GRYPHLINE today announced that Arknights: Endfield will launch on Steam on Oct. 15 alongside its next free content update, ‘Sanctuary of Ink.’ The new chapter takes Endministrators inside Si’s Painting, where brushstrokes restore broken paths and a search for healing brings the Endministrator’s past into focus.
Two playable Operators and new combat challenges join the adventure, while a countryside inn offers a change of pace between excursions.
Enter Si’s Painting
Si, a Feranmut Proxy, welcomes the injured Endministrator to Yuanyuan Manor Inn to recover. Her home lies inside a landscape painting of her own creation. Strange phenomena in the surrounding mountains soon draw the pair into a new chapter of the main story, exploring a connection that stretches back a decade.
As players travel through the painted landscape, Si’s brush becomes their way forward: a stroke across a gap brings a bridge into being. Creatures formed from objects within the painting inhabit the world, though not all welcome visitors. A further trial awaits at the journey’s end.
Wield Living Ink and Lead a Mounted Charge
Si will also join the game as a playable Operator. Si can draw an Inksoul from an enemy, transferring damage and effects dealt to it back to the original enemy. Even when that enemy moves out of reach, players can continue dealing damage through the Inksoul or use a skill on it to interrupt an enemy’s charging attack. Her abilities also strengthen Cryo and Heat teammates.
Argent Flow, an old acquaintance of the Endministrator, combines sword and spear techniques with mounted charges on his warhorse, Nuli. During his ultimate, Argent Flow charges on Nuli before leaping into the air for a powerful finishing strike. A later narrative event takes players through paintings that reveal the past behind his calm, courteous manner.
Si and Argent Flow will become available through successive recruitment events during the update.
Rewrite the Rules of Combat
Contingency Contract returns with Indigo Experimental Operation, introducing selectable modifiers that pair powerful advantages with tactical restrictions. One dramatically boosts combo-skill damage but temporarily blocks further combo skills after every two casts, making timing crucial.
For the first time, selected modifiers also give enemies additional attack patterns, creating new threats for players to plan around. Improvements informed by player feedback make challenge settings easier to select and reuse.
Make Yourself at Home in a Countryside Inn
Between adventures, players can try their hand at running a countryside inn in Yuanyuan’s Blazing Stoves. Grow crops, raise animals, and turn the farm’s produce into dishes for visiting guests, then put the earnings toward expanding the farm and inn.
Different operating themes introduce additional recipes, giving aspiring innkeepers more to bring to the table. The Auto-Farmer lends a hand with sowing and harvesting, with access extending to Wuling’s farming area as the story progresses.
Player-Experience Improvements
Alongside these additions, the update introduces saved equipment loadouts, more precise mouse targeting and adjustable priority for combo skills that trigger simultaneously. Players can also place field equipment directly using facilities or construction materials stored in the depot, without carrying them in their backpacks.
‘Sanctuary of Ink’ releases this October 15. Players can now wishlist Arknights: Endfield ahead of its October 15 Steam release.
