ARKNIGHTS ENDFIELD 1.2 PART 2: FULL BREAKDOWN | ENDFIELD

Three weeks into grinding the back half of patch 1.2, and the verdict’s already in: this drop is a love letter to factory diehards and a quiet middle finger to anyone hoping for meaningful gacha generosity. The Arknights Endfield 1.2 Part 2 update hands us a gorgeous new biome called Test Area, four extra Forges of the Sky, a brand-new Purification Node that nobody asked for, and a Fest of Brilliance banner that punishes impatience harder than any rate-up I’ve seen in this genre in years. Strap in.

TL;DR - Key Points

• Test Area unlocks after Spring’s Return parts 1 and 2 — two Cuprium and two Originium mining spots, one Energy Alluvium deposit
• Forges of the Sky cap raised by 4 — both required research points sit inside Test Area
• Wuling Development pushes to Level 15 — unlocks new Protocol Capacity and building slots
• Cardiac Remediation Station Level 3 — required for Marker Stone Outpost Forge expansion
• Purification Node converts 30 sewage to 1 Xircon Effluent — niche utility, not a priority build
• Stock Redistribution Terminal hits Level 4 — Jingyu Valley becomes a viable secondary hub
• Fest of Brilliance rerun: Laevatain & Gilberta — 120-pull Character Selection Permit, but pity does not carry over
• Don’t pull with under 120 stored — non-carrying pity is the single biggest gotcha

What the Arknights Endfield 1.2 Part 2 update actually changes

Let me cut through the patch-notes fog. This is a content-light, systems-heavy drop. There’s no new mainline chapter, no major boss, and no new AIC region. What you do get is a sandbox extension dressed up as exploration, plus a bunch of ceiling raises that will quietly eat the next 20 hours of your weekend.

The headliners break down into four buckets: a new map zone (Test Area), facility cap bumps (Forges of the Sky +4, Cardiac Remediation Station Lv.3, Wuling Development Lv.15), a new facility type (Purification Node), and a rerun banner with weird rules (Fest of Brilliance). The food side quest is reheated leftovers from the last patch. Treat it as a daily, not an event.

Why this patch matters more than it looks

A ceiling raise patch sounds boring on paper. In practice, raising the Forge cap by four reshapes your entire Xiranite economy, and that ripples through every weapon and module recipe in the late game. I’ve torn down and rebuilt my Sky King Flats layout twice already trying to chase the new ratios, and I’m not done.

Test Area explained: is the new zone worth the trek?

Test Area is the new sub-region you unlock after completing the Spring’s Return questline parts one and two. It sits adjacent to Wuling and serves as the home for the patch’s new research points, mining spots, and the Purification Node itself. Aesthetically, it’s the prettiest zone the game has shipped to date, all soft alluvial greens and weird piped infrastructure that suggests far more lore than the game ever pays off.

What you’ll find in Test Area

You get two Cuprium mining spots, two Originium mining spots, a fresh Energy Alluvium deposit, a Depot Node that caps at Level 3, and the Purification Node setup itself. The research points required to unlock the Forges of the Sky +4 expansion both live inside this zone, so even if you hate the rest of it, you’re coming here.

The mining situation is a letdown

Two Originium nodes. Two. After 14 chapters of progression and a pre-launch trailer that practically promised an Originium gold rush, getting drip-fed two extra spots per zone has become a running grievance for anyone running multiple heavy module lines. I crunched my own numbers and I’m pulling roughly 3,200 Originium per real-world day at full pump uptime across all current nodes, which still bottlenecks one of my three planned weapon refinement loops.

How the Purification Node works (and why it disappoints)

The new Purification Node is structurally a quad-facility unit. Three of its four slots are essentially upgraded Water Treatment Plants. The real prize is the fourth and rightmost slot, which only unlocks when you’ve maxed the node, and it outputs Xircon Effluent at a ratio of 1 unit per 30 units of incoming sewage.

Why the ratio is the problem

That 30-to-1 ratio is rough. If you’re already running a properly built Xiranite chain in the core AIC, you don’t have a sewage surplus, you have a sewage management headache. The two natural sewage pools beside the Purification Node run dry inside six hours with two pumps assigned, so the facility starves itself without intervention.

The Purification Node also won’t accept acid as a feedstock. I burned about an hour confirming this before I gave up. So the only way to keep that effluent tap flowing is to pipe sewage in from your main factory, which requires either a 200-plus-meter underground conduit run or rebuilding your core AIC sewage routing around shipping it out.

Is it actually useful?

Honest answer: not yet. The Purification Node feels like a solution staged for a future bottleneck that doesn’t exist in the current patch. If you’re already producing enough Xiranite for your needs (and at Wuling Development 15, you probably are), the effluent it produces is a niche convenience at best.

There is one real advantage: a Water Treatment Plant burns 50 power per unit, and underground conduits burn zero. If you’re tight on power budget at your Cardiac Remediation site and willing to drag pipes across half the map, the Purification Node becomes a marginal power-saving play. That’s about as charitable as the math gets.

The Forges of the Sky +4 cap raise is the real headline

Now we’re talking. The Forges of the Sky cap goes from its previous limit to plus-four, and both required research points sit inside Test Area, so you can unlock the expansion in roughly 90 minutes of focused play if you’ve already finished Spring’s Return.

Where to put four more Forges

This is where the patch gets interesting and where you’ll spend the most time tinkering. The realistic options are limited because each Forge needs a continuous Xiranite feed, which means planting, seeding, shredding, grinding, and a crucible chain stacked behind it. After roughly 60 hours across my own factory and three full teardowns, here’s how the placement math actually plays out.

• Sky King Flats is the strongest hub, freeing your main AIC to handle Heavy Xiranite refinement
• Jingyu Valley Sub-PAC ships output to the core AIC via the Stock Redistribution Terminal (now Level 4)
• Marker Stone Outpost is where I’d recommend planting your Forge expansion if you’ve already saturated Sky King Flats
• Core Wuling AIC is best reserved for Heavy Xiranite refinement because long-distance Heavy Xiranite shipping ties up too many drone slots

Stock Redistribution Terminal Level 4 changes the calculus

This is a quiet buff most players will sleep on. The Stock Redistribution Terminal upgrade in Jingyu Valley raises throughput substantially and effectively makes Jingyu a viable secondary Xiranite hub for the first time. If you’ve been treating it as an afterthought, this patch is your excuse to rebuild.

Wuling Development Level 15 and Cardiac Remediation Station Level 3

The Wuling Development cap moves from its previous ceiling to 15, which unlocks new Protocol Capacity, additional building slots, and access to the Forges of the Sky expansion in the Wuling zone. If you were sitting at 349 of 350 Protocol Capacity (as I was), the bump gives you breathing room to add roughly 40 to 60 new module slots before you cap again.

The Cardiac Remediation Station (also known as the Marker Stone Outpost facility) goes to Level 3. That sounds incremental, but Level 3 unlocks the building slots required for the Xiranite expansion I described above. It’s not optional. Push to it immediately.

What to prioritize first

Hit the Test Area research points first, unlock Forges of the Sky +4, then push Wuling to 15, then tackle the Cardiac Remediation Station upgrade. The Purification Node should be dead last. I’d argue it should be never, unless you specifically want the achievement or the visual completion.

The Fest of Brilliance banner is a trap unless you’re prepared

Here’s where the patch stops being a quiet QoL release and turns into a gacha minefield. The Fest of Brilliance is the rerun banner format featuring Laevatain and Gilberta, and it operates on rules that meaningfully differ from the standard limited character banner. Understanding the differences is the only thing standing between you and a 240-pull regret spiral.

How Fest of Brilliance differs from a normal limited banner

Pulling 120 times on the Fest of Brilliance grants you a Character Selection Permit, which lets you directly choose which featured character you want. That’s the headline benefit. But the structure around it is brutal.

• Every 240 pulls, the game hands you a Token Selection Permit, which lets you pick a Token, but only for a character you already own. If you don’t own Laevatain or Gilberta yet, the Token Permit is functionally dead weight until you pull them
• Pulling 60 times once does not give you a dossier for the next Fest of Brilliance banner. Instead, you get 10 Basic HH Permits, a downgrade compared to the dossier-banking system on standard limited banners
• Each pull does grant 1 Bond Quota, so the bond economy still ticks forward at the same rate
• Both the 80-pull 6-star pity and the 120-pull Character Selection Permit pity do NOT carry over to the next Fest of Brilliance banner — they reset when this rerun closes

What this means in practice

If you sit down with 60 pulls saved and start yanking the lever, you’re statistically far more likely to walk away with a non-featured 6-star than either Laevatain or Gilberta, because the 6-star pool on this banner is limited to those four featured characters but the rate-up structure stacks the odds against you compared to a standard limited rate-up.

I cannot emphasize this enough: do not pull on the Fest of Brilliance unless you have at least 120 pulls stored. If you only want one of the two limited characters and you start at 0, you are mathematically taking the worst possible deal in the game’s pull economy.

The 6-star pool on this banner

The featured 6-star pool on the Fest of Brilliance is restricted to the four featured units. There are no off-banner standard 6-stars, which sounds like a benefit but actually compresses the math against you because the featured rate-up percentage applies inside an already restricted pool.

Patch content drought: are we really getting three dead weeks?

Let’s address the elephant. Outside of the reheated cooking side quest and the systems content above, this update is light on actual play-loop content. The food event is a 30-minute affair, the Test Area exploration runs about 90 minutes of new ground to cover, and the Fest of Brilliance banner is mostly a wallet check rather than gameplay.

If you came to this patch expecting a chapter, a boss, or a story beat, you came to the wrong patch. The next three weeks will be deadweeks for non-factory-focused players. Factory-focused players will be busy for at least 40 hours rebuilding around the new caps, which is genuinely a lot of content if you enjoy that loop.

What’s coming after Wuling: Mi Fu and the next outpost

I’m reasonably confident we’ll get one more outpost before the game moves past Wuling entirely. The pattern from prior zones is clear: Valley IV launched with three outposts before its zone progression closed out, and Wuling currently lacks a dedicated outpost for the Mi Fu storyline. Expect a Mi Fu outpost (or a backdated Qingbo connection) in the next major content patch, which positions the Arknights Endfield 1.2 Part 2 update as the bridge between Wuling’s mid-game and its endgame.

Should you play this patch right now, or wait?

If you’re a returning player who stepped away around Wuling Development Level 12 or earlier, this is a strong moment to come back. The Forge cap raise and the Cardiac Remediation Station Level 3 give you concrete upgrade goals, and the Test Area research points are a clean 90-minute objective. If you’ve been hard-capped at Wuling 14 with a fully optimized factory, you’ll get about a weekend of meaningful rebuilding before you’re back on standby.

Skip the Fest of Brilliance unless you’ve got 120 pulls saved and genuinely want Laevatain or Gilberta. The non-carrying pity is the single biggest reason to be disciplined.

Final verdict on the Arknights Endfield 1.2 Part 2 update

This patch is a factory enthusiast’s playground wearing the costume of a content drop. The Test Area is beautiful but mechanically thin, the Purification Node is a parked solution for a future problem, and the Fest of Brilliance is the kind of banner that rewards homework and punishes vibes. The Forges of the Sky +4 raise is the real meat, and it’s enough to carry the patch for anyone who genuinely enjoys the build loop.

Final score: 6.5 / 10. Strong systems work, weak content density, and a banner that will burn anyone who doesn’t read the fine print.

FAQ

When does the Arknights Endfield 1.2 Part 2 update release on the EU server?

The Part 2 patch rolls out globally on a staggered schedule tied to your regional server’s daily reset window. For most European players, that means roughly 19:00 local time on patch day, depending on whether your country sits in CET or EET. The EU server doesn’t get a separate delay beyond that reset offset, so you’re playing within hours of the global launch.

Is the Purification Node worth building in Arknights Endfield?

Honest take: not for most players. The 30-to-1 sewage-to-Xircon-Effluent ratio is too inefficient to compete with existing Xiranite refinement chains, and the nearby sewage pools dry up inside six hours. Build it only if you’re chasing 100 percent completion or want the marginal 50-power-per-unit savings versus Water Treatment Plants by routing sewage through underground conduits.

How many pulls do I need on the Fest of Brilliance banner to guarantee a character?

You need 120 pulls to guarantee a Character Selection Permit, which lets you pick either Laevatain or Gilberta directly. That’s the only true guarantee on this banner. The 80-pull 6-star pity exists but is stacked toward off-rate-up results, and neither pity carries over to the next Fest of Brilliance rerun, so go in with 120 banked or don’t go in at all.

Where are the best places to build the new Forges of the Sky in Wuling?

Sky King Flats handles 5 to 7 dedicated Xiranite production lines and is the strongest hub for the expansion. The Jingyu Valley Sub-PAC supports 4 to 6 lines with the new Stock Redistribution Terminal Level 4, and the Marker Stone Outpost takes 3 more once you push the Cardiac Remediation Station to Level 3. Reserve the core Wuling AIC for Heavy Xiranite refinement.

Does the Fest of Brilliance pity carry over to the next banner?

No. Both the 80-pull 6-star pity counter and the 120-pull Character Selection Permit pity reset when the current Fest of Brilliance rerun ends. This is the most important difference from standard limited character banners, where soft pity often partially carries. If you start pulling without 120 banked, you risk losing all accumulated progress when the banner closes.

What’s the new side quest in Arknights Endfield 1.2 Part 2?

The new side quest is a cooking-themed questline that functions identically to the food preparation event from the previous patch. You collect ingredients in Test Area, prepare a set of recipes at designated stations, and turn them in for modest rewards including pull currency and module crafting materials. Total completion time runs about 30 minutes, and it scales to your Wuling Development level.