Article by Gabrielle Jalosjos Graphics by Julianna Ahongon
November 14, 2022
Hello, fellow doctors! It’s time once again for that mandatory update for an exciting new chapter that has been unveiled in the global server of Arknights on October 19th.
This new update comes with a barrage of lore, operator skins, and new mechanics for the game!
Before we begin, Arknights is a mobile tower defense game made by Hypergryph and published by Yostar which follows the story of our protagonist faction, Rhodes Island, a pharmaceutical company led by Amiya and you, the Doctor, who fights for the rights of the oppressed and strives to cure them of their illnesses alongside factions such as Penguin Logistics and Blacksteel Worldwide to name a few in hopes to save the infected.
The life-long illness, known as Oripathy, is infectious and comes from catastrophes throughout their land. Despite Oripathy granting abilities such as “Arts”, it leaves a lot of non-infected to avoid those who have the sickness.
Moving on, we have the continuation of the story behind our protagonist faction, Rhodes Island, journeying to Victoria to fight against an antagonist named Theresis, and a familiar friend who is now our enemy: Theresa. The event seems to dig deeper within the civil war of the Sarkaz and the involvement of Rhodes Island. To access this chapter, you must complete Chapter 9 first.
Interestingly enough, they have introduced the Main Theme Tuning System, which has difficulty levels starting from Episode 9 that allows you to play through the stages from Story, Standard, and Adversed (seemingly replacing the well-known Challenge mode and then adding initial rewards from the normal stage). They also introduced a new mechanic within this chapter called Failed Operation Refund that allows the player to save their stamina even if they fail the stage. Unfortunately, this mechanic seems to be limited to the event time frame only.
So, what else did we get from this update?
Looking at it, we have some minor UI design updates and graphic changes.
Up next, we have four operators who are now joining our team in Rhodes Island being the new permanent 6-star defender Horn, a 5-star caster named Rockrock (an interesting choice of a name), a 4-star medic named Chestnut alongside the event reward Heidi who is a 5 star support by completing the stages in normal mode. Thankfully Horn, Rockrock, and Chestnut are permanently available in any banner after this event.
Here we also introduced more skins to the outfit line Raythean Strikers featuring Siege, Indra, and Scavenger. They have made Bloodline of Combat return with Saria, Angelina, Lappland, Midnight, Executor, and GreyThroat.
This update is not complete without the overhaul of VAs in languages such as Chinese and English. And let’s not forget that they also updated the record restoration for you to experience the famous trauma–kicking event - Children of Ursus.
With this all said, the new content puts lore enthusiasts and veterans back in the game as well as dragging in new players to play. Alas, it seems to come with a setback, as we call it “The Pre-Anniversary Banner.” Chapter 10 was a major event away from the 3rd Anniversary Event named Stultifera Navis that dropped on November 3rd, featuring a wanted limited operator by some and free rolls. Players will likely have to skip this to roll for this banner instead and future events.
So now the question lies: Have you pulled? Or are you looking to save for the rerun?
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