Arknights: Endfield is engaging and gorgeous, but held back by its predatory gacha system

I don’t have much prior experience with the Arknights franchise. I briefly tried the original game, but I dropped it fairly quickly as tower defense games aren’t really my thing. A bad early roll didn’t give me much motivation to stick around. Gacha games in general tend to be a long-term commitment, and I usually will not invest in them unless they do something that hooks me, whether that’s the gameplay loop, character aesthetics, or maybe a generous monetization model.

With that in mind, I decided to give Arknights: Endfield a shot. As a spin-off, it takes a very different approach, playing more like an open-field action game instead of its Tower Defense counterpart. What really sets Endfield apart from its competitors is its emphasis on base building along with its open field gameplay. Normally, building sims aren’t something I gravitate toward, so on paper this feels like a genre mismatch. What really sold me on trying Endfield was its character designs, and visually it is one of the best-looking gacha games on the market.

Not only do the visuals look fantastic, but the game is also very well optimized. I was able to run the game on very high settings while placing only a moderate load on a mid-to-high-end PC (7800 XTX, Ryzen 5 5600X), achieving very stable 60 FPS. The game does offer a 120 FPS option, but the game warns me that my PC doesn't quite meet the minimum requirements, so I didn't really test that option.

Just to note, I played on test servers, so I am not sure how stable the connection or what the state of the game would be when it launches. As some gacha games I have played in the past usually will be fine in the beta, but struggle due to the mass influx of users for the public launch.

For the testing process, I was given access to two different accounts. One was a fresh account that allowed me to experience the narrative from the very beginning, while the other was a mid-game account where the opening story arc had already been completed and most development-related systems were unlocked for the first region. The mid-game account is the one I primarily used for combat testing, and its progress roughly starts at the second chapter of the story. At this point, the Wuling (the second region) is unlocked, although none of the buildings have been constructed yet. 

What sets Endfield apart from many games in the same genre where you typically control only a single character at a time. Instead, the entire team fights simultaneously. All skills consume SP, which is represented by a large shared gauge located directly above the HP bar. Because this SP bar is shared across the whole party, effective combat revolves around finding strong synergies and timing your allies’ abilities carefully to get the most value out of them.

In addition to standard attacks and skills, the game includes a dodge system that consumes stamina. Successfully performing a perfect dodge only uses half of the stamina cost and will also generate SP allowing your party to use their skills more frequently. 

As I mentioned before, the game places a heavy emphasis on its base-building system. This is known as the AIC (Automated Industry Complex), which allows you to construct structures throughout the region. These buildings are divided into four main categories. Combat facilities directly assist you during combat, either by damaging enemies as they move near them or by providing support to your allies. You can even set them in popular locations and use them as a location to AFK farm if you desire to. Exploration-focused structures help with traversal, such as ziplines for reaching certain locations faster and in a more convenient manner.

There are also two types of production facilities that automatically gather specific resources over time. Base building is quite complex, since you can either build everything manually or rely on the blueprint system built into the game. Using the Blueprint system will have you use the prebuilt set from the devs. 

Additionally, there is a feature that allows you to copy base layouts created by other players. I didn’t spend much time experimenting with this option, as I wasn’t particularly engaged with the base-building mechanics, and the mid-game account I tested already had a fully developed base in the first region.

The mid-game account also came with the first region fully explored and I could start the second chapter of the main story. With this account, I was able to test the gacha system, which comes with 150,000 currency, which translates to roughly 300 pulls in the current build.

The gacha system follows a structure that HoYoverse has since popularized, featuring a limited-rate character banner with a pity system tied to a set number of pulls. While the account had access to all characters, they were all in their base forms, meaning pulling duplicates is still required to unlock certain passive abilities. That said, Endfield only requires five duplicates to fully unlock all characters’ passives, compared to the six typically required in HoYoverse and some other gacha titles.

An aspect of the gacha system I loathe is the sheer number of different currencies involved. It can be difficult to keep track of what each currency is used for. For example, there is a currency specifically meant for pulling limited rate-up characters, but you can also earn a version of that same currency with an expiration date attached. The UI also makes it hard to tell which currency is for what. There are different tickets to roll the non-limited character or the weapon banner.

Although this aspect is taken from popular gacha games, a few elements on top muddy the experience further. The gacha system will start at 120 to get the featured character; getting additional dupes will require a higher pull ceiling to get them. Which punishes the low spenders or F2P (Free to Play) Players, to make matters worse, the pity doesn't carry over, so it's either all or nothing. The 300 rolls given can barely get enough dupes to fully max the current rate up, as the hard pity seems to go up to 240 rolls on the second duplicate, which makes the game seem far less generous than it makes it out to be. However, the high pity ceiling seems to be something attuned to the original Arknights, from what I have heard from friends.

I like a lot of what I've seen in Endfield. The combat system seems really engaging and the visuals are some of the best I have seen for a gacha game. While the story does seem quite promising so far, I am not sure if I want to fully commit to the game with a gacha system this predatory as someone who enjoys a lot of gacha games. I've always hated the gacha system that HoYoverse games have popularized, but with so many games copying the system and Endfield's own spin on it somehow feeling even worse, it is hard for me to want to get inviested here.