It’s easy to miss Arknights: Endfield, but you shouldn’t take your eyes off this unique twist on open world RPG adventures.
Besides the parties, pretzels, and volume of people, Gamescom 2024 served to cement gacha games as a dominant force in gaming. So, it seemed only reasonable to hang a right at the Infinity Nikki Booth and Gryphline to see Arknights: Endfield up close.
For those that missed the initial hype in among the avalanche of cross platform RPGs with anime inspired aesthetic, this upcoming release is a cross-platform RPG featuring anime aesthetic, with a difference. Spinning off from the hugely popular Arknights series, the Endfield iteration finds players trying to map a new world. Far across the stars and trying to survive the ravages of a new world, a select few explorers must venture out into the unknown of Endfield and forge a new future on the unexplored planet Talos-II. Taking the challenge on for a very limited hands on, we had an up-close look at a preformed team of three. The core of this team is the central player character, known as the Endministrator, Perlica, and her security detail Chen Qianyu. While we didn’t get time to dive into other characters in this hands on or meddle with the load out, previous technical tests and the official website show off a wide range of available builds that can complement each other with attack, support, and ranged options all obvious.
A Trial Run on Talos-II
Much of this seems to be similar to the previous technical tests If you’ve had an opportunity to play through that, these opening moments and brief overview won’t be new to you. For me, it was a bit of a revelation
Visually, Endfield is clearly drawn together by yet another team of otaku developers, but it stands apart from the crowd. Where the house of HoYo might use bright anime brushstrokes to build a background full of color or Brown Dust 2 tires to pull on retro themes, this opening scrubland look like I’m back in Mass Effect again. The world of Talos-II is wonderfully detailed and exquisitely rendered, presenting as a slightly harder sci-fi setting than I expected, even despite the cat characters. It allows the more outlandish parts of the population and your party to feel grounded in the world, much like the Geth or the Krogan do in their own on-screen universe. That said, despite the gorgeous depiction of some cute nekos, we didn’t see any hint of character customization at this stage.
Combat and Encounters
The opening moments of this encounter gave us an opportunity to swing a sword and get a feel of the open world systems. While still a work in progress, the launch product likely won’t have many massive changes to the core systems. Navigating a team of three characters out in a 3D open world environment, I quickly came across some obstacles.
Native wildlife will not always be tame in a brand new frontier, so combat kicked off early. Swinging a sword into action feels fluid and unburdened. The contiguous feels of the world flows into encounters meaning instanced immersion breaks are unlikely here. It was easy enough to get the jump on opponents. Each member of this team has access to a basic attack which was linked to a button click. This can be augmented using a skill, and each member of my party had a singular skill available. Quickly combining these with follow up, ‘Pursuit Attacks’ and other combos are the foundation of this action combat system. This continued throughout the initial tutorial, adding elemental power ups, dropped by enemies, to help modify attacks, a break bar system, and more.
After hacking away for a few minutes, it’s clear that the current state of the game rewards actively engaged players who can adapt to a changing battlefield. Stripping back the amount of utility each character can bring, with just a single skill each, seemed a little off at first. This idea didn’t take long to dispel when you realise these aren’t gods or deities, but explorers trying to survive on a new world. It continues to help ground the game on Talos-II and rewards skilful gameplay. At least, that’s how I hope it plays out. It’s also a twist that could make exploration and open world encounters incredibly rewarding. That, however, is all in development.
Where Akrnights: Endfiled really gets unexpected, is the base building component of the game. Where other comparable ideas add in offline gameplay, idle clicking, auto battle, or turn based systems to provide alternatives to high paced action combat, Talos-II needs infrastructure. Leaping into a prefab factory, Gryphline gave us a look at the complexity and scale that this system, can reach. Building a simple zipline form a dedicated inventory of components, the Endminstrator was pulled across the landscape into an automated goliath. Machines, strewn as far as I could make out and a conveyor belt of interlaced activity moved resources form one side of a valley to another. Wind turbines provided power for processing plants, and it all merrily moved along. At its highest level, building systems seem akin to crafting. Space, building, resource, power, and other management systems all make this side of the experience like a totally unexpected game of Factorio where it isn’t expected at all.
Thanks to Gamescom’s chaotic schedule I didn’t have a lot more time to delve into the world of Talos-II but you definitely should when the opportunity arises. Arknights: Endfield is easily branded as a sci-fi gacha game and that’s fine. The context for this adventure doesn’t seem to stand out and the design doesn’t play heavy with the big anime aesthetics. It’s only when we set foot on Talos-II that Arknights: Endfiled really begins to solidify its identity. A grounded game means that characters we used didn’t have the opportunity to throw a bunch of world shattering attacks at problems. Combat seemed focused on precise timing and making choices that maximise impact, rather than sitting back and spamming big numbers., and then there’s the building systems.
With tweaks to what I’d normally expect and a wildly innovative take on casual gameplay, Arknights: Endfield has piqued my curiosity, and you should take a look too. Prepare to forge your new world over on the official website.
