I got to try out a technical test version of Arknights: Endfield. My first thought was I really impressed with how well it looked, even for a test build. It ran smoothly on my old 1660 Super (which is capped at 60fps anyway). The first cutscene and the “tutorial” section where we move around and catch up with the Tower of Babel were really cool. This post is basically a summary of my experience during the technical test. The game server will be close by in about a day, but I can’t play it anymore because I’ve been AFK.

By the way, I’m not going to talk about the story. It definitely needs some work because it feels weak right now. I think they’ll improve it in the release version, though. Also, I’m not going to compare it to other games like Genshin, since I haven’t played it yet.

By the way, I really love the Triaggeloi boss fight. Unfortunately, there is no way to trigger the boss fight again after completing it.

combat

Combat experience can be a bit hit or miss for me. One thing I really like is that everyone on the team shows up on the screen at the same time and actually does damage and even takes damage from enemies. This makes me think more about how to set up the strategy and adjust my gameplay and actions based on my team’s position and actions.

However, the AI for uncontrolled operators could use some improvement. Sometimes they miss their navigation and actions, so I have to spend resources to either heal or resurrect characters that I don’t control. But I still love bringing four characters on board and seeing them all on the battlefield and contributing in some way.

Here’s my thoughts on the game’s features:

Attacks:

I loved the skills and ultimate abilities of each character, but the basic attacks left me a bit underwhelmed. They feel weak and lack the punch I was expecting. It’s like I’m just waiting for my skill charge to recharge before I can actually do anything. I think the basic attack needs some serious improvement, maybe by increasing the damage or completely revamping the system to make it more reliable. We don’t want to be just activating skills and running away.

Skills and Ultimates:

I really enjoyed using the skills and ultimates. It’s so satisfying to think about the skill activation sequence and how to maximize the damage and effects on the enemies. My only gripe is that sometimes, if I switch to a different skill after casting one, I lose the previous skill’s effect. That doesn’t make any sense to me.

Skill Casting:

Overall, the skill casting system is pretty good (except for Fjall. Dude, your skill cast area is way too small lmao).

Dealing Effects:

Dealing effects to the enemies is also pretty satisfying. It’s like playing a game of tug-of-war with the enemies. Pretty much the same with Arknights, you can inflict effects like knockback, lifting, and knockback. I don’t really care about dodge, to be honest. It’s just something that makes the game easier to control, but with my current control setup, I don’t think it’s necessary. Maybe dodging for uncontrolled characters is a good idea, though.

Orb Mechanics:

I don’t really care about this part of the game. Orbs spawn randomly, and only some skills can deal fusions and chaining, so I don’t really rely on these mechanics. In the end, I just spam my skills and let the orbs fusions happen whenever they do.

Last but not least, I’d love to see some control improvements. As a 60% keyboard user, switching between characters can be a real pain. Since you can’t bind it to other keys, I have a few options: press the Fn key every time I want to change characters, only change characters when their skill is active, or use the mouse button and remap it to F1 to F4 keys. But honestly, it’s so frustrating not to have the option to rebind those keymaps.

Another small suggestion: I think it would be great if you could add more item slots. Right now, I think 3 is enough since you probably need to bring 1 healing item, 1 buff item, and 1 resurrection item. But having more slots for healing or buff items would be really appreciated.

Enemies

I’ve got a few thoughts on the enemy design in the game. I’m a bit partial to the enemy design, but I’d love to see more variety in monsters and mini-bosses across the maps. It would be awesome if there was always something new to discover. Boss fights are definitely fun, and the crisis stages are also challenging and enjoyable. I wish boss fights were more replayable (maybe include them on rifts or something that would be cool).

However, I’m a bit disappointed that the enemy level doesn’t scale up on the previous map. It makes enemies easy to deal with (just one hit and they’re gone). I wish they also scaled up based on our operator’s level or other indicators (I imagine it like mobs on Nier:Automata).

For example, in the Hub Base, killing level 6 aggeloi using a max-level operator is just a mouse click away. I really wish enemies here also scaled up based on our progress.

I also like the buffed enemies concept on Crisis rifts. Something that I’m really looking forward to seeing again!

Characters and animations

The characters and animations are amazing! Coming from Arknights, where everything is 2D, it’s refreshing to see how they’ll look in 3D. The animations are also top-notch. I could spend hours just switching between characters and menus on the character page. It’s so smooth and responsive. Each character has unique animations for every menu and position on the team, and the attention to detail is incredible. The cutscenes are also worth watching. My favorite is definitely the pre-Triagelloi boss fight and the post-Triagelloi boss fight. I won’t go into much detail about the voice acting and grammar since I’m not really into that right now. But one thing I noticed is that the characters’ facial expressions during the story narration could be more expressive. I hope they’ll improve that in future updates.

Weapon system

The weapon’s essence system is a bit odd. It feels clunky and random at times. You have so much dropped essence that it’s time-consuming to find the perfect one for the weapon by looking at them all individually. The upgrade mechanism is just repetitive grind gameplay that gets boring after a while. At least they give some resource refunds if you exceed the max cap when leveling your weapon.

In the end, I don’t really care about this system. I just pick the best weapon for the operators, upgrade and tune it until it’s at max level, and then I put a random essence that looks good to me. I hope they can improve this system in the future because I still think it has potential.

Oh, and I really hope I don’t have to gacha to get the weapon when it’s released, but I guess that’s never going to happen 😅.

The weapons themselves look pretty good, though. The design is cool, even though the names are a bit weird and the details are too generic at the moment.

Rifts

I’m having a hard time putting my finger on it, but rifts just don’t feel right. It’s like they’re stuck in a never-ending dungeon loop, just dropping items for leveling and upgrading. There’s no connection to the lore or story, no connection to the world itself. It’s just a random dungeon map for grinding. I hope they give it some kind of reason for being on Talos. Some people suggest auto-running rifts, but I don’t think that makes them any more fun.

That being said, I still like Crisis and Unstable rifts. Unstable’s puzzle is really fun and a great way to introduce the game mechanics deeper. And Crisis pushes you to do the combat, but harder and harder than the boss fight. I love it because it kind of reminds me of Arknights’s Contingency Contract game mode. I really enjoy pushing myself to do something more challenging.

Missions

The main missions are pretty good since they fit the story. The side missions are okay, but sometimes it’s hard to figure out who gives you a mission. You basically have to talk to them one by one and hope they give you one (this is where I got the mission that unlocks farms by randomly talking to them). There should be an indicator or at least a hint that lets the player know they want to start a mission, not because they randomly meet an NPC and interact with them.

The daily missions are too repetitive and boring. Most of it you need to walk to meet the NPC, listen to them, and then they ask you to walk again hundreds of meters just to fight mobs that can be killed in seconds. It’s just not worth the effort. Or you need to find 3 items scattered across the map, which is also boring. I really wish the daily missions were scaled up based on our progress and/or our operator level.

User interface

The user interface is…wow, it’s amazing! It’s futuristic yet still feels like Arknights. I feel right at home with the icons and menus. It’s like they took Arknights’s UI and gave it a futuristic makeover. Check out the announcement and news screen - it’s straight out of Arknights!

The pause menu dial screen is something else. I love it! The profile section might look a bit off, but overall it’s fantastic. I’m not a big fan of the gyroscope effect here, but it’s actually a nice addition to make the screen less static and boring.

My favorite part might be the operator and team screen. I saw the leaks a couple of months ago, and now it’s even better. It’s not lifeless anymore and looks really cool. But I still don’t understand why the second operator has more “spotlight” compared to the first operator on the team screen. Overall, they did a great job designing the UI that’s simple yet modern for this game. I love it!

World exploration and map

I’ve had a lot of time to explore the map and look for cool stuff or collectibles (even though I didn’t collect all of them). Here’s a quick recap of my journey. The overall map tone is a bit dull, though it looks perfect for the game and the story. It could use more diversity, though. Some maps have weird or unintuitive world borders that make exploring feel a bit restricted. And the biggest issue is that each map feels disconnected from the others. It’s unique and easy to tell the difference, but it’s too distinct, making it feel a bit disjointed.

Hub Base

The hub base is really nice to explore, even though it feels so huge and empty right now. Since you’ll probably spend most of your time here, it’s good that it’s big enough to explore. I love the idea of combining modern tech buildings with wilderness into a single explorable map. It makes the map more engaging and encourages you to explore every spot. The hub base doesn’t have a lot of complexity, and the vertical layout makes it easy to explore and navigate.

oh also, the Lone Trail easter egg is cool (maybe I'm biased because I love Blues with You), but still nice addition.

super cool!

Valley Pass

The map’s vibe is pretty cool. The mix of broken buildings and infrastructure with wilderness and originium shards is really interesting. But I didn’t explore it much because there’s not much to do here. I hope they add more content to the map, except for the boss fight and a super boring daily mission.

Quarry

So, this map introduces the concept of exploring vertically, but it’s got a few flaws. The overall design is a bit plain, just a big structure with some stone-mining site. The marker doesn’t show you what level your destination is, except for a faint yellow glow. And wiring electricity here is a real pain in the neck. I’ve had some close calls where I fell off the cliff and had to redo the wiring multiple times. Plus, almost every corner of the map looks the same, which can be a bit disorienting.

Originium Research Park

The map is pretty complex, which makes it challenging to explore. But overall, I sort of like it. The broken laboratory with all those originium shards and blights adds a lot of diversity to the map. The lack of verticality makes it easier to navigate, which is a plus. And the ziplines are a great way to cross the huge gap, giving you some awesome views along the way. The indoor map structure is pretty intricate, but it’s still easy to find your way around. The indoor (and explosive site) props feel different from the hub base, which gives the map a more retro vibe. And there’s some lore-related stuff on the hub base that you can explore in the future. The farm here is also useful for gathering rare materials, but I wish they made it more obvious instead of giving some side quest that people can easily skip or miss.

Blight Zone

This map is my least favorite so far. It’s super complex with lots of verticality, and the zones are really far apart. The mobs are also tough to clear, especially at first. Navigating here is a pain in the neck. You can easily fall off the platform and it’s hard to get back to where you started. Oh, and don’t even get me started on the blight-covered bridges! They’re so annoying to cross.

The map is definitely blight-heavy, just like its name. There are pink stones everywhere, some of which are covered in blight. There are also huge fossils, abandoned posts, and vehicles scattered around. It gives you a really bad feeling. But unlike the other maps, I find it really boring to explore. It feels so monotonous. And exploring the edge of the map is just not worth it. The reward is just not worth the effort. I really wish this map had been a bit more interesting.

In terms of scenery, I think this map has the best scenery of any other map.

AIC

A quick disclaimer: I don’t really spend a lot of time building my base because I’m a bit of a perfectionist. If I got stuck in this game, I might just end up not playing it and just spend all my time arranging my base. But I still spend a good amount of time working on my base, especially unlocking the tech tree and getting the items I need to progress.

I love the overall design and theme of the buildings. It gives you a modern tech vibe and it works perfectly for all of the buildings. Modern tech-thingy buildings surrounded by wilderness also give you the feeling that you’re building a base in the middle of nowhere. The UIs to interact with the buildings are also good, again, giving you a modern tech vibe.

The tech tree and base expansion are great additions that make base building more engaging. When you feel like your base is in tip-top shape, you unlock new buildings or your base gets bigger, giving you new things to play with. The tech tree also keeps some game mechanics like breaking walls locked until late game, which I think is still a good “soft lock” mechanism, even though it feels a bit late. Since this is called “basic AIC plan,” I assume there will be more advanced AIC buildings and items in the future.

Moving stuff around is a bit rough, though. First, every time you move the electric pylon, your electricity is disconnected. It’s pretty realistic, but it’s still a bit annoying to rewire everything every time you move stuff or maybe you do some base rebuilding after unlocking the new stuff. Second, your characters also move along when you move your building, which sometimes makes it harder to do it. For example, you want to move your building by one grid behind, but your character can’t move there because they’re blocked by the building you want to move, so you have to move it way further first and then bring it back to your original target area. It’s a real pain in the neck and I hope it’ll be fixed or improved in the future.

The third one is placing the belt sometimes misses and makes you reroute a bunch of belts that are affected. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t careful enough when placing it, but it was still a weird experience regardless.

The last one is when you build or move something around the border of your map and then your character moves out of the border, your progress is canceled immediately. It shouldn’t let you out of the base in the first place when you do some action related to the base or the building.

After completing the boss fight and other activities, I spent some time in the base, arranging things. However, it’s quite limited, with only the building and arranging options. I believe it would be great if there was a PvE mechanism that allows enemies to attack the base, providing an additional activity that engages the player beyond building. This could be similar to Fallout 76 or Reclamation Algorithm.

Overall, I really enjoy the AIC and base-building gameplay. Since the technical test was short and I didn’t want to waste my time here (and risk getting reset after the test), I didn’t put in much effort. Nevertheless, I’ve included some images of my very cluttered base (efficiency at its peak).

I wish there was a cinematic option here where you could take pictures of the scenery or backgrounds without showing the UIs for aesthetic purposes.

Closing

This game has a lot of potential, even for a technical test build. The combat and AIC/base-building gameplay are already pretty cool, and the UI looks polished and easy to understand. The combats could use some work, but they’re doing great so far. The story is a bit rough and boring, but I hope it improves in the future.

AIC/base building offers some really engaging game loops that can keep players hooked for hours, but it might not be for everyone. It’s great that you can beat the game without really caring about this gameplay, though.

Overall, it’s still a bit boring and not super exciting. There’s not a lot of content or things to do except base building. And if you’ve already done the main story, you’re stuck with some boring side missions or daily missions. Exploring maps for collectibles is not really my thing, and grinding rifts for materials is just so repetitive and boring. It’s especially bad when you have a pretty stacked team and can clear it without thinking. This game needs more content that can keep players engaged without needing to grind rifts or aimlessly explore the map.

I’m not sure if this game is suitable for mobile. Sure, PC and console seem like good options, but for mobile, judging by the gameplay itself, I don’t think it’s ready yet (like, how do you even control your team when fighting Triaggeloi using a mobile phone?). I’m not sure what the mobile release will look like, but I hope it has the same content as the PC/console version.

But in the end, I had a good time playing the technical test and I’m excited to see the release version of the game!

This map introduces the concept of exploring vertically (well, exploration in general basically), but it has a few flaws. The overall design is a bit plain, just a big structure with some stone-mining sites. The marker doesn’t show you what level your destination is, except for a faint yellow glow. And wiring electricity here is a real pain in the neck. I’ve had some close calls where I fell off the cliff and had to redo the wiring multiple times. Plus, almost every corner of the map looks the same, which can be a bit disorienting.

Extras

I’ll attach a bunch of screenshots and videos here. You can compare them with the release version and see the changes.