Arknights: Endfield is a bold evolution for the series’ humble origin, expanding beyond its mobile tower-defence roots into a genre-smashing fusion of character acquisition, squad based action-RPG combat, and surprisingly deep factory simulation. Set in the world of Talos-II, Endfield marks a grand reinvention shaped by extensive testing and player feedback. Before diving into this F2P experience, here are fifteen key gameplay-focused things to know.
It’s Been Heavily Reworked Since The First Beta
Arknights: Endfield has changed significantly since its first beta in January 2024. Prompted by player feedback, overhauls have come to combat flow, character movement, weight, pacing, camerawork, and special effects. The result is action feeling far more fluid, kinetic, and responsive; deliberately designed for real-time play rather than an experimental spin-off from Arknights’ tower-defence lineage. Ongoing technical and closed beta tests will continue to refine the game experience up to release, including new and redesigned battle system mechanics.
Exploration is Core to The Experience
The orbiting satellite of gas giant Talos, Talos-II is an untamed world beyond the human colonies that’re living in habitable bands. Throughout its unexplored wildlands, mysterious constructs called Ankhors create the Aggeloi – a war-waging threat that has persistently hampered colonial expansion. So, your explorations won’t just be sightseeing, but in coming face-to-face with the Aggeloi while seeking resources, planting traversal routes, and establishing outposts you’ll be building a better, safer homeland.
Expect Multiple Factions and Enemy Types
The protagonistic Endfield Industries – led by the Endministrator – seek to advance research, exploration, and industrial infrastructure across Talos-II. You’ll encounter numerous other factions throughout your experience, each with their own goals and ideologies: the militarised Order of Steel Oath fight to defend humanity from the Aggeloid threat; the Hongshan Academy of Sciences specialise in cutting-edge agricultural research to mitigate the spread of Blight (planet-wide corruptive anomalies which impede exploration). There’re more, each enacting their own philosophy on how best to stabilise Talos-II. Enemy-wise, expect the hostile Aggeloi – ranging from common, through advanced, to elite and boss tier – to be a tenacious nuisance for your defences. And, led by the enigmatic Nefarith, Landbreakers are humanoid raiders who’ve learned to showcase tactical knowledge through robbery and criminal activity. Each enemy type demands a different approach, whether that’s prioritising breaking posture, managing area control, or targeting the highest threats mid-fight.
This Is Not An Open World
Despite its scale, Arknights: Endfield isn’t technically an open world. Its developers describe it as sandbox-like, comprising vast, interconnected regions rather than one huge, seamless map. This tighter structure was introduced following beta feedback, where players regularly got lost. The result is a world which still supports freeroaming while keeping combat zones, objectives, and factory settings logically tied together.
Combat is Real-Time and Highly Tactical
At its core, Endfield is a blistering, real-time action RPG where you’ll juggle light and heavy attacks, skill activations, evasive dodges, and positional awareness at breakneck speed. The combat here emphasises momentum, flow, and teamwork, with your squad relying on keeping pressure on enemies rather than playing defensively (defence is where summonable turrets come in – more on that later).
You Control Squads of Four Operators
In Arknights: Endfield you’re not a single hero, but in command of four-operator squads, with success depending on combining different roles, elemental interactions, and tactical synergies across the team. Whether working together to stagger enemies, setting up chain attacks, or managing skill point economy, squad composition plays a huge part in how encounters unfold.
There’re 24 Playable Characters at Launch
At launch, Endfield will feature 24 operators, ranging from 4-star to 6-star rarity. Characters are divided into six classes which function as clear combat roles, each bringing unique weapons, and elemental Arts abilities to the fray. Whilst having better stats, higher rarity also unlocks stronger team synergies and more flexible skill interactions – although lower ranked characters are still more-than capable within the right squad setup.
Arts are Central to Combat – and Easy to Use
Arts function as elemental abilities that can be freely combined across your squad. Coming in five flavours – physical, heat, electric, cryo, and nature – each with their own effects and reactions, they’re designed to be intuitive; easy to combine, with no complex input commands or long cooldowns. Instead, Arts consume Skill Points, making resource management integral to maintaining the flow of combat more than timing windows.
Skill Point Management is Crucial
Effective Skill Point management is essential throughout Endfield’s skirmishes – fuelling Arts, powerful skills, and ultimate abilities. Some enemies will unleash furious attacks that must be disabled by using a skill point before a shrinking red ring vanishes, while others will have their posture damaged by well-timed skill executions. Up to three can be stored for each character, and they’re replenished by landing final attacks, performing perfect dodges, or maintaining successful combos.
Chain Attacks Bring Strategic Flair
One of Endfield’s standout combat mechanics is the ability to chain attacks between squad members. These cinematic, high-impact manoeuvres can be triggered once certain, character-specific conditions are met – landing a certain attack, or utilising a pre-determined Arts-string. Chain Attacks don’t use Skill Points, nor are they interrupted by dodging but they do possess cooldowns. Mastering the Chain Attack system is crucial to experiencing Endfield’s battling at its freeflowing best while maximising damage output.
Factory Building is Deep
Combat aside, Endfield also features a deep, fully-integrated factory simulation, where resource harvesting, processing, and crafting can be automated through modular production lines. Factory construction and management isn’t a light side-activity either, but a hefty slab of industrialisation tied directly to exploration and map control. And, be warned: your factories can be attacked, so you must work to defend them. Those tower defence elements we mentioned earlier? Well, here is where they can be executed dynamically in response to enemy assaults, with shields, turrets, and other defensive structures eliminating threats before they tamper with your infrastructure.
Structures Influence Traversal and Survival
Production lines aren’t the only structures you’ll build. No, you can also place traversal tools like ziplines, install power relay units to divert energy across the map, or build strongholds to support survival in especially hostile zones. Some of these structures have indirect multiplayer capability too, with other players able to benefit from your creations in a way that’s reminiscent of Death Stranding.
The Game Teaches You How to Build
Fully automated production lines look as spaghettified as they do streamlined, so it’s understandable if their appearance is, at first, intimidating. The devs know this, so have made sure Endfield eases players in with clear instructions, frequent tutorials, and unlockable blueprints that streamline construction once specific modules have been combined.
World Design Shapes Factory Strategy
The newly unveiled city of Wuling, for example, draws inspiration from nature and water cycles, blended with far-future tech. This design philosophy informs Xiranite, the game’s fictional material – and one of the foundations of its factory simulation – that’s central to crafting upgrades and consumables to assist you as you expand Endfield Industries’ control.
Procuring characters and Gear
Top-level characters and gear can be acquired without needing to spend money, and the game has not been designed as pay-to-win. How much grind will be required for the best equipment remains to be seen, but the studio’s intent is clear.
