Arknights: Endfield Preview

I’ll be quite honest, I’ve no idea how this preview is going to go, because Arknights: Endfield is absolutely filled to the brim with “stuff”. The amount of content in this free-to-play action gacha game is astounding — at least it has been in the two closed betas I’ve participated in, the first in January and the second in November.

You awaken in the spaceship Dijiang orbiting the moon of Talos-II, after being asleep for a decade. You’re the Endministrator of Endfield Industries, and though you’re currently suffering from memory loss, you’re assured that you’re a great person and the reason for the company’s current successes.

Soon after waking, you’re summoned to Valley IV, as it’s under attack by Aggeloi; those are hostile entities composed of rock and energy, and have plagued humanity as it’s colonised the moon. There are also Landbreakers, a faction of raiders who all wear a collection of pipes on their faces. Once you’ve turned back the assault, you’re then given responsibility after responsibility, because you’re literally the only person who can do these things.

Due to the memory loss, and the fact that everyone’s cagey as hell about what happened 10 years ago, you have to learn everything from scratch. You deploy an Automated Industry Complex (AIC), which acts as your central crafting station, and powers up your other equipment so long as you physically run a power cable to them. Those can only stretch so far, so you have to have a supply of pylons at all times, allowing you to criss-cross the valley to plug in gates and mining equipment.

There are multiple ores to mine, and those can be processed in different ways to craft a variety of items, equipment, and machines. Those can, in turn, be utilised to craft other things. Rather than having to do all of this manually, most of the machines can be hooked up with conveyor belts, setting up a production line at your AIC!

The AIC can only supply a certain amount of power, however, so you also need to set up extra batteries as you plug in more of Valley IV. These are powered by a certain ore, but you need that to craft other things, so what do you do? You create a line of machines which feeds ores into crushers, finishers, packagers, and batteries! Don’t worry, you unlock blueprints to ease some of the headaches with pre-built mechanisms; you just have to plug them in.

As you explore Valley IV and beyond, you will unlock outposts to deal with. They need defending in tower defence-style battles, and can provide you with one of the various currencies. For a time after you’ve successfully defended, they get a currency bonus, so shouldn’t be outright ignored.

Said currency can be used to buy and sell turnips to your friends. Okay, not actual turnips, but you all remember that mechanic enough that I don’t need to go into a ton of detail about it. Buy low, check the next day to sell high, or travel to a friend’s reality to check their price.

This is why Endfield is difficult to summarise. It’s an action RPG, it’s an automation game, it’s a base builder, you never stop exploring, there’s gacha… I’ve only played the betas, so I don’t yet know how the monetisation will look, as there are no real-money prices on anything, and I’m pretty sure that I get more currency than the release version will dish out, and better prices.

From the hours that I’ve played, the only issues I’ve encountered are when there’s an update and the game requires me to restart my PC before it will load, and some stuttering framerates without an apparent cause. The gameplay loop is smooth and manageable, despite seeming like it will overwhelm — the comprehensive tutorials are great. The graphics are nice, the music fantastic, and the voice acting is brilliant.

You might be concerned that you haven’t played Arknights or watched the anime, so you might be lost. Well, I played that at launch for about four days and never went back to it, because I didn’t click with it. But, I haven’t felt like I’ve missed anything in Endfield, because it’s an entirely new planet (moon), and your character has amnesia so needs everything gradually explained anyway.

Arknights: Endfield has a lot going for it, and I’m likely forgetting about things. Limited-time events, for example, I didn’t even mention those! A recent one had me using Photo Mode to help out a kid, and another one I simply hadn’t gotten far enough in the story to even attempt. It’s a massive game which I’ve really enjoyed exploring and learning how to put a factory together. It will be released on 22nd January 2026 for PC, PlayStation 5, iOS, and Android.