{"id":53898,"date":"2025-11-14T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T15:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=53898"},"modified":"2025-11-14T15:42:05","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T06:42:05","slug":"arknights-endfield-devs-heavily-modified-unity-to-accommodate-the-games-100000-polygon-characters-models-and-massive-factory-systems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/arknights-endfield-devs-heavily-modified-unity-to-accommodate-the-games-100000-polygon-characters-models-and-massive-factory-systems\/","title":{"rendered":"Arknights: Endfield devs heavily modified Unity to accommodate the game\u2019s 100,000-polygon character models and massive factory systems"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Chinese developer Hypergryph held a media conference on November 11 to promote their upcoming free-to-play action RPG <strong>Arknights: Endfield<\/strong>. During the conference, the development team shared details about the game\u2019s elaborate graphics, the implementation of which required heavy customization of the Unity engine. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Arknights: Endfield Gameplay Preview \u2014 Advance and Expand\" width=\"1160\" height=\"653\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PpyzMnjSuZo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Arknights: Endfiled is a spin-off to Hypergryph\u2019s 2019 mobile game Arknights. It radically rebuilds both graphics and gameplay: from a 2D tower defense game to a 3D real-time strategic action game. While Hypergryph has previously used 3D graphics for Arknights cinematics, Endfield is the first title in the series that will be fully developed in 3D. Although they faced some trouble taking on such a big new challenge, the development team didn\u2019t compromise at all when it comes to graphics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, the character models for Endfield use about 80,000~100,000 polygons each (40~50,000 in the mobile version), which is, according to Hypergraph, about 1.5 times the average polygon count in other 3D games. Additionally, the game will display up to 4 playable characters on-screen simultaneously, which is quite demanding in terms of rendering. Endfield also features factory management\/automation gameplay (similar to that of Coffee Stain\u2019s Satisfactory), which means that the factory itself and the movable objects you deploy around it will also be constantly rendered on-screen, adding to the load. In conclusion \u2013 Endfield is a pretty heavy game, and to make it work, the development team had to significantly modify Unity\u2019s rendering pipeline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1600\" height=\"900\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20251113-538980001.jpg\" alt=\"Arknights: Endfield character preview.\" class=\"wp-image-53900\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20251113-538980001.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20251113-538980001-380x214.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20251113-538980001-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20251113-538980001-1536x864.jpg 1536w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Earlier this year, the development team behind Endfield told <a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/articles\/interviewsjp\/endfield-20250117-325602\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">AUTOMATON<\/a> about some of these modifications. While Unity\u2019s base structure, editor and tools were left as-is, everything else was overhauled, with the graphic rendering system getting a complete makeover. \u201cThe engine\u2019s fundamental architecture uses a data-oriented ECS (Entity Component System) approach, allowing game components to be processed more efficiently. On top of that, we fully revised the graphics API to meet the game\u2019s strict performance requirements,\u201d they explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1076\" height=\"605\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1076px) 100vw, 1076px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20251113-538980002.jpg\" alt=\"Arknights: Endfield character preview.\" class=\"wp-image-53901\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20251113-538980002.jpg 1076w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20251113-538980002-380x214.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20251113-538980002-768x432.jpg 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Additionally, Hypergryph developed their own shading technology that supports multiple platforms. As explained by the devs, \u201cIt\u2019s often quite difficult to render dynamic shadows for distant objects, but in Endfield, dynamic shadows are rendered across the whole field, including objects in the near, mid and far background.\u201d Even for the factory building system, Hypergyph implemented numerous optimizations and modifications to achieve dynamic lighting and shading, using in-house ECS-based data processing and rendering techniques.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While customizing existing game engines is nothing new in the industry, it is quite interesting to hear devs talk openly about the specific modifications they made to Unity. Judging by the recent <a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/if-youve-worked-on-a-chinese-game-youll-know-production-scale-is-on-a-whole-other-level-japanese-devs-discuss-growing-quality-of-chinese-games\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">explosion in graphically rich 3D games coming out from China<\/a>, it seems like Unity has been taking on a completely different evolutionary path in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Arknights: Endfield developer reveal details on how they tackled the (rather demanding) graphics of their first 3D title in the series. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":53899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[64,3],"tags":[18,17],"class_list":["post-53898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-development","category-news","tag-global-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Arknights: Endfield devs heavily modified Unity to accommodate the game\u2019s 100,000-polygon character models and massive factory systems - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Arknights: Endfield developer reveal details on how they tackled the (rather demanding) graphics of their first 3D title in the series.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/arknights-endfield-devs-heavily-modified-unity-to-accommodate-the-games-100000-polygon-characters-models-and-massive-factory-systems\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Arknights: Endfield devs heavily modified Unity to accommodate the game\u2019s 100,000-polygon character models and massive factory systems - 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