What the New Major Arknights: Endfield Update Brought
Following previously announced plans, on April 17th, the unusual anime-style gacha Arknights: Endfield received a major update called At the Wake of Spring. It brought with it the continuation of the main storyline, a new location, a boss, additions to activities, a secondary base for the second region, technologies, equipment, a character, weapons, events, various improvements and changes, and much more. In this article, I will take a detailed look at what I consider the most important and simply interesting features.
Story
Three new story chapters were added to the game, continuing the events of the second act, which takes place in the second region called Wuling. It is worth noting that judging by everything, we are already quite close to the end of the second act.
First Chapter
During the course, you will explore a new location, meet a new character — a girl with a rather interesting fighting style and weapon, learn more details about the past of one of the key characters, discover the existence of a mysterious entity called Proxy, which is closely tied to the main defense line of the second region, learn about the main goal and past of the currently key antagonist of the game, as well as a bit about the protagonist's past. For example, we now definitely know that the antagonist is over 100 years old and was once called Pasha.
Second Chapter
Here, you will return to the main city of the second region and repel an attack from one of the earliest key villains you meet in the story — a girl (or maybe not a girl) named Nefarith. This is probably the shortest of all new quests, mainly requiring you to play as temporary characters — three main ones (including the protagonist) and a support sup sup. Of course, you will fight the villain, who is the final boss, with your main team.
Third Chapter
In this chapter, you will help the head of the second region close a colossal rift of negative ether energy located beneath the region’s main city. This mainly involves a lot of running and reading, as it focuses on the difficult past of the leader and standard emotional dilemmas. Fortunately, there are a few straightforward combat stages where you'll control temporary versions of the protagonist and the leader.
New Location
A fourth location has been added to the second region, called Marker Stone, located in the lower left part of the main map, almost adjacent to a vital dam. The location is quite large, consisting of four main interconnected islets separated by water. In the lower area is a spacious hidden cave, while on the left is a huge tower that serves one very important function. Importantly, another location called Test Zone is apparently expected to be added in May.
Briefly about the key features and content of the location:
- Certain areas have constant rain and strong winds, creating a very immersive atmosphere.
- The aforementioned tower allows you to access an additional part of the location — the tower itself, which consists of four floors. It is mainly needed for the storyline, but during exploration, you can come across some world activities and collectibles. The tower also features a new enemy type — phantom soldiers of the antagonist, who resurrect after death, wildly swing their weapons, gradually lose HP, and then explode.
- There is a resource redistribution terminal structure, which can be upgraded to level two.
- There is a monitoring terminal structure, upgradable to level three, unlocking additional photography missions of the terrain. Unfortunately, they provide very little regional currency, 60 thousand versus 210 thousand from the main city option.
- Two deposits of kupium ore are present. Unfortunately, the developers decided not to simplify life for players, and there are only two nodes each, which definitely won't meet the increased demand.
- Three deposits of rare resources exist — two types of plants and one type of ore.
- Four objects grant points for the technology tree of the second region (each provides two points).
- One new point of alluvial energy for farming essences is present.
- Three one-time alluvial trials and four drones allow unlocking new equipment (one of these is located in the tower).
- Naturally, there are various chests (including the most valuable one granting 160 gacha currency), interactive objects, destructible objects of all kinds, regular resources, collectibles, puzzles, etc.
Second Region
The following new features and improvements have been added to the second region:
- The region's maximum level has been increased from 9 to 12.
- Consequently, it is now safe to accumulate up to 14 million regional currency.
- The maximum level of the only warehouse node has been increased from 3 to 4. Along with this, the stack limit of items at the base was raised to 60 thousand, and large courier orders can now be packaged.
- Due to the above, completing courier orders can now reward up to 140 thousand regional currency.
- The first monitoring terminal's maximum level was increased from 3 to 4. This should theoretically yield more photography orders and higher rewards.
- Unfortunately, having completed all available orders already, I can only check the prices again in 23 hours, but since older orders paid 210 thousand, the new ones should pay even more.
- Two new segments became available in the main city — Qijian Dais and the Bureau of Applied Technologies.
- The former is unlocked during the story progression, while the latter must be unlocked independently.
New Technologies
A new segment containing eight new technologies was added to the second region’s technology skill tree. The core to unlock the segment is awarded during the new story chapters, while unlocking the technologies themselves requires exploring the location and activating the objects mentioned above.
Briefly about the technologies themselves:
- Added the ability to extract and process