Arknights: Endfield Beginner Guide, from Squad Combat to the AIC Factory

If you showed up to Arknights: Endfield expecting the tower defense loop from the original mobile game, adjust your expectations right now. Hypergryph rebuilt the franchise as a realtime 3D action RPG bolted onto an automation sandbox that owes as much to Factorio and Satisfactory as it does to any gacha. You control a squad of four Operators in live combat, but the fuel behind your whole progression comes from conveyor belts, smelters and production lines that keep running while you are logged off. Getting good at Endfield means getting good at both halves. Beginners who ignore the factory hit a wall somewhere around the mid game.

This guide covers the combat fundamentals, where your early pulls should go, and how to get the Automated Industry Complex (AIC) running without drowning in blueprints.

Combat: Play the Squad, Not One Character

Fights happen in realtime, but Endfield pays you for tactical thinking, not for mashing buttons. You field four Operators and swap freely between them while the AI runs whoever you are not holding. Every Operator sits in one of six classes, and these are the ones to understand early:

• Guard, frontline bruisers who apply vulnerable and physical debuffs. This is your anchor.
• Caster, ranged art (magic) damage that sets off elemental art reactions.
• Striker, a second primary damage dealer that weakens enemies with physical or magical effects.
• Defender, Support and Specialist fill out the roster with tanking, healing and utility.

The core loop is short: auto attack to build skill points, then spend them on Operator skills and the Ultimate. Since you are running a squad, positioning carries real weight. Pull your ranged Casters back, keep the Guard between the enemy and your squishies, and take direct control of whoever has an Ultimate charged. Three habits worth building on day one:

• Dodge on reaction, not on a guess. The invincibility window is generous. Use the dodge to reposition instead of spamming it out of nerves.
• Stack art reactions. Applying an elemental status with one Operator and popping it with another is where your real damage comes from. Learn which of your characters set each other up.
• Let the AI handle trash mobs. Save manual control for elites and bosses. Babysitting every fight just burns your focus.

Do not dump promotion materials into a character you are not sure you will keep. Level a solid core of four or five Operators instead of spreading everything thin.

Pulls and Roster: Spend on Purpose

Like every gacha, Endfield runs a pity system, so currency is precious. The beginner mistakes never change: pulling on the wrong banner, then leveling too many units at once.

• Take the beginner and standard banner first. It costs less and it hands you a real foundation.
• Skip the chase for every limited unit. A well built team of versatile 5 star and 6 star Operators clears all of the early and mid game. Meta chasing is a problem for later.
• Value classes over rarity. A good Guard and a good healer carry you further than a second flashy DPS.
• Hold your premium pulls until you have read the current banner rates and confirmed the unit fits your team and not just your wishlist.

Finish one complete team of four before you even think about a second. Depth comes later.

The AIC Factory Is Your Real Progression Engine

The Automated Industry Complex is the second pillar of Endfield and, honestly, the reason the game stands apart. It is an automation sandbox: you harvest resource nodes out in the open world, route raw materials along conveyor lines, and mass produce the medicines, gear parts and alloys that upgrade your Operators. All of it runs passively, even while you are logged off.

Here is how to get it going without burying yourself:

1. Build outposts on resource nodes first. You cannot automate what you are not extracting. Scout the open world and drop gathering outposts on ore and biomass nodes early.
2. Start small and linear. Your first production line should be one clean chain: extractor → belt → smelter → storage. Resist the urge to build a spaghetti megafactory before you understand throughput.
3. Go hunt the bottleneck. When a line backs up, it is almost always one slow machine or a full storage buffer. Walk the line and find the spot where items stop moving.
4. The AIC feeds combat directly. It does not stop at consumables. It also builds combat turrets and exploration ziplines. Turrets hold chokepoints in rough fights, and ziplines cut serious travel time across the map.
5. Upgrade extractors before you add new lines. A higher extraction rate fixes most shortages far more cleanly than running parallel lines.

Treat the factory like a savings account. A modest, reliable line running around the clock will out produce a sprawling mess you have to babysit.

Your First Week, In Order

Put it all together and your opening days should look something like this:

1. Clear the story until the AIC unlocks. That is your economy.
2. Build one gathering outpost and one clean production line.
3. Pull on the beginner banner, then assemble a team of four across complementary classes.
4. Level that core team and learn one solid art reaction combo.
5. Only then expand the factory and think about a second squad.

The Bottom Line

Arknights: Endfield asks you to be a tactician and an engineer at the same time, and that split personality is exactly what makes it stick. Nail the combat basics, meaning squad management, dodging and art reactions, while quietly building an AIC that prints your upgrade materials in the background. Do both and the mid game opens up instead of walling you off. Rush one and neglect the other and you will feel every hour of the grind. Play the long game and Endfield pays you back.

Sources: Icy Veins AIC guide, KeenGamer release guide, Arknights: Endfield Wiki (Fextralife).