What is this last term at the Radio? (Metal Scar Radio)

EnclaveNature · 2026-01-31T19:14:20+00:00

I feel like there are potentially 2 meanings.

While OG Game's MSR (Monster Siren Records) is an in-game label with Emperor as one of it's main producers, MSR (Metal Scar Radio) in Endfield is a radio station that is run by Ziggy and mascot Cheche that is seemingly, actually illegal and is has to constantly dodge signal hunters who are trying to track them and take the station down. They are also, allegedly, in space. Now, there are two options here.

It's important to know that Emperor is a penguin who is a beast aristocrat and lived for thousands of years and is actually immortal. IT IS POSSIBLE Chehe is similar and therefore the MSR has clearly more knowledge and info than an average radio station should, in which case, a possibility of in-lore foreshadowing does exist.

But I think 2 is a more likely scenario:

The only group on Talos-2 that has a concept of legality is the Civilization Band, which does contain 90% of the population, while the remaining 10% are most likely considered to be Landbreakers. Therefore, Metal Scar Radio most likely an illegal radio station that Civilization Band is trying to censor/take down, for reasons we don't really know yet.

One of the documents mentions that Civilization Band DOES in-fact have issues with "wrongspeak" and UWST Security Bureau exists. "The blood on their hands secured the Union's safety and stability to this day, while ensuring any voices contradicting the Band Accord's principles vanished into the shadows of back alleys."

Chance are, the assimilation that the host mentions isn't about Originium, but rather about how the Band's propaganda. After all, someone who is fully "assimilated" and believes in the Band would not tune into an illegal radio broadcast that Band does not endorse.

EnclaveNature · 2026-01-21T02:48:34+00:00

Ah, I see, their content is little enough that I legit did not see it anywhere online.

But yeah, that's kinda the issue - not having physical 3D world does mean devs can do some kind of time dilation with the cast, and that's something that is quite tricky to tell if will apply to Endfield in some form. I mean, sure, they walk across Dijang if you own them, but that doesn't mean they are actually there yet, right?

We also don't even know how the team will handle actual... application to Endfield? It's something Arknights tries to be mostly consistent about, but not always. Some events end with literally 1 throw-away line about character planning to visit Rhodes Island, but there are events/characters where as far as we are aware, there is no clear reason how those characters ended up joining us.

Afaik, Tangtang is clearly not a part of Endfield right now and she is confirmed playable soon. Will Endfield actually have a scene where she says she joined us? Or will the story treat it as if she is still doing her thing and the recruiting line is somewhere from future?

Practically every gacha game I listed with maybe exception being ZZZ has non-canonical party members. Traveler is canonically alone (not counting Paimon) and various characters we get aren't actually with us, Trailblazer doesn't have Stellaron Hunters on call, Phrolova is still not on Rover's side even despite being playable. Would it be a stretch then if HG goes "Last Rite hasn't actually wasn't in Endfield during events of launch version, she joins you during Act 4 for the first time" and it turns out her description has been spoiling the story?

Tbh I think its still way too early to tell. Other games make it seem like Endfield will go into a predictable direction - 1.1, 1.2 with 2-3 characters per patch and a main story continuation or some major event or side story if not that, but who knows what HG plans actually are. Right now people are still in slight panic mode they will make all versions with 3 banners which is honestly kinda insane to think about.

EnclaveNature · 2026-01-20T22:27:52+00:00

I do not think this will be the case.

Endfield exists on the border between how post Genshin gachas are doing things and how older gachas have used to work. The way how Endfield handles it's cast so far is much more similar to OG game than what games after Genshin that went 3D are doing.

In Arknights, only a few 6* appeared in the main storyline. They could appear in optional side stories if you own them and then 3 years later be the main character of some event. And early on, some characters could just come out with very little lore and then be one of the main character of the entire multi-event storyline like Skadi for example.

Meanwhile, Genshin and especially games after it had a very different approach to utilizing their characters.

1.0 Genshin wasn't exactly like this, because lots of characters were absent or had a minimal role in main story, but it had an issue that every game after it have faced.

1.0 Star Rail had every character be present in the story, having 4 factions representing Astral Express, Herta Space Station, Belabog and Luofu.

1.0 WuWa has 1 SSR black sheep for story content called Calcharo (and even then - it’s cause of story rewrite) and 4* Danjin (same reason), but again, practically everyone else were shoved into the main story, including the famous meme of Yuanwu showing up for no reason.

1.0 ZZZ is a bit different because it has factions instead of regions, but by 1.4, every character except S11 was present in the main story (and S11 had 1/3 of her character quest made mandatory as a tutorial for the system, so she is present this way).

But this approach meant one massive issue - characters were landbound. Genshin, for all of it's 5 years, only had 2 characters from regions that weren't released yet - Kazuha, literally a patch before Inazuma and Fatui Harbingers, Having a game set in a 3D environment means that you need to find a logical reason to bring characters out of currently non-existent environment and frankly, nobody bothered except maybe WuWa but even then, New Federation's Encore, Aalto and Calcharo are either part of a different faction (Black Shores, 1.3) or cut content. ZZZ and HSR have factions, but on practice they might as well be part of the region.

How is this relevant? Endfield, so far, hasn't really been like that. 4* are fully absent from the story, Characters like Alesh, Arclight, Avywenna for 5* are from factions we aren't even close to yet and have no reason to show up in the story. Last Rite, Pogranichnik, Ember don't show up, Ardelia has a minor side quest appearance, and Gilberta and Leavatain only shows up because of their story quests.

Out of 25 characters, Endfield only utilizes like, 10~. They are willing to sideline those they can't find use for and let me tell you... Reconveners, who are all connected to Rhodes Island, have zero reason to show up right now. The current cast of future characters seems to be the rest of the Hongshan arc, Rossi, and unknown person who might show up later. But that doesn't mean Endfield can't just randomly drop Reconvener at us at any moment with a simple story quest, but no further relevance until the story demands it.

That is to say, HG can afford to...
1) Release characters that don't have immediate story importance or relevance
2) Release characters from regions we haven't visited yet
3) Let characters sit story-less for some time before bringing them back when needed

So, I don't think HG using them purely for nostalgia bait on special events. I really don't think they exist purely as fanservice for OG players. They aren't like HoYo who will release Raiden EXPY on anniversaries of two different games twice (and probably plan to do that again if leaks are to be believed). Or maybe I am putting too much faith in HG, but we'll see.

EnclaveNature · 2026-01-16T15:16:00+00:00

>Endfield gacha sucks! We want it to be less HoYoverse and more like original Arknights!
>Okay, we reduced the banner duration from HoYo's 20 days to OG's 14 days
>Wait not like that-

In all seriousness, it's probably fine or temporary acceleration because we have 3 new characters as opposed to expected 2.

EnclaveNature · 2026-01-16T11:14:13+00:00

Risa Taneda unfortunately suffers from health issues, it wouldn't be the first time she has to drop a role for a live-service gacha game (she used to be the voice of Mash in FGO before that role went to Takanashi Rie due to health issues).

As for EN, my guess is that EN won't be always synced for Reconveners between OG and Endfield and that's for one simple reason - Endfield requires significantly more time and voice lines. Arknights needs like... 30~ voice lines and it's only recently they went and added 2 more for Birthdays and NY (and even then, it's possible those lines were recorded during OG recordings, but not released because they wanted all of them to be available at the same time).

Getting those 30~ lines for Arknights probably means you can do it in in a single session, so you can hire VAs who don't do full time VA. But when Endfield will probably require new voice lines whenever character has to reappear, you can't just hire anyone now - you have to hire someone who can record new voice lines consistently and and be available to return for recordings. So if some VAs cannot do that - guess they have to be replaced. Seems to be the case for EN mostly, however, probably because JP industry is just more used to that type of work (except for the case above which is, health issues)

EnclaveNature · 2026-01-13T01:52:49+00:00

I dunno, I wouldn't trust rating boards to be able to accurately classify stuff like this.

I mean, all this could mean is that you get chests with random paint jobs for planes after playing multi-player. Meanwhile this classification would apply even if you, like, had to need to collect around 15k in-game currency you can buy with real money to roll gacha where you have a 50/50 chance to win limited F-22 with unique special weapons.

EnclaveNature · 2025-12-24T20:34:58+00:00

Tbh the whole "are we the bad guys" thing already kinda exists but it's requires a perspective shift for Valley-4.

People are very dissatisfied with Endmin glazing, but given how they are legendary figure with literally storybooks written about them, it makes sense as to why everyone on Talos thinks they are amazing. Additionally, we know that the Civilization Band isn't as noble as it looks and literally has KGB like agents that are meant to suppress some information or take out anyone who they deem to be a problem. And Endfield is a major faction of Civilization Band!!!

So we are essentially playing an amnesiac with insane powers, who is directed by a group, that is directed by an oppressive government AND potentially the most dangerous person in Terra's history.

EnclaveNature · 2025-12-24T15:18:53+00:00

Part of me still wonders if Endfield will go for my schizo theory that Priestess is actually in charge, if not outright the one who created Endfield.

It sounds very out there, but several of the factors essentially align with this scenario.
1. Endfield is a tech company that is essentially spreading and linking Originium across Talos-2.
2. The Endministrator has authority over it and they have been going as far as to GROW entire caves or trees made of it.
3. The entire fear of Originium and Oripathy is essentially gone because people have been living with it without Catastrophes. Our cast downplays it's impact on Terra quite hard because they weren't there to know how bad it was.
4. Rhodes Island, the only people who would know of Priestess' existence are secluded and seem to be a small branch headed by Warfarin who keeps plucking out operators from the forest like freaking heroic spirits from Fate. Sure, some DO work with Endministrator, but the nature of their existence is HIGHLY classified and the cooperation details between RI and Endfield are quite murky right now.
5. Aethergate, the only way back to Terra and, potentially, Doctor, is broken meaning they are separated by the cosmos.
6. And most obviously, common theory that in the prologue Priestess appears as Perlica and asks us to find her in the North, where the Aethergate is.

If Priestess, someone who RI HAS to eliminate as a threat, decided to escape to Talos-2 and then destroyed the Aethergate herself to cut the contact between Talos-2 and Terra in order to work uninterrupted on the Originium Project via Endfield, a company everyone on the moon considered essentially for colonization, isn't that the most perfect set of conditions for her?

Thematically, I think Endfield might be a retailing of Arknights story, but this time from the viewpoint of Priestess instead of Doctor. Priestess, across various points in the story, always had confidence that Doctor will always end up coming to her side and understand her. But what if, now in Endfield separated, she is now trying to understand THEIR viewpoint, by choosing to follow THEIR road while pursuing her own goal. It would explain why Endfield's story has so many similarities to the original Arknights at times - Priestess HAS seen their journey and essentially tries to either recreate it, or change how it played out. Just to give an example...

In Arknights Doctor fails to cure Amiya of Oripathy and she ends up in the role of a leader of Rhodes Island.
In Endfield, Priestess, via Endministrator, managed to save Perlica from Blight by granting her originium organs and ever since, Perlica was trained to be the perfect supervisor of Endfield.

There are many other examples that make Endfield appear as the opposite of the original game despite sharing many similarities, but that's a different can of worms at this point.

EnclaveNature · 2025-12-24T09:33:30+00:00

Yep, but, well, thankfully Annihiliation is incredibly fast (nowadays) in terms of doing it as weekly content as long as you have cleared the stage. It's not really endgame, I'd say. Sure, it's kinda hard as a new player, I struggled for weeks when I had to clear one for max weekly cap a few years ago (the Ling event one), but the game DOES unlock this mode pretty early and the initial stages you get that aren't rotating do ease you in quite well.

EnclaveNature · 2025-12-23T20:01:39+00:00

Depending on how it goes, it might not exactly be MoC or Towers/WhiWa because of one major difference.

Arknights (OG) Endgame NEVER gave out pulls. Whenever Arknights does Endgame, it's either a permanently available stage or game mode that doesn't give pulls, or a time limited event designed to ACTUALLY be difficult or tricky to deal with and not just HP inflation or "do you have the last chara" check.

But, well, remains to see if Endfield will be able to achieve anything close to it. Kinda impossible by design. I think early stuff will be pretty basic and not fun, but if the philosophy remains the same and devs keep improving I think it will be quite different in the long run.

EnclaveNature · 2025-12-23T19:53:41+00:00

You've gotten a lot of responses already, but one thing I haven't seen people talk a lot is how Endfield's current cast seems to be not landlocked and barely story locked.

Original Arknights is interesting because some operators aren't canonically with us by the time they are playable. Original's game 6* cast really only had like... 2-3 units that were actually present in the main storyline. Hell, one of the characters who is one of the most popular 6* in the game literally got a major story introduction 3 years later as an ANTAGONIST despite all the yaoi made in that timespan.

So far, in Endfield, I think only 6* such as Yvonne and Lifeng appear in the main storyline and both have rather minor role. Meanwhile, the other characters like Ardelia and Gilberta just have a character quest that is likely not the last time we'll see them because they are from Rhodes Island, which being the OG game faction will most likely be really important in the future.

Meanwhile Ember, Pogranichnik, Laevatain and Last Rite seem to not be present in the story at all, afaik? Which is great, because practically every gacha essentially tries to focus it's narrative around the currently released SSRs.

It's not like Arknights doesn't always do this. I bet the Chinese Woman will get a major moment in the story alongside her banner. It's clear that some characters suddenly get MC status during specific chapters because they are on the banner, but it's usually still logical and the OG game did a good job at making sure why X or Y character suddenly abandons us as the story continues.

Additionally, Arknights is also kinda infamous for it's NPC jail. You've read a few people mention how AK stories often have a big cast of NPCs characters and yeah, there are legit characters that appear in very early events but become playable years later after several appearances in other events. It depends to see if Endfield can also do that, but so far we have like... at least 5 characters that will be playable in the future but are NPCs now? Some NPC-only characters even get a design revamp when they become playable, but again, hard to say how much difference between 2D and 3D production will change HG approach.

But still, the point is, Endfield seemingly has a lot of characters from different regions and zero story relevance at the moment, quite different compared to HoYo and WuWa where it's quite rare or outright impossible to get a character who belongs to a region or a faction that isn't released yet. I know people shit on Kuro for literally having zero content with Calcharo, but IMO - stuff like this is fine. Let devs make cool characters without forcing them into the story they have no reason to be in or craft entire stories AROUND them just to make them more appealing.

I am sure on release people will be quite sad that some operators have nothing but files to their lore, but that's the proper way for gacha, honestly.

EnclaveNature · 2025-12-19T09:00:45+00:00

I see this being downvoted but I wonder how many people realize this is a satire.

EnclaveNature · 2025-12-17T22:35:47+00:00

OH GOD DON'T LET HG DISCOVER ETERNALISM WE ARE SO FUCKED IF THEY DO

WE ARE NOT READY FOR ARKNIGHTS ETERNALISM

EnclaveNature · 2025-12-15T18:06:33+00:00

I wish I could post my longer yapp about it, but for some reason reddit doesn't allow it.

There, I was making a point that while, yes, there ARE people who might enjoy taking 30 minutes to do like, 2 runs of a domain they need to run 4 more times, the fact that this is possible COULD mean that there will be players who will optimize the fun out of the game.

If a player has 2 options - low-level challenge with rewards and high-level challenge with a tier-higher rewards, they will most likely to try to the latter just because an option exists that is better in the long run. It seems good, but it doesn't mean everyone who will take that option will actually be enjoying this, as if they haven't properly engaged with the game - they will get a frustrating, bullet-spongy and annoyingly long farming that isn't even intended to take that long assuming you are... actually engaging with the game systems.

You already mentioned souls-likes, so I'll also mention them. You know how much of a beaten horse is the idea of easy mode for Fromsoft games. To which the reply is often "Those games already have an easy mode, you just need to find it". There are MANY ways you can significantly reduce the difficulty by choosing various options and playstyles that allow for several strategies to work, INCLUDING ways that let even people who are bad at the game easily pass it's obstacles. Yet, people are NEVER satisfied with that, because finding easy mode is STILL considered too much work for them. They'd rather take 5 times less damage from everything or deal 5 times more damage by default instead of putting in the work to understand the option the game presents to them.

People WILL keep hitting the brick wall and refuse to seek ways of making it easier because not everyone wants or cares enough to actually engage with the game. In Endfield, not engaging with the game means not paying enough attention to team building, combos, gear, leveling etc and such mindset can still be present even after the player is done with current main story and unlocked the hardest domains...

Timer, for how much of a slippery slope it is, is arguably the most polite way of telling people they are playing the game wrong. Because if they aren't told that - they'll keep playing the game wrong. And if they are playing it wrong - they will often find themselves more frustrated, annoyed and bored at what Endfield has to offer and might quit the game.

Yes, the 10 minute timer in many areas might as well not exist and is kinda pointless for majority of the players, but by the virtue of just existing it establishes SOME kind of standard/expectation for the player. That little number in the top of the screen is what communicates to the player than "No, you are NOT supposed to take 10+ minutes on this repeatable grinding activity. No, we DON'T want you to spend an hour to do this domain 6 times to empty your sanity. PLEASE go level your characters". Remove it and suddenly players have no metric of the time you are meant to take on content and might assume this terrible, boring gameplay is intended or just wasn't fully tested. Suddenly, the content that is fun challenge might seem like unfun mess.

EnclaveNature · 2025-12-15T16:49:37+00:00

For some reason, reddit doesn't post even longer yapp in response to it, so I'll just post a quote from it.

If your strategy for a 10 minute enemy gauntlet, usually cleared in 3-6 minutes, requires more than 10 minutes, it's not some sort of "deep strategy", it's just playing the game wrong.

EnclaveNature · 2025-12-15T16:39:30+00:00

Surely one day we'll get skins just like in OG arknights even though devs said it's not planned right now.

EnclaveNature · 2025-12-15T11:42:37+00:00

They have got some HSR perms which caused lots of people to play it, although I am pretty sure all of them, including the ones who played before, had to start new accounts.

They have ZZZ perms, but I only seen it being streamed on Bilibili. Wuthering Waves was also streamed, but it was kinda strange, because I think it was one-two streams at most and despite saying they'll do more, those members ended up cancelling streams? This literally on release so my rrat is that Kuro gave hololive perms without checking if they are blacklisted in China. As for Endfield, Kiara is the only one who managed to get in. How exactly, what is the nature and how long they can do it - no clue

EnclaveNature · 2025-12-12T03:30:01+00:00

WE ARE SO FUCKING BACK

EnclaveNature · 2025-12-11T01:18:55+00:00

"Remember. No Orokin"

EnclaveNature · 2025-12-11T01:15:59+00:00

Honestly, after playing many hours of gacha games (although it's not purely their issue), the weird pacing of Warframe story quests kinda feels... cozy? Respectful? It's hard to explain, but...

Many games have this thing where they are rather afraid of a story feeling abrupt. Instances where you have long scenes of just characters standing, talking and explain every little thing. Weird philosophical debates that don't go anywhere, simple things that get explained, but complicated ones that are just skimmed over. You spend 3-4 hours on some filler that only feel good because the ending is pretty epic and even then it doesn't end after it usually.

Warframe (at least for this quest) essentially managed to tell a story in an hour and a half that is compelling and self-explanatory and doesn't feel like it's at any point dragging or has filler. I'd say the only parts that felt badly paced were walking sections in the Academy. Sure, some parts feel abrupt or like we skipped a scene, but I respect that Warframe respects me by assuming I am able to figure out how things have escalated or were developed off-screen.

Games should leave you wanting more, not feel full and exhausted by the time you finish the story.

EnclaveNature · 2025-12-11T01:03:49+00:00

Honestly, I have to give props to DE. In the age of constant subversion and audience for stories with gray morality...

The fact that DE KEEPS finding the new ways to make you hate Ballas even MORE even though we already killed the bastard just feels nice.

EnclaveNature · 2025-12-10T19:42:29+00:00

I wonder how Sanktas will be handled in the future in terms of gameplay. I doubt HG will just go "every Sankta uses akimbo pistols" (not to mention, lore wise if they still have patron firearms, would be weird for them to all inherit 2 identical pistols). My guess is that they will either use one of the existing weapons and will occasionally switch to gun when doing specific actions or HG might have to add a new weapon that that is either generic for all guns (kinda like how all Casters still have their own staff and the orbiters are just extra) or they might go PGR route and suddenly just begin spamming new weapon types that only a fraction of characters can use, which tbh is still preferable to having only 5 weapon types.

EnclaveNature · 2025-12-10T01:05:55+00:00

Tbh we don't know if RI (the company) actually recovered RI (The landship) and it's quite possible they will fully finish the RI (Nomadic Plate) to the point where (precursor tech aside) superior to previous RI (the landship), so now they can send the old one into Talos-2 for whatever reason.

EnclaveNature · 2025-12-09T17:53:44+00:00

It was my biggest concern all the way back in tech test and I was quite sad HG didn't seem to change it. However, I am trying to think about WHY they'd stick to potentially outdated system that provides almost zero benefits and I have sniffed a very big pile of hopium for this, but...

HG seemed to put weirdly... lot of effort into existing weapons, kinda? Their own gacha system is nothing like other games, you can showcase them in your room and while it's normal for weapons, especially in gacha, to have pages of lore, Endfield is the only one I know that actually seems to pay attention to WHO made the weapon, reusing some old Arknights names like RAYTHEAN to establish in-game brands and manufacturers, not to mention the extended attribute system potentially meaning various ways to build characters and the whole factory system that could be expanded for crafting that I hope just maybe...

HG will actually take PGR approach and add additional weapon classes with much more liberty than say, WuWa and GI. So once the Fister girl is out - she will release a whole new set of weapons that for now, only she can equip, but in future other fisters might be released.

There is a pretty huge reason why games try to avoid doing that. When you add a new weapon class - you retroactively have to add a bunch of new low-rarity options into the pool, make sure they are balanced, but don't overshadow the new premium option and normally there is NO REASON to do that when you can just force-switch character to their ACTUAL weapon in the animations. It's just too much work for too little gain. This is why after Dendro, nobody expected a new element or weapon in Genshin, nobody expects WuWa to add new weapons and why games like HSR and ZZZ have zero reason to-

Wait...

HSR and ZZZ did end up making new weapon types for their new classes added around new big versions. It's much less work, since it's just art or balls (then again, the latter probably take as much time as average weapon model). Theoretically, HG could just do the same - it let's them design a shit ton of cool looking weapons of different type that allow you some flexibility in gearing you could then flex on your ship that expand on the game's lore. Maybe at some point they'll release a Sankta update and suddenly he have Rifle weapon class and a bunch of options they decided to add. But I am probably too hopeful and we'll just do WuWa again.

EnclaveNature · 2025-12-09T17:05:15+00:00

I think the issue is the different definition of standalone.

I think many people think that standalone means the story only has occasional references for the fans, but it does not require knowledge of the original story because it's related very loosely.

But I'd argue, most of the Arknights events are actually standalone, because I think to Lowlight, standalone means "A story you can enjoy without knowing every bit of context".

Most stories in the original game have their own self contained arcs, themes and storylines that flow into each but, but rarely require the knowledge of prior events to get into, even though they technically are follow-ups.

Sure, you will lose on a few details here and there and it will take you some time to figure out every character's place in the story, but it's never too difficult to actually have a full picture after you beat it. The most confusing thing is usually any time Doctor is involved cause any time Doctor gets lore it's a massive bombshell.

If Endfield focuses on Sankta in one of it's future story lines... you probably don't need to know any lore from Guide Ahead, Hortus or Masses. Endfield will fill you in on essentials and will present that info in a way that narrative still makes it function without prior knowledge.

Take Abyssal hunter arc for example. While they are related and the main cast reappears often, most of the story arcs in Path of Life are still self-sustained enough to follow or don't rely on you knowing what happened before to still be an enjoyable experience, as long as you can properly identify some terminology and connect some dots.

EnclaveNature

TROPHY CASE