Arknights: Endfield Review (PS5, PC, iOS, & Android)

“Free-to-play” used to be great news to hear. Now, we approach it with caution. Gacha games these days come with the disclaimer, “tread carefully.” And for good reason. Even when you’re keen about the monetization schemes that gacha games often use for acquiring rare items, you still can easily find yourself spending your hard-earned cash to stand out or get a leg up on the competition. But even beyond cashing in, some games have mastered the craft of consumerism so much so that it becomes engaging, even addictive, to diligently progress through the game, and spend your hard-earned in-game currency on the mere chance of pulling unique characters and gear. Which begs the question: Is it time that gacha games changed their tune on monetization?

Absolutely so. The focus seems no longer on mastering engaging gameplay for the grind to be totally worth it. The reward you receive for skills mastered and time spent has to remain satisfactory to keep pushing through. And it’s in this wrinkle that games like Genshin Impact, Weathering Waves, Honkai: Star Rail, and Zenless Zone Zero have found their staggering success. Whatever these games are doing is working. So, for Arknights: Endfield to borrow nuggets of wisdom from them isn’t surprising at all. Yet, it still has to offer something refreshing to carve its own path to success, as does every other new game has to do. Ultimately, if there’s any hope of sticking with a new gacha game, it has to break new ground. 

Gather around, keen readers. Our review of Arknights: Endfield is nigh.

Pieces of the Puzzle

Honestly, Arknights: Endfield could have easily gotten away with a haphazard, shallow story. It could have simply given us a capable protagonist, and combined with the wondrous world design, it probably would have survived. But developer Hypergryph really put their backs into story development, perhaps a little too much. Fair warning, the early exposition can be especially draining. It’s all unraveled sluggishly slow, with lots of dialogue and heavy cutscenes. I get it, the planet Talos-II that future humans find themselves colonizing has lots of lore to unravel. A good bunch of it should be familiar to the tower-defense Arknights OGs. Otherwise, newcomers will still catch up to the sci-fi technological innovation and revolution that multiple companies, including Endfield industries, have managed to establish in space.

The protagonist, Endministrator (let’s not waste time poking at the name), wakes up from a ten-year stasis. They’ve lost all memories of the past, but early interactions with NPCs prove them to be a most impressionable, all-powerful leader and guardian of this new planet’s civilization. The Endministrator is a hero who’s apparently saved humanity from several catastrophes. And now, they’re charged once again with a new mission, potentially world-ending, too. I figure the story, with all its puzzling elements, might intrigue some players. Others might want to scurry on to the combat and exploration, which you’ll be happy to know that, besides the first unskippable cutscene and a few climactic moments, most cutscenes are skippable.

New World Order

Anyway, several regions will gradually unlock throughout your exploration. Each with its unique themes and different music tracks. The design uses a stunning cyberpunk style to showcase a civilization way ahead of our time. But even amid significant leaps in technology and innovation, issues arise with the alien, native species of Talos-II, called the Aggeloi, and a curious group of humans hostile to you and your crew.

There’s nothing revolutionary about the enemy designs. They often don metallic and synthetic bodies, and attack in waves. I’d rather they were more varied and also unpredictable with their attack patterns, as over time, they become repetitive. Your core party members, though, are pretty unique, with cool designs and aura. One thing Arknights: Endfield didn’t spare its budget on is the overall anime aesthetic, intricately detailed and stunning all around. 

Originium Powers All Things

The mineral, Originium, is the source and power of life on Talos-II. And our protagonist has the unique ability to control it. The ore runs inside you and unleashes in combat or base-building. Your primary character is the Endministrator, whose basic attacks and combos should be pretty easy to learn. The goal is to build up your attacks and stagger enemies, which triggers the special attacks of supporting characters. All party members fight simultaneously, with the freedom to switch between them. However, the switch requires accurate timing of your basic attacks and combos, while also optimizing synergy between characters. So, while Arknights: Endfield’s combat can seem surface-level at the start, it evolves over time, revealing layers of depth and strategy. 

I’m not sure, though, whether it’s enough to keep you invested in combat. You want to be constantly motivated to experiment with characters, weapons, and gear. But the attacks and combos you perform often are button-mashing fests that quickly grow bland. It’s like the first bite of chocolate cake that tingles all your senses, but after a couple of bites, your taste buds acclimate. Bite after bite, the initial excitement flattens out, and you might even suffer bloat if you keep pushing too hard. That’s right about when the grind gets to you. It’s all about the grind in gacha games. Arknights: Endfield isn’t all different, only tweaking a few things. In-game currencies, fortunately, aren’t too overwhelming to keep track of, but they could still be more seamless. It’ll certainly help with the UI clutter.

The Climb

After getting through the initial story exposition, you’ll dive deeper into combat and exploration. Exploration is rewarding, thanks largely to the stunning world design. And the detail has its exciting intricacies, with hidden items and chests that nudge you to push just a little further to uncover them. While you can’t glide or air-dash, it’s still fun to discover more of what Talos-II has to offer, even when the initial novelty eventually wears off. So, how then do you get your hands on more resources? Well, there’s the factory simulation system, which isn’t an overly complex one, rivaling games like Satisfactory and Factorio. The depth comes from needing to build several factories serving different functions, from traversal via ziplines to powering doors and elevators via energy grids and resource production. Raw materials can be further processed into finer finished products, which unlock more characters and weapons.

Once you’ve become acquainted with the different functions factories serve, placing them in prime spots for optimal results, and then master scaling for more production, factory building then becomes pretty standard. I’m afraid it might reach a point when the motivation to keep building more complex designs and share them with friends online will fade away. Perhaps then the gacha system might be the saving grace that keeps you here. Pulling rare high-rated characters, I imagine, can feel pretty exhilarating. But it doesn’t happen all too often, becoming clear that even with a stockpile of in-game currency, you simply might never unlock all of the rare gems you’ve been having your eye on. Yet, you still won’t feel pressured to put in actual cash, unless you’d like to support the devs. 

Just how long will Arknights: Endfield hold your interest before abandoning it for the next shiny-looking thing out there? Soon, perhaps never?

Verdict

For a game that takes you 20 to 30 hours to complete the first Valley IV region, before you even get to explore Wuling City, and then beat OMV Dijiang, I’m unsure just how strong the engagement factor is. Arknights: Endfield does come packed with story and lore. But the pacing can feel frustratingly slow. Meanwhile, exploration is interesting, given the gorgeous open-ish environments you visit, and the secrets of chests and hidden items you uncover. 

Meanwhile, combat has its surprising depth and strategy, which can keep you locked in for a decent chunk of time. But the button-mashing soon loses its initial charm, and exciting visual effects just aren’t enough to keep you invested. Similarly, enemies can become repetitive to fight, even feeling the urge to skip some combat encounters altogether, something that feels like taboo in a game with action RPG elements. 

What’s left is factory simulation, which is quite new in gacha gaming. It does introduce add its distinct flair to the gameplay loop, challenging you to optimize resource crafting and production. It’ll certainly be exciting to see what players come up with for their automation processes. Still, the systems here don’t match up to rival Factorio or other dedicated simulation games.

Arknights: Endfield feels like a buffet when you consider that there are elements of tower defense, too. But do these systems carry enough depth to keep investing your time and effort in them? Does the reward feel proportionate to the energy spent, or simply feel exciting to want to progress further? 

Only time will tell whether Endfield will live long enough to still have players logging in. Being free-to-play certainly helps its cause, along with a monetization system that, while a little stingy, remains relatively fair.