Arknights Endfield 1.1 Patch Story - Chief Endmin Tangtang approved!
Patch 1.1 of Arknights: Endfield has been released. I played through it in one sitting this morning, and it was quite a ride, taking only about three hours. The focus is centered entirely on Tangtang, the Qingbo Stockade, and their relationship, both past and present, with the main city of Wuling.
The main antagonist of the series appeared, but it felt more like a "we are still here" moment. The story itself felt like a side story for Tangtang rather than an actual part of the main plot. I wonder if they will continue following this approach, as it might devolve into something similar to what Wuthering Waves has been doing since version 2.x.
The story itself followed a fairly standard template. The Qingbo Stockade still holds a grudge over an incident that occurred ten years ago. This event resulted in the deaths of many people during a failed attempt by the group to steal supplies from Wuling to support themselves during the catastrophe.
One of the victims was Tangtang's foster father, the former leader of the Qingbo Stockade. Tangtang's brother, Ruan Yi, could not let go of his hatred and ended up allying with the Bonekrusher to bring the fight to Wuling, splitting the Qingbo Stockade into two factions. One faction follows Tangtang while the other follows him.
Tangtang experiences a wide range of emotions because she genuinely loves her brother, but the situation ends in tragedy. They fight, and Ruan Yi dies after transforming into a gigantic monstrosity using powers he obtained from Ardashir. I cannot say I fully understand Ruan Yi’s motives, especially considering he knew the original incident was a mistake and that the Wuling group never intended to kill anyone. Furthermore, since he was the one raiding the other group, he should have expected resistance.
I absolutely love Tangtang as a character. She is my favorite person in the Wuling area so far. Her design is excellent, and her lightweight clothing and bare legs fits the cat theme perfectly. When combined with her silly but earnest personality, she becomes a character that is truly impossible to hate.
It was nice to see her graduate from being a mere comic-relief character to becoming a leader for her people. She even went as far as meeting with Zhuang Fangyi to form an alliance between the two groups and stop the fighting. It will not be easy, of course, but I trust her to become a great leader.
From what we can see, Nepharit and Ardashir are both planning to disable the defenses of Wuling, but their true goals remain confusing. They claim to be working to "preserve civilization," but who are they really? It is certain that they were old allies of the Endmin, but what are they actually fighting against?
The new zone itself is pretty good and fitting with the theme of being a stockade, but I can't say I'm a huge fan of the convoluted paths that I've seen while exploring a bit to connect the new mineral spots. Talking of mineral spots, seems like they added a whole new series of minerals with relative items to produce.
This time around you even need water to extract the minerals which is something we haven't had so far. I've not done heavy exploration of Wuling yet as I was settling up Valley IV remaining bits yet, but I guess it's about time. I need some good gear for Tangtang to really shine!
Now the real question is whether this is all we get for this patch, as that would be extremely poor pacing. Providing a short three-hour story every month or so will not help the game's player retention. I hope that when the second banner arrives, we receive more story content to accompany it, similar to how Wuthering Waves operates now to keep players active.
