1.5 PREVIEW: SI, IMPERIAL GUARD, SARKAZ GIRL

The 1.4 Homecoming Special Program did not end with the patch itself. It ended with a teaser reel for what comes after, and that reel dropped three future Arknights: Endfield operators onto the table: Si, the 13th Sui Proxy, a Hongshan Imperial Guard, and a Sarkaz Dream Traveler. Within minutes the community had latched onto two of them. The Sarkaz girl looks so much like Typhon from the original Arknights that half the threads are arguing whether she is a reconvener or a descendant. The Imperial Guard has the long blond hair and heavy-cavalry energy of Mlynar, except he is Yanese and appears to have a scaly tail. This post breaks down what the stream actually confirmed for each of the three, then walks through the speculation the community has been running with.

TL;DR - Key Points

• Three future operators were teased – Si (13th Sui Proxy), the Hongshan Imperial Guard, and the Sarkaz Dream Traveler. None have confirmed banner dates yet.
• Si is getting a real reveal – she shows the Endministrator her true form in Yinglung Pass and appears to have been waiting for your arrival.
• The Sarkaz Dream Traveler looks like Typhon – massive bow, similar hair, but different horns and a different frame, which is fueling a reconvener-versus-descendant debate.
• The Imperial Guard reads as Mlynar – but he is not a Nearl. No pegasi mount, and the 3D model shows a scaly tail, pointing to a new Elder race, possibly a Longma.
• A second male so soon is the real story – arriving right after Camille signals Endfield is not putting husbandos on a six-month timer.
• The bow is a weapon-type problem – Endfield has no bow weapon class, so how the Sarkaz girl actually fights is an open question.
• These are teasers, not promises – treat the “1.5+” framing as ours, not an official version label.

What the Special Program Actually Teased

Everything here comes from the closing segment of the Companionship Celebration and Homecoming Special Program. If you want the full patch rundown that preceded these teases, including the Arcane and Liino kits, the new maps, and the free 6-star sword, read our full 1.4 Homecoming Special Program recap. The teaser reel sat at the very end, after the rewards.

One thing to keep straight up front: the program described these as characters, maps, and directions “beyond Version 1.4,” across “the next two versions.” It did not stamp a version number on any individual operator. The “1.5+” framing in this post is ours, a convenient shorthand for near-future content. Do not read it as a confirmed banner order. With that caveat set, here is each character at a glance before we go deeper.

Si, the 13th Sui Proxy

Si has been circling Endfield’s story for a while, and the program finally gave her a moment. The official line: she will appear in future content and reveal her true form to the player in Yinglung Pass, and she seems to have been waiting for the Endministrator to arrive. That framing matters. A character who reveals a “true form” and who has been waiting for you specifically is being set up as a story beat, not a background cameo. For the full mythology behind her, the Sui Feranmut, and how all three teases connect to Terra’s oldest lore, see our lore deep dive on Si, the Imperial Guard, and the Dream Traveler.

For kit and element, nothing is confirmed. The most common community hope is that Si fills a Nature role that the roster still lacks, specifically a Nature vanguard, since Nature is the one element without that slot filled. Coming right after a Nature caster in Arcane, another Nature unit so soon would be an unusual cadence, which is exactly why some players are guessing she leans elsewhere. If you have been tracking the Sui siblings and the idol-adjacent designs, our Mi Fu and Sui Shisan meta analysis covers the lineage and the roadmap context that Si slots into.

The Hongshan Imperial Guard

The official description is deliberately spare: a calm and resolute Imperial Guard who once fell into a desperate situation with no way out, and whose future story may explore his past, his beliefs, and the answer he is still searching for within himself. The name shown is a title, “Hongshan Imperial Guard,” not a personal name, so we do not have a proper handle for him yet.

Then the resemblance discourse started. The long blond hair and the knightly bearing read as Mlynar to a lot of players, and a few immediately hoped for a Nearl-family connection. The counter-evidence is pretty firm. He is Yanese, not from the Nearl side of things, and the 3D model that showed up in the stream has a scaly, dragon-like tail rather than a pegasi mount. That combination has the community leaning toward a new Elder race, with a Longma (the Chinese winged-horse-dragon) being the popular guess given the Yanese framing. In other words: he looks like Mlynar the way Endfield’s Chen looks like the original Chen, close enough to trigger the memory, distinct enough to be his own person.

The more interesting angle is scheduling. A new male operator teased this close behind Camille tells you something about Endfield’s plans. Games in this space often ration male banners to roughly one every six months, and the community had been bracing for that. Putting a husbando in the near-future reel right after Camille is a signal that Endfield does not intend to make players wait half a year between them.

The Sarkaz Dream Traveler

This is the one that broke the threads. The official description is gentle: a Sarkaz girl who travels through various dreams and pursues stories scattered across the world, which fits neatly with the dream-forest map also teased in the same segment. The design, though, is unmistakably Typhon-coded. The oversized bow, the hair, the silhouette all point back to the original Arknights sniper.

But the differences are real, and the community catalogued them fast. Her horns are shorter, thicker, more curved, and a different color than Typhon’s. Her frame is noticeably slighter. Her bow is a different design from any of Typhon’s. Voice-actor hopes are already running hot, with Tuva Jagell on the EN side and Oozora Naomi on the JP side being the names people want if the resemblance is intentional.

There is also a practical gameplay puzzle. Endfield has no bow weapon class. Weapons map to Swords, Polearms, Guns, Arts Units, and so on, and none of those is a bow. So even if she carries a giant bow in her splash art and animations, her equipped weapon and combat role are wide open. The community is already worried about a repeat of the Mi Fu situation, where the character’s fantasy (melee strikes) did not fully line up with the equipped weapon’s normal attacks. The hope is that Endfield lets the bow drive her skill animations while the stat-stick weapon stays in the background.

Reconvener or Descendant? Reading the Signs

Endfield’s reconveners are imperfect clones carrying the memories and identity of an original Arknights character, brought to Talos-II by a damaged Originium seed. So far the confirmed ones (Gilberta, the Surtr-like Lava-cake unit) are near one-to-one recreations of their originals in body and often in outfit. Endfield’s Chen, by contrast, is styled as a distinct descendant: same family tree, clearly her own design and personality. That distinction is the whole framework the community is using to place the Sarkaz Dream Traveler.

On the balance of that table, more of the community is leaning descendant than reconvener, though nothing is settled. The one big caveat: some argue a reconvener could be a copy of Typhon from an earlier point in her life, before any horn changes, the same way Ardelia lacks Eyjafjalla’s later infirmities. That is a fair point, but it rests on assumptions about reconvener biology that the game has not confirmed. Which brings us to the assumption worth killing.

The idea that “Typhon was infected, therefore she gets a reconvener” is not a rule the game has established. Most of the reconveners we have seen happened to be infected in the original Arknights, but that is a correlation, not a stated mechanic. Endfield has not told us the rules for who can be reconvened, and it is entirely possible the writers have not fully locked them either. So “she was infected” is not the slam dunk some threads treat it as.

Future Maps and Gameplay Direction

The same closing segment paired these operators with the environments they will likely inhabit. Future versions were shown taking players beyond Yinglung Pass into visually distinct regions: a snowy forest woven with ancient dreams, where dream and reality overlap, which lines up almost too neatly with a Sarkaz “Dream Traveler.” There was also a deep mountain area near the edge of the North Wuling Exclusion Zone hiding painted-realm scenery, and a future area featuring flying stones, waterfalls, autumn leaves, and Yuanyuan Manor.

On systems, the program promised multiple new gameplay modes across the next two versions, and said future updates will introduce unique content formats beyond just new maps and stories. That is vague by design, but the throughline is clear: Endfield is telling players the post-1.4 stretch is content-dense, not a lull.

What This Signals About Endfield’s Roadmap

Three things stand out when you zoom out from the individual designs.

First, male cadence. Teasing a second husbando this close to Camille is a deliberate message. Endfield is signaling it will not gate male operators behind long droughts, which is a direct response to a common complaint in the genre.

Second, the nostalgia-bait tension. Part of the community is thrilled to see Typhon-coded and Mlynar-coded designs; another part worries Endfield is leaning on Arknights recognition instead of building new identities. Both can be true. Reconveners and descendants are a legitimately interesting concept for carrying old stories onto a new world, and they are also an easy nostalgia lever. Where the line sits depends on how much original writing each character gets.

Third, the conspicuous absences. Notably missing from the reel: any SilverAsh or Nearl. The prevailing read is that Endfield is holding the biggest, most bankable Arknights faces (a SilverAsh reconvener in particular) in reserve for anniversary-scale revenue moments rather than spending them now.

Should You Start Saving?

Since none of these have dates, “saving” here means banking Oroberyl and pacing your pulls. Our 1.3 banner and pull-strategy breakdown has the fuller math, but here is the quick read by player type.

• New or returning players – Do not chase teasers. Build a functional core team first. These operators are far enough out that reacting to them now is a trap.
• Mid-game players – If any of the three grabs you, start a light savings buffer after your current priority banner. A second male so soon means you may not get a long runway between wants.
• Endgame players – You likely have the reserves. Watch for the kit reveals before committing, especially for the Sarkaz girl, whose weapon class and role are genuinely unknown.
• Whales and hyper-engaged players – Nothing changes for you except roster planning. Just be aware the near-future reel is stacked, so pacing top-ups matters more than usual.

Common Misconceptions

• “Typhon’s horns are fake.” They are biological. The confusion comes from her “horn ornaments,” which are removable family heirlooms; the horns underneath are real. This matters because horn shape is a key data point in the reconvener-versus-descendant argument.
• “Infected means she gets a reconvener.” Unconfirmed. It is a pattern in the characters we have seen, not a stated rule of how reconveners work.
• “The teasers are confirmed banners.” They are not. No dates, no version stamps, and character titles rather than final names in at least one case.
• “The Imperial Guard is a Nearl.” The scaly tail and Yanese framing argue against a pegasi Kuranta. A new Elder race is the more likely read.
• “She uses a bow, so she is a ranged sniper.” Endfield has no bow weapon class. Her actual weapon and role are open until the kit reveal.

Watch List: What Would Confirm This

Keep an eye on these as official previews roll out. Each one collapses a chunk of the current speculation.

• Official kit and element reveals for Si, especially whether she fills the missing Nature vanguard slot.
• The Sarkaz girl’s weapon class, which will tell us how the bow fantasy is being handled.
• Close-up pupil shots of the Dream Traveler. An Originium Rhombus would swing the argument hard toward reconvener; its absence supports descendant.
• Banner order after Camille and Si, which will reveal how serious the “no male drought” signal really is.
• The Imperial Guard’s proper name and race, which should confirm or kill the Longma theory.

Final Read

The Homecoming teaser reel did its job. It gave the community a Sui sibling with a real story hook, a knightly new male who arrives suspiciously soon after Camille, and a Sarkaz archer who set off the biggest reconvener debate since launch. What is confirmed is thin by design, but the direction is loud: Endfield is stacking the post-1.4 stretch with characters, maps, and modes, and it is comfortable mining Arknights recognition while it does. Whether the Dream Traveler turns out to be Typhon reborn, Typhon’s descendant, or something that only rhymes with her, the tell will be in the kit and the writing, not the silhouette. We will update with full operator profiles the moment official kits land.

FAQ

Is the Sarkaz Dream Traveler actually Typhon?

Not confirmed. The design is heavily Typhon-coded, but her horns, frame, and bow all differ from the original. The community is split between a reconvener and a descendant, with a slight lean toward descendant based on the visual differences.

What is the difference between a reconvener and a descendant?

A reconvener is an imperfect clone carrying an original Arknights character’s memories and identity, usually a near one-to-one recreation. A descendant is a new character from the same family tree with their own distinct design, like Endfield’s Chen versus the original.

Is the Hongshan Imperial Guard Mlynar?

No. He resembles Mlynar’s blond, knightly look, but he is Yanese, has no pegasi mount, and appears to have a scaly tail. The community reads him as a new Elder race, possibly a Longma, rather than a Nearl.

When do these operators release?

No dates were given. The program described them as content “beyond Version 1.4” across the next two versions. Treat any specific version number, including our “1.5+” shorthand, as unofficial.

Is Si playable?

She is teased to appear in future content and reveal her true form in Yinglung Pass, which strongly implies a playable release, but her kit, element, and banner are all unconfirmed.

What element and role will Si be?

Unknown. The popular community hope is a Nature vanguard, since Nature currently lacks that role, but nothing official supports a specific element yet.

How will the Sarkaz girl fight without a bow weapon class?

Endfield has no bow weapon type, so her equipped weapon will be something else while the bow likely drives her skill animations. Players are hoping Endfield avoids the Mi Fu mismatch where the fantasy and the equipped weapon’s attacks did not fully align.

Why does a second male operator so soon matter?

It signals Endfield is not rationing husbandos to one every six months. Teasing a new male right after Camille is read as a deliberate promise of a healthier male-unit cadence.

Where is SilverAsh or a Nearl?

Absent from this reel. The common theory is that Endfield is saving its biggest Arknights faces, a SilverAsh reconvener especially, for anniversary-scale revenue moments.

Should I start saving Oroberyl now?

Only lightly, and only if one of the three genuinely excites you. With no dates and unknown kits, building your current core team is the better use of resources for most players.

Related Reading

• 1.4 Homecoming Special Program recap – the full patch rundown these teasers closed out.
• Mi Fu and Sui Shisan meta analysis – the Sui sibling lineage and roadmap context for Si.
• 1.3 banner and pull strategy – how to pace Oroberyl toward upcoming banners.