During a recent technical test, I came into Arknights: Endfield knowing next to nothing about the game and left stunned. By now, we’re well acquainted with the gameplay themes of gacha games, but Endfield puts a refreshing spin on the genre – harmonizing RTS, base-building, and RPG mechanics into one.
If you never heard of Endfield until now, it’s easy to understand why. In all the buzz of genre forerunners Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail, developer Hypergryph has been pouring time into Endfield in the background. It’s the spin-off graduation from its tower defense RPG mobile game Arknights, one that steps into the ring with other real-time 3D games.
But even though Endfield is a departure from its mobile predecessor, most of the roots of Arknights – from tactical gameplay to lore – add crucial substance to the upcoming game.
Your team of Operators in Endfield, the anime-styled characters used in battle, still have a role system and telegraphed damage abilities like in Arknights but have far more nuance inside a 3D world. With one character, I could use an arc-sweeping ability to hit multiple enemies and swap over to another with a straight projectile attack to combo foes into the air.
As you sprint down tight cargo bays and badlands with mountainous paths, the tactical nature of how and when you use these skills offers powerful creative choices based on the environment. Operators also represent different elements and can randomly spawn orb-like drops on the battlefield after using skills, which a character of an opposing element can attack with their skill to spark explosions, pulses of electricity, and more to damage and debilitate enemies.
Related: Is Zenless Zone Zero a Gacha Game?
These qualities culminate in a combat system where team-building/real-time planning takes precedence. While this is nothing totally new for gacha games, Endfield doubling down on emulating the tactical top-down experience from Arknights into 3D made for a fascinating blend with a lot of upward potential unlike anything else on the market.
It’s not all roses, though. Animations are stiff, enemies didn’t stay alive long enough to take advantage of elemental orbs, and most characters only had one ability and an ultimate. The foundation of combat is certainly compelling, but I found it lacking in breath when it came to characters and engaging with its elemental system. To be fair, I only played an early version of the final product, but I’m hopeful the developer grinds out the combat further.
On the flip side, the entire AIC system during the technical test outshined everything else, and frankly, I got very obsessive with it through most of playtime. The Endfield AIC is essentially the RIIC base constructing feature where you can build and manage facilities in Arknights, but the former is a much more complicated beast.
You’ll spend hours growing your home base, adding devices that can break down plants or wood and stuff them into a crafting machine to spit out set-based equipment gear for Operators.
Things get more complex as you unlock a tree dedicated to the base building. Here, you can use resources to unlock newer facilities or devices like an electrical assembly line to transfer materials into machines automatically while exploring. You can even plant AIC devices out in the game world, like zip lines to navigate vertical areas faster or electricity towers to connect power from your base to a juiceless monitor to enter restricted zones.
Related: All Characters in Honkai: Star Rail Ranked (Tier List)
The base building is so shockingly rich and fun to mess with. Anyone unfamiliar with strategy sim games might feel overwhelmed; however, the system’s thoughtful tutorials will help click everything into place. It becomes this near-addicting activity with progression milestones that fights for your attention just as much as exploring to find secrets does in Endfield, convincing you that investing more into it will benefit you in the long run.
Paired with the AIC system, exploration felt just as fantastic. Overcoming environmental obstacles and revealing new paths always felt earned because you spent the time hunting for materials and making the proper technology to move forward. As standard for gachas, Endfield also has the usual flair of collectibles and treasure chests across maps, but they don’t feel tossed in to keep you busy and instead help you do more with AIC or earn rare goodies.
There’s so much to Endfield, and most of it actually works, even in an early build. That said, what does cause concern will be the narrative and characters.
Endfield has this great setup of your character serving a unique role in the world, but the pacing of everything feels dull and quickly falls into the background as you get acquainted with gameplay systems. Characters are just as dry (even though I liked their designs) with bare personalities, and the voice acting doesn’t help with their appeal.
These are kinks gacha fans will scrutinize Endfield for, but I believe the AIC, exploration, and combat will make up for any downsides. The game’s design feels intentional, knows what it wants players to experience, and has a strong hook. If the final product manages to knock out concerns from testers, Endfield might be joining the table with other popular gacha games very soon.
Arknights: Endfield will be available on PC, iOS, and PlayStation.
Published: Jan 23, 2024 09:00 am