of Thrones: Kingsroad and Persona 5: The Phantom X at least piqued my interest by expanding on already-revered lore, allowing me to intertwine myself in their beloved worlds. The much more enjoyable Zenless Zone Zero, on the other hand, pulled me in with a mix of high-octane combat, endearing character development, and Y2K flair. Arknights: Endfield is the latest competitor in this genre’s fierce attention economy, offering not only an engrossing sci-fi open world to explore, but another mechanically moreish addition: base building and automation. After approximately twenty hours of Endministrating, it’s clear there’s a lot more to uncover here beyond its sticky login loop, but crucially, I’m keen to expand my horizons in search of character motives, upgrades, and ultimately rewarding depth.
In Arknights: Endfield, you play as the Endministrator (or Endmin for short) who, after a 10-year absence and an unfortunate case of amnesia, returns to the world of the living to reinhabit the planet of Talos-II. Taming the wilds is no small task, though, and on top of trying to remember who you were before your big sleep, you’ll also face off against a range of evil entities, including leather-clad maurauders, shifting zoomorphic creatures, and other mythic, well-dressed baddies. It’s an intriguing premise, unfortunately told through an exposition-heavy opening with awkward stop-and-start pacing. Still, if you brave its dialogue-dense beginning, Arknights: Endfield eventually opens up, delivering visually enticing battles and a captivating atmosphere that help make up for it.
Your job primarily involves adventuring with your team to the surface of Talos-II to hunt for resources, solve simple environmental platforming puzzles, and eventually clear out whole areas which you can access in the metagame to build and automate machinery. To do this, you’ll use a team of up to four Operators who, under your control, fight and collect items to push the lengthy story ever onwards. Early on, you’ll have a limited pool of story-specific characters to play as, like the masked Endmin, the empathetic mission-oriented Perlica, and the spirited Chen Qianyu, though eventually you’ll be able to use a specially earned gacha currency to pull new characters, too. It’s not the most imaginative gameplay, with many of the puzzles involving finding and pressing a few buttons on a small map to find success, or trawling through the same few groups of bad guys to push through an area. Still, this is all set against a striking cyberpunk backdrop that makes it surprisingly easy to sink hours into.
As you can imagine, there is an eye-watering array of currencies to consider here — a painful staple of the genre. On top of the usual gacha pulling, which allows you to randomly unlock unique characters and weapons, there’s also a paid Battle Pass that rewards you with resources that can be filtered into systems that help speed up progression, that is, if you can figure them out. It’s hard to say from only the week I’ve spent with it so far whether this feels balanced or not, but I’ve not run into any significant roadblocks that would encourage me to pull out my wallet in the early game – though only time will tell, and based on what I’ve seen so far, I’m not overly confident I won’t eventually find a few.
While my humble crew was more than enough for me in the beginning, once I’d earned the currency needed to try out the character lottery firsthand, my feelings began to shift. In my first pull, I drew Estella, an adorable beanie-wearing warrior who compelled me with their nonchalant attitude and stylish techwear garb. Soon after that, I fell in love with Da Pan, a hungry panda whose leather jacket and belt combo gave him the aura of a dad navigating a midlife crisis. I’d like to say I stopped becoming attached to the characters as I kept pulling more. Alas, the range of unique designs, alongside their quippy one-liners, was effective enough to tug on my heartstrings. While I wouldn’t pay for currency with my own money beyond what is provided organically, I was happy to see that, if I did, developer Hypergryph has put a lot of effort into its worldbuilding and character design.
It helps that a character’s personality also tends to shape how they move in battle, and throughout my time with Arknights: Endfield, the flashy combat quickly became my favourite aspect. Hits are delivered with vibrant visual payoff, so much so that even my silly mistakes looked like intentional moves. As you explore, you’ll encounter groups of various enemies camped out, like violent blobs of possessed water or sword-wielding bandits, all of which feature level indicators hovering above their heads. Once ready to engage, you run directly at them, weapons brandished, and start swiping away.
Instead of controlling the Edmin alone, you switch between all the members of your team in battle, applying button-mashing combos that feel engaging in motion. Each character has a dodge, a light attack, and a special attack that string together nicely, delivering well-choreographed combos. Once you knock back an enemy and start to juggle them, you can call in your compatriots to deliver electrifying blows that feel slick – the Endmin’s sword slashes away with golden strikes, while Da Pan delivers belly bounds and butt slams with his towering form.
Outside of combat, the rest of your time is spent investing in the infrastructure of your base. Unlike the complex, automation-based gameplay of beloved factory management simulators Factorio and Satisfactory, Arknights: Endfield’s base building is much more tame, at least early on. And, thanks to lengthy explanations delivered by NPCs, it’s a process that ensures even the most build-averse players can learn how to create a functioning base of operations.
First, you’ll plant electric pylons and connect them with relay towers to supply electricity to the area. Though soon enough, you’ll also be able to implement mining as well as machinery that can refine and process raw materials. As someone who hasn’t always enjoyed the intense, efficiency-focused approach of similar automation games, Arknights: Endfield provides a friendly alternative that’s ripe for community collaboration – something I hope develops post-launch.
There’s still so much to see before I deliver my final score, like expanding the factories, fully automating my production, and leveling up my team and gear – and that’s before I uncover the truth behind the Endmin’s amnesia. So far, though, I’ve found myself comfortable in its world, and I’m keen to get stuck in and see how far I can push before I hit an inevitably uncomfortable grind.
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