Arknights: Endfield is an action RPG with factory simulation elements set in the same realm of Arknights, on a new planet in the cosmos. Read our review of its early-access build to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
Everything We Know About Arknights: Endfield
Arknights: Endfield Plot
Arknights is set in the hostile and mysterious planet Talos-II where you assume the role of the Endministrator, an enigmatic individual entrusted with great authority over Endfield Industries. As Endfield Industries’ trump card, your mission is to journey through the treacherous, hostile regions of the planet while setting up outposts to expand your area of operations.
The game’s story delves into themes of exploration, survival, and the pursuit of progress in a world fraught with peril. Talos-II is plagued by deadly creatures called Aggeloi and a strange, corruptive force known as the Blight, both of which threaten the fragile efforts to colonize the planet. You lead the charge in rebuilding infrastructure, managing resources, and fending off threats, all while uncovering the planet’s secrets.
Arknights: Endfield Gameplay
Arknights: Endfield introduces a real-time action RPG experience enriched with base-building and strategic management elements. Set on the planet Talos-II, players explore a semi-open world marked by dangerous creatures called Aggeloi and hostile factions. Gameplay emphasizes tactical party combat with up to four characters engaging enemies simultaneously, each with unique skills and abilities. Seamless character switching and precise skill targeting amplify the action's intensity.
The game’s standout feature is its base-building system, deeply integrated with exploration and resource management. Players can construct various facilities such as relay towers and refineries to automate tasks and expand territory. This aspect of the gameplay offers a satisfying loop of gathering, refining, and optimizing layouts through a tech tree that unlocks advanced structures.
While exploration is more structured than traditional open-world games, players can enhance traversal by deploying ziplines and other structures. Combat emphasizes timing and strategy but lacks certain mechanics like a dodge action, leading to mixed impressions during early testing.
Arknights: Endfield Release Date
Arknights: Endfield has yet to announce a specific release date through its official channels, but its iOS storefront lists the game as expected to release on January 31, 2026. We’ll be sure to update once the release date is confirmed!
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Arknights: Endfield Review [Beta Test 2 Review]
A Bright Future Ahead
Arknights: Endfield’s Beta Test 2 is finally here for a limited time. I was a big fan and player of the original game back in its early days, entranced by its variety of gorgeous-looking characters and an intriguing, unnerving plot. It was also my first deep foray into tactical games, and one that I actually didn’t chicken out of from the first hour. Life got so busy that I had to drop it for a bit, but now I’m back…and hopefully here to stay for longer. With how the Beta Test is turning out, I have extremely high hopes that this game will definitely be one of the standouts for 2026.
Talos-II, The New Bastion of Humanity
Endfield mainly takes place on a moon-planet called Talos-II. 152 years ago, pioneers from Terra travelled millions of light-years away through the Æthergate and set foot onto the moon. Initially only supposed to be a way to expand humanity’s reach across the stars, these pioneers were then stranded on Talos-II when the Æthergate was destroyed, isolating them from the home they once knew.
With no other choice, these Terrans settled onto the unknown moon-planet and created their own civilization. It was a treacherous journey to get to where they are now, with the never-ending war against the hostile creatures called the Aggeloi. Despite that, humanity survived for over a century, continuously growing and prospering. This was when Endfield Industries was born, founded by Rhodes Island and their partners. The newly founded company became the forefront of human growth and innovation on Talos-II, curbing threats and mapping the unfamiliar landscape, making cities and settlements arise.
However, the northern hemisphere of Talos-II remains uninhabited, unknown territory, cut off from the greenness of the other southern half of the planet by the Auroral Barrier. Attempts to reach the polar north have been unsuccessful because of this disruption and the prevalence of the Blight, a corruptive phenomenon that negatively affects not only the land, but also the very being of humanity.
Aside from that, there is a mysterious entity who holds the fearsome power of controlling the Blight at will, and seems to be determined to bring down the entire planet.
And this is where you, the Endministrator, comes back into the picture after a long stasis brought about by an unknown event. With no memories to speak of except for a strange, long-winded dream about the polar north, you must then expand and explore Talos-II, inching closer and closer to the enigmatic unknown, while also saving the planet along the way.
Fun, Snappy, Flashy Combat
Arknights: Endfield’s (from here forth will simply be referred to as Endfield) gameplay mainly centers on its real-time action combat system, semi-open world exploration, and its base-building, factory production mechanics. If you’ve played the first game and are used to its gameplay, leave it behind for a while, because the spin-off is a completely different game in scope.
It’s an action-adventure RPG that has similar elements to popular titles like Genshin Impact and Wuthering Waves. Players directly control one character (called an Operator), with three other characters as support. The support characters are also on-field, automatically attacking alongside the controlled character. Each character possesses four skills: the Basic or Normal Attack, the Battle Skill, the Combo Skill, and the Ultimate. Battle Skills can be used with a touch of a button, provided that there is ample SP to use, and Ultimates are unleashed once their gauges are full.
Self-explanatory, most of them, but the Combo Skills are the trickiest among the bunch. These can only be executed once the requirements are met, and each character has their own unique type of trigger conditions. They can be as simple as Perlica’s, whose combo skill can be done once the controlled character finishes their Normal Attack sequence with a Final Strike, or need more set-ups like Alesh who needs a consumed Arts Reaction—not just afflicted on them, but it should trigger a sort of burst (called an Arts Infliction).
It can be quite overwhelming to keep track of all of them especially as your arsenal grows, but I find that part of it interesting. It puts extra emphasis on strategizing and making sure your characters have synergy to trigger each others’ Combo Skills for maximum damage and not just putting pretty characters together all willy-nilly (which I am guilty of). For example, characters like Last Rite work really well in an all-Cryo team to maximize the usage of her powerful Combo Skill.
There’s all this stuff to take note of in combat, but no combat is ever fun if it doesn’t work the way it should. Fortunately, Arknights: Endfield, even at beta, plays as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Controls are snappy, and everything blends together so well to create not only devastating damage-dealing combos, but are also flashy and visually appealing. Combat is honestly so fun in the game, and that’s a bit of a motivator to try all sorts of different combos with characters.
Base-Building and Factory Production For Dummies
The second main part of Endfield is the base-building, factory production, and resource management gameplay. There were already some base-building and factory elements in the original Arknights, but Endfield takes it several dozen notches higher with an entire set-up. The factory production gameplay is a huge part of the game, and is the core of many other systems in place, from processing raw materials into usable components for crafting character gear and to complete quests for several outposts all across Talos-II, and more.
In certain sections across the map, you, as the Endministrator, are tasked to grow the Automated Industry Complex (AIC for short). It begins in the Core AIC area in The Hub region, with smaller outposts scattered throughout through the Sub-Automation Cores. In these patches of land, you piece several factory machines together to make production lines for crafted products, from gathering remotely all the way to the result and storage. As you grow and expand, more machines can be unlocked through the Basic AIC Plan using Index Points collected through data points across the map.
Players who have delved into titles like Factorio and Satisfactory will find themselves right at home with this part of the game. But what about those (like myself) who are not into the genre as them? Will this make my gameplay experience harder? Luckily for us who mainly play the open-world exploration and combat portion of games like this, Endfield has got us covered.
Tutorials are detailed and easy to follow, and each new factory machine you unlock will have its own redo-able simulation that teaches you exactly how to use them and to integrate them into your setup. As an added bonus, finishing a simulation will also grant you Blueprints that recreates the exact process in one click—no added headache.
With how quickly you unlock recipes and new factory parts from just progressing through the main story and exploring the map, it will get overwhelming for the casual player. However, the gameplay doesn’t feel tedious at all, nor too complicated.
More Gameplay, More Fun
Even with most of the gameplay centering around combat-exploration and overseeing the AIC, Endfield still has other things to do, adding to an already solid plate of gameplay and content to sift through. From buying and trading across different regions (with its own fluctuating prices and economy), to dozens of interactive puzzles scattered across the map, there's simply a lot to do, especially if you're the type to nose around in everybody's business. It's no wonder that even at Beta, you'll be entertained for hours on end (50 to 60 hours even, said Hypergryph).
Arknights players will also find several of these other tidbits of gameplay similar to the first game, such as sprucing up the Dijiang for friends to come visit, having your Operators produce materials on board and raising Trust levels with them, and even tower defense matches for your outposts.
A Decently Intriguing Story
In terms of story, it’s pretty decent, and it doesn’t feel boring. Without spoiling much, the prologue of the game is quite surprising and pretty dramatic, leaving you with a ton of questions—which then you must find answers for by playing the game. The rest of the story unfolds seamlessly, where you, as the newly-awakened Endministrator, must set foot on Talos-II, explore the planet, expand your influence, and save your home from its destruction.
As you work your way to achieving that, you will also meet several people, both allies and enemies, while you explore Talos-II. Aside from the main story, there are also a lot of side-quests and side-stories that tie in quite nicely without feeling out of place. For instance, the Endministrator and their crew help out a small group of settlers whose homes were ravaged by the dastardly Landbreakers. Helping them out and setting up an outpost for them isn’t just the end of their questline—you continuously still interact with them to unravel more of the planet’s history, to learn more about the Landbreakers, and more.
As an added note (or an Easter Egg, maybe), Arknights players may be hit with a sense of déjà vu with how the Endministrator’s beginning is similar to the Doctor’s. Different in scope, but still somehow mirroring each other. It doesn’t help that they both were unconscious for an extended period of time, woken up by their (cute, adorable) assistants, dealing with immense memory loss…there can be a part for theorycrafting there, but I digress.
Stunning World, Stunning Visuals
Endfield is absolutely gorgeous—from the stunning scenery and sights of Talos-II (and your spaceship-homebase, the OMV Dijiang too), to the appealing character designs and whatnot, everything is a feast for the eyes.
The explorable semi-open world feels extremely large and is fun to explore, even if you’re just admiring the landscape. There’s a lot of hidden secrets to find, and of course, everyone’s favorite treasure chest hunting is part of it too. In terms of character designs, they all simply look lovely—not like that was a problem from the beginning. Arknights’ character designs and art were always so charming, and the quality of that hasn’t deteriorated at all in the spin-off.
Despite that though, animations can evidently be a little stiff sometimes, most evident during close-up dialogue. It’s a minor thing, but perhaps it could be further polished upon launch, especially because everything looks great already.
Immersive Audio
Amplifying the whole experience is the well-done audio that lends itself to a good audio-visual presentation. The soundtrack fits well with the world as you explore, blending well with the sound design. Footsteps, combat, exploration—they feel alive and not flat at all.
As standard as it is with most gacha games, full voice-acting is reserved for the entire main story, with side-quests being read off like a visual novel instead. But it’s not a bad thing at all, since each character comes with tons of unique voice lines anyway, all done by a star-studded cast of voice actors. I’m a Japanese voice actor fan and I’ve heard some familiar voices, but the English cast is just as lovely.
Shaping Up To Be Great
Arknights: Endfield is definitely one of the games to look forward to in 2026, and I’m excited to see it upon its full release. Just from the Beta Test version itself, it definitely feels like there was a lot of effort put into creating it, and it definitely wears its Arknights title proudly. Arknights as a franchise and its developer, Hypergryph, always had a certain level of quality to their works, and Endfield surely embodies that, if not adding more to it.
Players of open-world action-adventure games and factory simulator enthusiasts will surely have a fun time with Endfield, and even casual players might find their own little niche to love about the game. I’ve barely scratched the surface of Endfield, and with about 50 hours left (as said by the developers) to explore before Beta Test II ends some time soon, I’m going all in.
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Arknights: Endfield Product Information
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| Title | Arknights: Endfield |
|---|---|
| Release Date | Date |
| Developer | Hypergryph Co., Ltd., Mountain Contour |
| Publisher | GRYPHLINE, GRYPH FRONTIER PTE. LTD. |
| Supported Platforms | PC (Dedicated Client), PlayStation 5, Android, iOS |
| Genre | Adventure, Action, Sci-Fi, RPG |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| ESRB Rating | RP |
| Official Website | Arknights: Endfield Official Website |
