History VideoGame / Arknights

** [=SilverAsh=] chronologically first opposes Rhodes Island [[spoiler:due to a coup he raised in Kjerag]], after which he lends his support and joins in ocassionally as a Lord Guard; his sisters and some of his entourage also sign on as operators. Looks like the Doctor truly impressed him with his tactical and strategic chops.

''Arknights'' (Chinese title 明日方舟 or ''Tomorrow's Ark'') is a mobile ScienceFantasy TowerDefense game with RPGElements developed by Hypergryph Network Technologies and Studio Montagne. Developed in Shanghai, China and originally available in Chinese since May 2019, a trio of international servers (in English, Japanese and Korean, with the English version available in most Anglophone countries, much of Europe, and southeast Asia) were opened to the public on January 16, 2020. The game was made available in Taiwan on June 29, 2020.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Terra as a whole is a Crapsack World, and this is well exhibited by the Terran inhabitants when they interact with those from modern-day Earth.

*** When Luo Xiaohei's group gets stranded on Terra (Lungmen to be specific), they are understandably horrified on how the locals don't give a damn about killing animals (with HarmfulToMinors in full effect). When Xiaohei justifiably calls out a barkeeper for wanting to kill a musbeast the latter gives out a, rather harsh, ShutUpKirk on the poor boy.

*** When Luo Xiao Hei's group gets stranded on Terra (Lungmen to be specific), they are understandably horrified on how the locals don't give a damn about killing animals. When Luo Xiaohei justifiably calls out a barkeeper for wanting to kill a musbeast, the latter gives out a, rather harsh, ShutUpKirk on the poor boy.

** Some Challenges disallow you from deploying Operators of a given class. In this case, the game gives you a fair warning on the operators that won't be usable in your current squad. You can still bring the banned operators, but you cannot deploy them at all for that map, making them LockedOutOfTheFight. Sometimes, this is downplayed in other challenges when you can still bring and deploy operators of that class, but their deployment costs are multiplied.

** In "Gavial the Great Chief Returns", Alive Until Sunset girls still have the key they got from Kal'tsit back from "Heart of Surging Flame" extra stage story event, which Kal'tsit got from Skadi even further back in "Grani and the Knights' Treasure".

** Originite Prime is mostly used to convert into Orundum, which feeds the headhunting gacha, which has a conversion rate so terrible[[note]]1 Originite Prime converts to 180 Orundum, while a single pull costs 600[[/note]] you'd need to purchase a ''lot'' of them just to do a 10x pull. Other than that, their use is limited to restore Sanity, which used to be limited to 10 times until the Code of Brawl event update removes the limit.

** The difficulty system in ''Integrated Strategies'', colloquially known as "ascension", only actually need you to reach a certain one of the fifteen difficulty levels (7 in ''Mizuki & Caerula Arbor'', 10 in ''Expeditioner's Joklumarkar'') before the game hands over a trimmed Medal and stops increasing the difficulty-based score multiplier, leaving there no tangible benefit for going higher. Everything after that is merely for personal satisfaction, and prior to ''Expeditioner's Joklumarkar'' changing the "ending clear" icons on squads depending on how high of a difficulty you cleared them on (and even then, it caps at 12), the game didn't even have a way of indicating your achievement.

** Another recurring Class 0: Regional Scale. The current appearance of the known world exists because the ''terra incognita'' is absolutely teemed with EldritchAbomination that will slaughter humanity should the nations that border them stop their constant battle. In the northern tundra, reality-shaping demons are repelled by a combined bulwark of Sami, Ursus, and Yan. In the southern desert, blood-thirsty critters are fended off by Sargon. In the southern sea, the Lovecraftian sea monsters devastated Iberia and barely pushed off from encroaching further inland. The sites of these battles are so hostile to life that even the flora are driven to madness.
** Class 4: Planetary Scale, (multiple) Species Extinction. "Mizuki and Caerula Arbor" gives a glimpse of what happens if one of the aforementioned EldritchAbomination is allowed to win; the sea monsters has evolved so much and gained such power that they [[spoiler:''NoSell the northern demons' reality-shaping power'' and push the humanity to such a brink that there's only one city left existing in the world. And said city will eventually fall too, leaving only one person, beloved by the sea monster's hive queen, to survive]].
** Class X: Planetary Scale, Physical Annihilation. "Lonetrail" reveals [[spoiler:outside of the fake sky is a supermassive black hole the size of a nebulae that Terra is orbiting that is gradually expanding at an uncomfortably rapid pace[[note]]Which retroactively reveals why Kal'tsit is fearful of the amount of time Terra has left and why the Seaborn have gone so off-course from their benign original programming as a terraforming organism when they believe the planet is lost and are trying to ''save'' as many lives as possible via assimilation[[/note]]. Thus, if something is not done soon to deal with the threat of the black hole or prepare to vacate Terra altogether, they will all perish to the black hole.]]

* ArmorPiercingAttack: Arts Damage ignores the DEF of the target (instead mitigated by their RES). Handy for dealing with heavily armored units, extremely annoying when magic-resistant enemy Casters arrive on the scene. A few Operators have skills that ignore both DEF and RES alongside most damage reductions, dubbed as True/Pure Damage.

* AnAesop: The game's overarching message, put ''very'' simply, is that discrimination is wrong and discriminating against someone because of their physical traits can have consequences on their state of mind. This point is reiterated again and again, in ways both major (every single conflict in the game's Main Theme is driven by some form of discrimination against ''someone'') and minor (such as Operator Estelle facing ridicule in her village for her oversized, Oripathy-induced horns, leaving her insecure and depressed).

** The uber-common 3-star and starter 2-star operatives have nothing fancy about them, and in the case of the former can only be promoted up to Elite 1, but they make up for these shortcomings by being incredibly cheap and easy to raise. Provided they are fed well, these low-cost operatives can handily clear high difficulty Supply skirmishes, or hold their own in Annihilation with relative ease, despite their decided lack of flair or even proper skills as in the case of 2-stars. That being said, they certainly are ''not'' viable during harder challenges, or maps that require a minimum baseline level far above their cap, although there ''are'' a few 3-stars who are capable of punching above their weight to a surprising degree.

* HardModePerks: The harder the map is, the more EXP, LMD and additional loot are awarded.

** MN-8 and MN-EX-8 from ''Maria Nearl'' both involve you fighting the [[DropTheHammer Corrupted]] and [[EnergyBow Withered]] Knights together, [[KillOneOthersGetStronger with one becoming stronger after the other is defeated]]. The two of them reappear in Annihilation: The Grand Knight Territory Outskirts, though they're fought one after the other this time. This gimmick gets repeated with the Frost Buck and Snow Doe from ''Phantom & Crimson Solitaire''.

* BleachedUnderpants: Quite a few of the contracted illustrators are also known to draw hentai, such as Liduke, who's responsible for the artwork of several high-profile characters like Hellagur, W, and Schwarz, to name a few.

** The Archosauria as a whole has this going on, as demonstrated during "Gavial: The Great Chief Returns". Male Archosauria look like anthropomorphic crocodiles, [[https://i.imgur.com/bvIJELj.jpg while their female counterparts appear however Gavial does]], though ''Il Siracusano'' would later reveal there are human-like male Archosauria.

* FunnyAnimals: Although they're outnumbered by LittleBitBeastly Ancients, they do exist, if operators like Waai Fu or Spot are any indication. That being said, there have been no in-lore justification for this thus far, and those specific operators appear as they are was seemingly done for no other reason than to satisfy the CreatorThumbprint of their illustrator, [=KuroBlood=]. And then there's the unexplained cabal of seemingly immortal cartoon birds, such as Emperor, High Priest, and the Duck Lord. [[spoiler:More contents would eventually reveal that they're Beast Lords, a race of intelligent animals with similar powers and longetivity as a [[PhysicalGod Feranmut]]. Other Beast Lords revealed so far are Gawain the lion and Zarro the wolf.]]

** The actual stages that you play through can at best be described as "inspired by whatever is going on during the story at that time." Fights against bosses in the story will often be small-scale duels involving three named people or so on either side trying to kill each other, yet the actual stage associated with that story scene will instead be your twelve-man squad against over fifty mooks plus a boss who insists on walking circles around the level before trying to walk through your blue base. It gets especially egregious during some events, [[spoiler:such as the various Kazmirez tournament event stories where what's supposed to be a tournament battle or battle-royale involving just the protagonist Nearl is instead the usual tower-defense game with your squad of operators against hordes of mooks. Another example is the Breaking Ice event where the current chapter often doesn't even have any combat yet the game makes you play a stage in-between each story chapter just for the sake of having a stage in-between each story chapter. The Doctor doesn't even really get involved in most of the plot and combat related to it until halfway through the story.]]

** On one hand, we have Magallan, who's an anthropomorphic penguin; on the other, there's the Emperor, who's literally just an emperor penguin in human clothing.

** The Archosauria as a whole has this going on, as demonstrated during "Gavial: The Great Chief Returns". Male Archosauria look like anthropomorphic crocodiles, [[https://i.imgur.com/bvIJELj.jpg while their female counterparts appear however Gavial does]].

* DraconicHumanoid: Some ancient races like the Lung, Dragon, and Vouire are based on dragons or wyverns. People in this race can also [[HornedHumanoid have horns]]. Then there's Estelle, who is actually an Archosaurus (read: a crocodile) but looks vastly more draconic due to Oripathy-induced mutations giving her metal scales and a pair of gigantic horns. There's also Dusk, Nian, and Ling, who bear draconic horns and tails similar to Lung, but are of an "unknown" race. [[spoiler: This is because they are are [[PiecesOfGod broken pieces of a Feranmut, or regional god, known as Sui, who once ruled over Yan.]]]]

* FunnyAnimals: Although they're outnumbered by LittleBitBeastly Ancients, they do exist, if operators like Waai Fu or Spot are any indication. That being said, there have been no in-lore justification for this thus far, and those specific operators appear as they are was seemingly done for no other reason than to satisfy the CreatorThumbprint of their illustrator, [=KuroBlood=]. And then there's the so far unexplained cabal of seemingly immortal cartoon birds, such as Emperor, High Priest and the Duck Lord.

* HornedHumanoid: The Sarkaz, being based on demons, make up a vast majority of this among Rhodes Island operators. Other fantastic races like the Oni, Vouivre and Drake have horns as well as they are based on the Japanese demon, western dragon and wyvern respectively. Animal races like the Caprinae, Elafia and Forte, being based off caprines, deers and bovines respectively, also have horns (and in the case of the Elafia, antlers).

* MythicalMotifs: The Ancients aren't just limited to AnimalMotifs. Certain races like the Chimaera, Drakes, Dragons, Manticore, Oni, Sankta, Sarkaz, and Vouire are based on mythological and religious creatures. The Sui (Dusk, Nian, and Ling) are based of various dragons in Chinese mythology, and Skadi the Corrupting Heart is based on the Sirens of Greek mythology. Some Ancients whose races are animal-based are based off mythological versions of those animals, like Platinum and the Nearl family, who are Kuranta but are based off the Pegasus, or Fiametta, who is a Liberi but is based off the Phoenix.

** A lot of operators' skills have these for the sake of game-balancing. For instance, Cuora's second skill drastically increases her DEF (by 90% at max level), gives her Block-4 instead of Block-3, making her the only easily accessible Defender with this ability, and makes her regenerate 1% of her max HP per second. The only "drawback" is that while this skill is active, she stops attacking, but given her role, that hardly counts as a drawback.

** To Rhodes Island folks, the "Flame Demon Incident" at Rhine Lab that led to Saria, Silence, Ptilopsis and Ifrit joining RI (and not all at once, either) is something of a mystery. All we know, all that Saria and Silence and willing to ''say'', is that it involved a devastating accident at one of Rhine's main facilities, that Saria had to [[DeadlyEuphemism "dispose of experimental subjects"]], and whatever happened, it soured what was seemingly a previously friendly relationship between Silence and Saria (mostly on the former's side). [[spoiler:Rhodes Island's Records of Originium - Rhine Lab manhua gives the complete story of the incident]].

* PhysicalGod: There are hints that various regions and races on Terra have living gods that represent the "will" of that land. The Yan government has designated them as "Feranmuts" and has an entire government agency centered around containing their local god. Known Feranmuts include [[spoiler: Kjera for Kjerang, Kaschey for Ursus, the fragments of Sui (Dusk, Nian, Ling, and their siblings) for Yan, Alive Before Sunset for Aegir, and the King of the Nachzehrer for Kazdel.]]

** On the player's side, certain maps will have fixed Detectors that can be toggled for a short duration to reveal all cloaked enemies in range, and operator [=SilverAsh=] passively uncloaks all enemies within his attack range at Elite 2.
* TheTurretmaster: Certain Operators have the ability to summon their own minions for further damage, which remain placed on a fixed tile. These minions usually cannot be healed by Medics, with the only way to restore HP being to retreat them and replace them. The Operators' skill typically is to buff their minion or grant them a new ability during the skill's duration. Furthermore, some Operators can infinitely deploy and redeploy their minions, while others only have a limited stock and require their own retreat in order to restock.

* VirtualPaperDoll: Operators can be dressed up with outfits, purchasable for 15 Originite Primes (18, for outfits which add/alter certain special effects for an operator's abilities during operations) each in the Outfit Shop, or unlockable via in-game events such as cumulative log-in rewards.

A SliceOfLife short animation series initially based on the ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdBbLUdB4LQ Kay's Daily Doodles]]'' short animation released April 21 2023, was [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9Q1Z65Ul8Q teased on October 23 2023]]. The first episode was released on December 1 2023, with the episodes being [[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbuSQ8SJFnFH7D7_hwX94t-u3tyUxknsl uploaded and compiled in the Official Arknights Youtube channel]] periodically.

* ScratchDamage: All attacks deal a minimum of 5% of the attacker's attack in damage. Thanks to how the damage formula works, this means your attack needs to be at least 1.05x that of your target's defense to deal more than scratch damage for physical attacks [[note]] any less and attack-defense would be lower than 5% of attack, such as 1.04-1<0.05 [[/note]], and any Arts resistance above 95% is useless unless some kind of Res debuff exists. There are three exceptions to this, which are Projekt Red, Aciddrop and Ifrit, who cannot deal this in any way because of their talents [[note]] Project Red and Aciddrop's talents flat out state that each of their attacks guarantees a certain percentage of their ATK, whereas Ifrit's RES debuff prevents ScratchDamage from her (and any other Arts attacks that land on the enemies in her range) outright [[/note]].

** Slow - The slowing down of an enemy on hit. When an enemy is hit with slow, they will move slower and attack slower. There are two flavors of slow; the one mentioned and slow that reduces enemies' movement speed such as Saria can induce. There is a difference between them and their effects can stack when applied together. To distinguish them, they are called Sluggish and Slow - Movement Speed.

** [[DamageIncreasingDebuff Fragile]] - Increases damage taken by the enemy by a certain percentage, usually 20% at base. Typically purview of the Hexer Supporter subclass, but some Decel Binders like Suzuran and Gnosis can also apply it, and certain Casters like Ifrit apply Arts Fragility.

* SuspiciousVideoGameGenerosity: The [[SaniryMeter Light mechanic]] is a major challenge when going through the 2nd Integrated Strategy mode, as anything less than full can nail you with a crippling debuff and there are very limited ways to restore it. The second expansion introduces multiple Light sources, and going after the 4th boss gives you what is potentially the best Light restoration item, and can net you another item that further buffs your Operators' defensive stats. Sounds good, and they are good...but given what the 4th boss is capable of, this should be the ''bare minimum'' to tackle it.

* ChestMonster: In ''Mizuki & Caerula Arbor'', some of the treasure chests may be a Chest Seaborn. When a Chest Seaborn is attacked, it will turn into an enemy that can attack operators. When defeated, you are rewarded with 10 Originium Ingots.