In some ways, Arknights: Endfield is following Genshin Impact's footsteps remarkably closely. With both games, an established gacha developer has pivoted to a much more ambitious open-world RPG that has a better shot at drawing in hardcore gamers who aren't quite so keen on mobile games. But that is where the major similarities end. As I learned in Endfield's recent technical test, its world and combat are very different from Genshin's, and more importantly, it has an entire second game – an unexpectedly deep Factorio-style base builder – up its sleeve.
Endfield is so different from Genshin, in fact, that it has maybe the best chance yet at meaningfully competing with it by finding a sizable audience outside the sphere of Arknights, the developer's hugely popular tower defense gacha game. Based on my test time, I may well be among that audience come launch, because I like this game a lot more than I thought I would.
