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Throughout the years, I’ve dabbled in my fair share of live-service games, mostly known as gacha — the kind where you must use currencies (paid or not) to try your luck at getting a highly sought-after character before their limited availability runs out. My first foray was into Dragon Ball Legends, where I learned the bitter truth that I wouldn’t, organically, get all the new characters introduced to the game unless I opened my shallow pockets.
This year, I tested a few more, but the ones I played the most were Final Fantasy VII: Вечный кризис и Persona5: Фантом X. However, while the former was too shamelessly pushing players to invest solely in Tifa, the latter was too eager to keep global and Chinese updates in line, and I quickly felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of updates. To preserve my sanity and avoid my FOMO being raised to the tenth power, I uninstalled both.
The thing is, while these free-to-play games do offer a ton of content for all types of players, they ultimately tend to favor those who invest in them, whether it’s paying a monthly subscription to activate a daily currency booster or buying the premium season pass. It doesn’t matter how creative their content is; it still feels like they’re gacha products first, games second.
К счастью, Аркнайтс: Эндфилд left me with the opposite impression. I’ve been following the development of this ambitious, glorious free-to-play title for quite some time now. Base-building is one of my favorite mechanics in JRPGs, and when I learned Эндфилд would let us build our own Factory — even reducing material grinding depending on how much effort we put into developing it — I was instantly hooked.
This past week, DualShockers had the opportunity to attend a Gryphline press event. Not only did I play Arknights: Endfield’s latest beta build for almost seven hours, but I also watched a Developer Keynote Presentation that shed light on the game’s development, along with a Fireside Conversation where the producer and lead designer answered questions from the media. I’ll share my impressions ahead, but if I had to sum it up, I’d say it’s one of the first times I’ve played a live-service game that genuinely feels like an RPG first and a gacha game second.
An Outstanding First Impression
One of the first pieces of information we got about Аркнайтс: Эндфилд Beta Test II was that it would take players around 50–60 hours to complete everything it offers. I barely scratched the surface with my nearly seven-hour playthrough. While HYPERGRYPH did provide several save slots set in the endgame, I preferred starting from the very beginning since I had no prior experience with it.
As soon as I booted it up, my first impression was sheer awe. Аркнайтс: Эндфилд already looks and feels more pristine, gorgeous, and sharper than most live-service games it’ll inevitably be compared to. The English voice dub was spot-on, the framerate was stable (granted, I was playing on a beastly PC with maxed-out settings in 4K), and overall, the game just felt great to play.
After selecting a male or female Endministrator (who’s quite vocal at first but suddenly stops talking altogether once you’re given inconsequential narrative choices — a bummer, honestly), a character joins you and begins filling in the backstory. I won’t dive deep into the plot, but it’s genuinely interesting and engaging. It helps that many cutscenes employ dynamic storytelling techniques, such as unique character animations and multiple camera angles. There are even animated vignettes during mission summaries that showcase just how much care went into Arknights: Endfield’s презентация.
The narrative intertwines with every gameplay mechanic, always providing the player with a reason for what we’re doing. During this initial lore dump, we’re introduced to several peculiar characters, most of whom belong to an anthropomorphic race unique to Endfield’s setting. Some of them join our party, reinforcing the action while gradually unveiling new layers of gameplay.
Seamless Party-Based Combo Gameplay
Аркнайтс: Эндфилд really feels like one of the few gacha games that prioritize party composition. Many claim to do so, but you can often bypass strategy simply by over-investing in a single character and turning them into a wrecking machine. I don’t doubt that, in some capacity, this is still possible, but neglecting your other teammates would be unwise here due to the incredible combo mechanic.
Your party consists of four members, and you can swap between them at any time. Unlike other action gacha games, every member in Эндфилд actively fights together on the battlefield. This means they can all attack, draw enemy attention, and, well, die. Unfortunately, we all know how unreliable AI-controlled allies can be. That’s why switching control between units isn’t just about preference but also survival, allowing you to pull a fragile character out of harm’s way manually.
Однако бьющееся сердце Arknights: Endfield’s combat is its combo system. Every character has a regular attack, a skill, and an ultimate. But by fulfilling certain conditions — like executing a finisher or elemental attack — you can potentially trigger a combo. A character portrait will flash on the screen with a corresponding hotkey, and pressing it makes that character chain their attack, opening the gates for the rest of the party to follow up and unleash a full combo.
It’s a seamless system that adds depth not only to when and how you use your skills but also to which characters you bring along. That’s because, depending on the combo’s order and element, different debuffs can be inflicted on enemies. The Endministrator, for instance, deals physical damage and can apply Vulnerable. If a character with a Lift property follows up with a combo attack, they’ll literally lift the enemy and stun it briefly. Use two electric attacks in succession, and you’ll inflict extra electric damage and so on.
In Beta Test II, there’s a fight against a particularly tough main story boss. The developers mentioned that the preset party for that save file was the most suitable for the encounter. I saw some peers swap out members and struggle, while those who stuck with the intended lineup melted the boss’s health bar. There’s a real layer of strategy here, something that’s often absent in gacha games, which usually just favor the latest banner unit.
Other noteworthy mechanics include the dodge system, limited by a stamina bar. Pulling off a perfect dodge halves the stamina cost, allowing more freedom to evade attacks. Plus, you can increase stamina by exploring the game’s sprawling regions (not exactly open-world, but large nonetheless), finding rare materials, and developing the region, which in turn upgrades stamina capacity — among several other neat bonuses.
Great Reasons To Go Off the Beaten Path
Usually, all the side content in a gacha game only serves one purpose for me: to earn premium currency to invest in banners. Every other reward is just an afterthought. However, Аркнайтс: Эндфилд managed to create such engaging and rewarding exploration that I was genuinely interested in scouring every nook and cranny of Talos-II just because, and in the process, I also got some nice rewards.
First, there are countless crafting materials to obtain at every new turn that can either promote the crafting system to build new healing items or equipment for our characters, or optimize Factory production (more on that later). Then, there are varied challenges, such as jumping puzzles, climbing ones, or simply combat against high-level enemies. It was the first time I leveled up my characters just by fighting enemies in the field instead of spamming them with experience items.
Большая часть Arknights: Endfield’s exploration is enhanced because the game doesn’t offer as many automated quality-of-life systems as your average gacha. After a battle, our party members don’t automatically recover health, so it’s up to us to enter a menu, select an item, and use it on a character. Yes, the UI can become clunky quickly, especially when playing with a controller, as I did, but it works.
Fast travel is limited to some key areas, and the inventory has a capacity limit, meaning you’ll have to go back and forth between bases to either restore health or store items. Additionally, there’s no auto-advance or auto-combat feature so far in what I’ve played, which really gave me a sense of agency and that the game actually wants to be played, rather than just being a mindless pastime you leave running on a second screen.
As I said, I barely scratched the surface of everything Аркнайтс: Эндфилд has to offer, especially in exploration. It was a blast finding some powerful enemies that posed a greater challenge than anything I had faced so far, but also offered rewards on par with their difficulty, usually in the form of new weapons. Though dying and returning to the rest area took some getting used to, that was only because I was expecting standard gacha mechanics. If Эндфилд were a premium single-player game, this would be expected. And I’ll take a premium game over a live-service one any day, especially when it’s a full-fledged RPG.
Building Your Factory From the Ground Up
Одна из особенностей, которая устанавливает Аркнайтс: Эндфилд apart from other live-service gacha games is the Factory, known as the Automated Industry Complex (AIC). At first glance, it appears to be a daunting and overwhelming mechanic that could easily deter players. On the second and third glance, yeah, it still feels that way. However, Hypergryph took player feedback into account and tried to ease them into this ambitious feature.
Эндфилд has a narrative reason to introduce the Factory and gradually presents more tutorials as it teaches the ropes of this mechanic. It’s a много. I love games with building mechanics, but I’ve never played one fully dedicated to that, so I was a bit baffled when I dove deeper into the complexity of AIC in Arknights: Endfield (even if, once again, I’ve played barely 10% of the content offered in Beta II).
First, the game taught me that I needed to connect a power cable with a Relay Tower to expand my Power Grid. I won’t get into the lore details of why, but it basically means you must power every building in the region for it to function, like opening doors, operating puzzles, and other facilities. Some areas are related to and necessary for the main story, but most are optional side content.
For instance, instead of manually mining an ore vein to grab materials, we can install a building that automatically mines those ores. Then, we take those ores, refine them in another facility, and now we can use the smelted material to either build new constructions or equipment, and so on. The bottom line is that you can make a production line so automated that you can farm materials practically AFK, minimizing the whole grinding process. A gacha game that streamlines grinding is exceptional.
The Factory can become overwhelming quickly, and to address this, the developers introduced the Blueprints feature. Players across the server can share their own Factory blueprints, and those who don’t want to micromanage every construction can simply copy and paste a blueprint, building their base in a single click. It’s an elegant and practical solution, especially since the lead designer of Аркнайтс: Эндфилд said that although players aren’t forced to deeply engage with the Factory, those who do will get more perks than those who don’t — so blueprints are here to help everyone.
Another thing worth mentioning is how the Factory also enhances the asynchronous multiplayer system. While fast travel is somewhat limited, we can install Zipline Towers to make traversal easier. Sometimes, new Zipline Towers will pop up in the region based on other players’ own areas. I know what you’re thinking: Death Stranding, right? That’s pretty much it. Everything just ties together to make a truly living world that benefits and thrives on player agency. It’s a game that invites you to play and engage with, offering numerous features and mechanics to support that experience.
Подведение итогов
Is Аркнайтс: Эндфилд a flawless live-service game? I’m not sure. For instance, I didn’t have the opportunity to test the gacha system, so I can only echo what the developers shared. There’s a pity system, meaning for every new banner we have a 50/50 chance of getting the featured character after 80 draws. If we fail, we only need 40 more draws to guarantee it, which is already more player-friendly than most gachas.
While there are weapon banners, those are retroactively tied to the character banner. After getting a character, we earn currency based on their rarity, and that currency is used to draw new weapons. Since some characters share the same weapon type, there’s a possibility that no sword or polearm will become outdated over time. All this is conjecture, I know, especially since the game will apparently offer limited banners in the long run, such as seasonal, crossover, or anniversary events. However, until then, we’ll have a brand-new, free-to-play RPG made with love and dedication to enjoy.
Для заинтересованных, Аркнайтс: Эндфилд is now open for Beta Test II registrations for PC and mobile devices. The PS5 test is expected to arrive later, while the official launch is scheduled for 2026 on PC, PS5, and Android/iOS. I may be a bit biased since I played it at a press event, but believe me when I tell you I would still play Аркнайтс: Эндфилд even if I hadn’t tested it prior, because I’ve been waiting for this game for quite a while now, and so far, everything I’ve played has been extremely pleasing.
Аркнайтс: Эндфилд
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