Last week, Shanghai-based developer Hypergryph held a presentation about Arknights: Endfield, their upcoming 3D real-time strategy RPG based on the mobile game Arknights. I had the opportunity to interview RUA, a core member of the development team, and when I asked them whether Endfield is an open-world game, they gave me an interesting answer.
For context, ever since its first teaser, Endfield has been shown with vast landscapes, including expansive areas players can traverse in-game. Because of this, it’s sometimes described as “open world,” but I was curious about what the creators themselves consider it to be.
—Some people refer to Endfield as an open-world game. For you personally, is it a yes or a no?
RUA:
This is just my personal view, but… if you ask me whether Endfield is an open-world game, the answer is no. However, even if players end up calling it an open-world game, I’m not going to get mad about it (laughs).
—(laughs) The definition of “open world” is pretty vague to begin with, isn’t it.
RUA:
Exactly. These days, if a game has a large map, it tends to get labeled as open world. And since that’s a common notion among players, it’s hard to deny it outright. But from a level-design standpoint, we did not build this game as an open-world title. It’s designed to be very densely packed with content from start to finish.
—True, with open-world games, you often get empty areas here and there where nothing is happening. But in Endfield I felt like there was something going on every few steps.
RUA:
Yes, internally we call it a “sandbox-like.” I think that for most players, it’s difficult to distinguish between an open-world and a sandbox-like approach. And since the game’s fields are connected seamlessly, it’s no surprise people might call it open world. So yes, we’ve come to tolerate the label (laughs).
Hypergryph themselves do not call Endfield open world, and they seem to have a good reason for it. Namely, during the game’s first beta test, the map was extremely large, and players could roam freely within it. But that freedom caused many players to get lost, which in turn led to people dropping out of the playtest.
Because of that, the team made some changes. In its second beta version, the game has been reworked to a sandbox-style design. This includes making routes to objectives a bit more obvious and enemy placements clearer. Rather than a typical open world where you can go anywhere and do anything, the new build is more structured, with clear routes that players are meant to follow.
I got to play the second beta version in advance (before the playtest officially starts on November 28), and I definitely felt that it’s much harder to get lost now. Even when an objective is far away, Endfield makes it pretty obvious which way to go, and by fighting enemies and collecting items, I’d naturally be led toward the destination. Based on these design choices, I can see why RUA and their team don’t see the game as a typical open world title.
Arknights: Endfield is currently in development for PC, PS5, and mobile.
