In true pioneer vogue, Arknights: Endfield is a recreation that wears many hats. It’s a story-rich motion RPG with exploration and fight components, nevertheless it additionally has a sturdy base-building mechanic. With sufficient time and loads of onerous work, you possibly can flip the moon of Talos-II right into a thriving interstellar colony. Supplied, after all, that raiders, native wildlife, and the atmosphere don’t do you in first.
Whereas Arknights: Endfield takes place in the identical world and timeline as the bottom Arknights recreation, you don’t must know something about Arknights to leap in. New characters make up many of the playable roster, and it focuses on an entire different world and business. In Endfield, you play because the Endministrator, the Endmin of Endfield Industries. Wow, that’s quite a lot of “finish”s.
Although you’ve misplaced your reminiscences, you, because the Endministator, nonetheless assist Endfield Industries and others to arrange a thriving frontier colony on Talos-II, which is the second moon of gasoline large Talos. Regardless of Endfield Industries’ superb crew of engineers and Talos-II’s abundance of sources, issues aren’t going too properly due to sudden hostilities. Not solely do it is advisable to do the standard RPG stuff of preventing enemies and saving folks, however you additionally want to repair broken logistics or arrange new outposts.
Admittedly, the who’s and why’s of Endfield eluded me every so often. Whereas I respect good in media res storytelling, it employed quite a lot of terminology and correct nouns that flew over my head through the cutscenes. The intel archive proved helpful when finding out questions I had all through the story. Specializing in and interesting with Endfield‘s story was difficult, as, regardless of its sturdy premise, the precise narrative didn’t hook me. Every little thing from the story to the characters to the missions felt bland, like I used to be going by way of the motions.
The Endministrator is yet one more silent protagonist, which is a trope I’ve griped about prior to now. They’re a clean slate of a personality because of their amnesia, and act accordingly, with Perlica taking the wheel. Characters usually discuss how superb the Endministrator is, or how legendary they have been prior to now. However time and time once more, the Endministrator proves themself…sort of lame.
The Traveler and the Rover, no matter should you just like the glazing they obtain, accomplish many heroic duties within the narrative. It’s comprehensible why in Liyue, for instance, folks welcome the Traveler, contemplating they helped save town. The Endministrator, in the meantime, by no means actually does or says something that particular or superior. It may really feel undeserved to observe them obtain reward or admiration primarily based on a forgotten previous we all know little about. I perceive that Hypergryph may’ve needed to hail again to the unique Arknights—Perlica looks as if an expy of Amiya—however Endfield was an opportunity to do one thing completely different. It’s particularly egregious for the reason that premise of making a functioning and livable base on Talos-II is attention-grabbing sufficient by itself. With the precedent of the Physician, although, I’m inclined to present Hypergryph the good thing about the doubt and allow them to prepare dinner slightly with the Endministrator.
Actually, although, as a substitute of specializing in glazing the Endministrator, the opposite characters ought to deal with themselves. At the moment, there are solely about 13 Operators to tug from in Headhunting. That’s not rather a lot, per se, nevertheless it’s nonetheless only a beta construct. I’m actually slightly shocked at how few Operators are literally attention-grabbing as characters, particularly since they show a lot persona of their menu animations. As a basic rule, the characters are agreeable or affable, with minor variations like Chen Qianyu’s genki woman tendencies in comparison with Perlica’s extra subdued temperament. It looks like I’m individuals who already went by way of progress or a personality arc, leaving no room for additional improvement or intrigue. Like how story and character adjustments occurred between the beta and accomplished builds of Star Rail and Wuthering Waves, I’m hoping that when Endfield formally comes out, its solid will develop extra character.
Regardless of the weak story and character writing, Endfield stays a delight to play due to the sturdy aesthetic decisions. For one factor, the menus and UI really feel very next-gen, with the parallax impact current when talking with folks through comms. Characters change how they pose everytime you tab by way of their menus, like Zenless Zone Zero does. The character fashions and general coloration palette of the sport really feel distinctive for a gacha recreation, because the anime-like cel-shaded fashion popularized by video games like Genshin has dominated the market. It jogs my memory of a mixture between watercolor, in addition to the artwork fashion of the illustrator who designed Amiya. Not that shocking, although, contemplating Wei@W (the illustrator in query) is likely one of the founding members of Hypergryph and serves as the present inventive director for Arknights.
A minor element within the character fashions that basically stood out to me was how the character’s eyes would make these minute actions when one thing or somebody. It jogs my memory of how somebody in actual life may make related eye actions when gazing upon, say, a big piece of artwork they usually’re making an attempt to deal with varied components of the portray. I’m undecided if the builders needed to individually animate every movement or what, nevertheless it nonetheless amazed me that they selected to place it within the recreation when nobody would’ve stated something in the event that they didn’t.
Now, let’s discuss the way it’s wish to play the sport. Arknights; Endfield has three principal elements to the gameplay loop: fight, exploration, and base-building. The bottom-building is definitely a very powerful a part of all of it, because it ties in to the exploration and fight at an intrinsic stage. I don’t suggest this recreation in any respect to individuals who don’t like base-building, or aren’t keen to place within the time. You may’t keep away from it if you wish to get anyplace, each figuratively and actually. However earlier than we get to that, let’s speak in regards to the different elements of the sport.
Whereas the fight system itself is pretty customary for an motion RPG (fundamental assault, talent, final, dodge), the probabilities in the case of crew composition do remind me of the unique Arknights recreation. The rarity stage of a personality doesn’t matter as a lot as their position or talent. Gilberta, for instance, is a 6-star Operator, which is the very best rarity within the recreation. That doesn’t robotically imply she’ll dominate the battlefield, although. Utilizing her with the 5-star Da Pan didn’t really feel practically nearly as good as pairing Da Pan with the 4-star Chen Qianyu due to their complementary play types. Regardless of initially writing off Snowshine for her low rarity (and her refusal to go away me in peace once I’m headhunting solely added to my dislike), she grew to become a mainstay on all my groups till I constructed up Xaihi sufficient to convey her out.
Every character has a combo talent, which triggers underneath particular circumstances. Utilizing them doesn’t eat up a talent bar, in order that leaves you free to make use of one other Battle Ability or put it aside for once you wish to interrupt an enemy. Forming groups that may reliably facilitate every character’s combo talent is way extra helpful than merely aiming for the rarest Operator.
My principal get together is Laevatain, Wulfgard, Perlica, and Snowshine, as I discover all three of my attackers synergize so properly with one another. Perlica’s Ability imparts an Electrical Infliction onto an enemy. As that is an Arts Infliction, this triggers Wulfgard’s combo talent. Combining Electrical with Warmth creates Combustion, which then triggers Laevatain’s combo talent. All that for the price of one talent bar is fairly nice. A less complicated mixture solely requires Laevatain and Wulfgard, as Laevatain’s Battle Ability also can set off Wulfgard’s combo talent, which implies I can save Perlica’s for later. Like Arknights, it feels much less pay-to-win when the format of the fight system encourages this kind of creativity. Even low-rarity Operators have the prospect to shine relying on who you pair them with.
Now, as talked about to start with, Arknights: Endfield boasts a extremely in-depth and sturdy base-building system. It begins easy, having you rig up energy traces and grids in an effort to ship electrical energy to completely different services across the base. To start with, I needed to maintain going again to my varied refineries and processing items to take supplies out. However the recreation later helps you to automate this whole course of, full with conveyor belts like a full-fledged manufacturing facility. Base-building isn’t precisely the place my curiosity lies, and my eyes skimmed over the reasons when taking part in it late at evening. Nonetheless, the VR simulation tutorials, in addition to the intuitive menus, made the whole lot straightforward to navigate. They put quite a lot of work and thought into this a part of the sport.
And for good purpose, too. As talked about earlier, you possibly can’t get away from base-building. It’s a must to do it, as that is the way you get the supplies to assemble gear in your characters. Exploration additionally requires you to place your base-building expertise to work, even when it’s so simple as setting down some pylons and relay towers in an effort to energy up mechanisms to achieve entry to completely different areas or rewards. There’s even a technique to kind of recreate the tower protection of the mainline Arknights recreation, as you possibly can arrange weapons like Gatling weapons offered that, once more, you possibly can transmit electrical energy to them.
Arknights: Endfield performs like a well-oiled machine, with every particular person side performing because the cog to maintain it chugging. Hypergryph did a tremendous job fusing the completely different components collectively with out letting one shine too a lot over the opposite. There’s nonetheless rather a lot to do on Hypergryph’s finish—largely to do with the story—earlier than it’s prepared for public launch, however, pun unintended, it’s already bought a robust base to construct on.
Arknights: Endfield is in improvement for the PS5, Home windows PCs, and cell units.