Arknights: Endfield Review for PC

Arknights Endfield by HyperGryph is an action RPG (roleplaying game) that is primarily driven by the narrative, making players go forth and explore Talos II. Personally, as I have been following the game since the first beta test, the game has changed a lot and for the better. So, seeing the game itself finally being at a state that the developers feel comfortable with is refreshing to see and try. Other than that, the gameplay has seen some changes overall, especially in the user interface, some gameplay options, and a focus on more action in combat. And the changes to the character designs is something else as certain traits can be seen more distinctly as opposed to previously. From the perspective of a character designer, allowing them to be expressive allows for a greater degree of standing out and revealing to the player who they are as characters. Overall, I am excited to see how the anime, gacha games, and Arknights community will react to the game and what they will say as this is one game I have been excited for such a long time.

The gameplay has not changed too much, but the team has really listened to the criticisms from the testers on how to improve not only the flow of combat but also other issues as well. One of the things the development team took into consideration was the base building, as blueprinting was provided with a thorough tutorial. Moreover, in regard to the base building of this game, blueprinting certain factory chains is easier to put down onto the building area. Players who are familiar with Factorio will know how annoying it is to not have certain templates for building automatic factories to produce certain items, materials, and equipment that are going to be used later. Aside from a better quality of life in regard to base building, the game still offers a unique way of traversing the map through the use of ziplines that players can put down and go towards. This form is such a cool way of traversing the map and allowing players to really turn the game into a form of sightseeing. And as for the combat, a major component of the game is that they changed the flow of combat to be buttery smooth, and players can always come back to the tutorial for combat to get a better idea on combat. Other than that, the change is one major design of the game, and that’s in the gacha system.

As a gacha game, this game focuses on limited-time banners for players to roll for certain characters that can be meta-defining as a whole. This is mostly due to how they made some great additions to the overall visual impact to really make each roll feel special. Also for those players curious about the overall strength of low rarity characters can still be built correctly and be made into full team compositions, and this will be especially true the longer the game stays running. This is solely based on the information of Arknights for mobile as of its 6^th Anniversary. It has so many low-rarity units that can put in a lot work so long as they are maxed out, which will be easy to do. So in the long run some of the low-rarity characters at the start of Arknights Endfield will be seen as usual members of team compositions. As anyone who has played the original will tell you, the importance of an operator named “Myrtle” has allowed for quite a few low-star operator runs to be done on YouTube. Going back on track, the gacha mechanics in the game will have a hard pity and soft pity, which have become common in most gacha games nowadays. And a common tell to distinguish between a 10-pull with a 5-star operator present can be seen in the image below.

And as for a 6-star operator, they can be seen with a stronger red hue and a rainbow effect coming out of the lever. Furthermore, the act of pulling down the lever is such a nice feature for Arknights fans, as the player will need to open up a duffel bag to see what they obtained. So seeing the system transfer over was unexpected but provided a nice callback to where it all started.

Arknights Endfield has been a game in development for quite some time, and the teams at Hypergryph and Gryphline should be happy, as this game is a highly anticipated game. And seeing the game evolve over time provides some deeper insight as to how the game has progressed. As the game from the first beta has changed for the better, without a doubt the team will be looking for bugs and looking into players’ complaints, all in order to make the game better.

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Related: Reviews by Kyle Manila

Kyle Manila

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I would describe myself when interacting with games as a strategist with a pension for stealth and loud explosions.