Even by gacha standards, progression and monetization in Arknights: Endfield is pretty confusing. Before and at launch, the newly released action RPG spin on Hypergryph's Arknights drew criticism for convoluted currencies, opaque character drop rates and "pity" maximums, and a rotating banner system that obscures how your investment is tracked. In an interview with GamesRadar+ at GDC, lead developer Ryan (his preferred name for press) discussed the response to Endfield's gacha system and some plans to refine it, as well as the impact of these systems on games as a whole.
Ryan acknowledges different responses to gacha systems between Asian and Western audiences. "People can be critical about the gacha part of the game because they are not used to this monetization method," he says. "But in East Asia, players are more used to the gacha system."
But even some folks who fluently speak gacha balked at Endfield's dated and complicated setup, so Hypergryph is eyeing improvements. Ryan says "we are giving out more in-game currencies" for a start, and "we use the questionnaire and our in-game data to see if players are feeling paywalled by the gacha system."
To help offset or prevent that paywall effect, the opening hours of Endfield have been adjusted, Ryan says, and designated "selection permits" have been added to let players grab a character of their choice quickly. "Most of the players can build a top-tier team in the current version," he says.
"That's our goal: to give out more resources for players to build useful teams," he continues. "And for players who think there are too many currencies in the UI and it sometimes can be confusing, we're also trying to combine some of the currencies to make it more clear for players. And we are still creating more questionnaires for the next version to see if our adjustment works, and we hope to receive more feedback and in-game data to see if we need further optimization."
In a follow-up comment, a Hypergryph representative clarified that these gacha optimizations are at a discussion level, with no firm changes to share immediately.
Like many of today's Western gacha players, I got into the genre through Genshin Impact and have tried other games since. I still play Genshin regularly, but from day one through to today, gacha systems have always seemed to me like something you tolerate, not something you enjoy. High-rolling is fun, sure, but that's a flimsy defense of a predatory system which I compare to alcohol: fun in moderation, but entirely capable of ruining you.
I asked Ryan about the unavoidable friction of gacha – a monetization-first, fun-second system built around luck and scarcity – and how he defines a good gacha system. He says, "The important part is to find out how players in-game are affected by the gacha system."
"We have to ensure that players, including free players, are not paywalled by the system," he adds. "They can experience all the content. For us, it's important to monitor all players, including the free players, what team they are using, what difficulties they are facing in the combat of the world and dungeons. Can they build and experience most of the game content? That's the major concern for us.
"We are also calculating how many pulls players can get every version to see how many characters they are expecting to get every version. Those feedback questionnaires and in-game data ensure that – to minimize the impact of the gacha system on the gameplay experience so most of the players are not affected by the system to enjoy our game. But still, there are options for paying users to acquire more characters, more combinations, and play the games in a more personalized way. So for me, I think the most important part of the gacha system is to not impact the player's ability to enjoy the gameplay."
The necessity of pulls-per-patch math demonstrates the irreconcilable give-and-take of gacha systems. At best, they can be more generous and less frustrating. Personally, I find myself hoping for less gacha cruft entirely and more games like Ex Astris, a no-strings premium RPG released by Hypergryph publishing arm Gryphline in 2024. Ryan says Ex Astris was "one of our attempts to try out other possibilities of the JRPG on mobile," and reasons "there must be other possibilities for these games to develop in the future, but maybe we need to try more ways of monetization."
