Arknights: Endfield 1.4 Homecoming — Everything New in Today's Update

Arknights: Endfield Version 1.4 "Homecoming" lands July 16, 2026 as the game's half-year celebration — headlined by the 6★ Nature Caster Arcane, the idol supporter Liino, the biggest main-story map expansion since launch, and a sweeping AIC factory overhaul that introduces Gas as a whole new material state. Ten years after the Very Large Rift tore the Wuling Science Station apart, the Endministrator finally leads the people of Wuling on a campaign to reclaim the homeland they lost — and the update wraps that emotional beat in free anniversary rewards, two new maps, and a stance-switching Operator unlike anything the roster has seen. This is the complete breakdown of everything new in Homecoming, written so brand-new Pioneers and day-one veterans both walk away with a plan.

In plain terms: 1.4 is a "big content patch" — a new chapter of the story, two new gacha characters, a major upgrade to the base-building system, and a pile of login freebies to mark six months since the global launch. You do not need to have finished the story to enjoy most of it.

📅 Homecoming release date and version timeline

Mark your calendar. Here is the schedule that matters for Version 1.4:

• July 16, 2026 — Version 1.4 "Homecoming" goes live across all platforms with maintenance, followed by the Phase 1 banner (Arcane).
• Phase 1 — Arcane (Li Zhiyan), the 6★ limited Nature Caster, runs from launch as the flagship rate-up.
• Phase 2 — the debut of Liino, the new Electric idol supporter, arrives in the update's second half.
• Full patch window — Homecoming is a half-year milestone update, so expect the version to run its standard ~6-week cycle with a mid-patch Phase 2 swap.

Because Arcane is Phase 1, she is the priority decision at launch — if you are saving, you have the whole first half of the patch to commit. We break down whether she is worth it in our dedicated Endfield pull-analysis coverage.

🏠 The Homecoming story: reclaiming Wuling

In plain terms: the new chapter is about going back to a place that was destroyed and trying to make it livable again.

Homecoming pushes the main narrative to a decisive milestone. Ten years ago, the Very Large Rift destroyed the Wuling Science Station and forced countless residents to flee their homes. Now, improvements to the Xiranite Nexus have finally created a real opportunity to contain the disaster. Players reunite with Arcane and join the survivors of Wuling on a campaign to take back the land they were driven from.

The update leans hard into its themes — returning home, and confronting the sacrifices left behind along the way. If you have been following the Wuling arc since the earlier banners, this is the payoff chapter, and it directly ties into Arcane's role as both a story figure and a playable Operator.

🗺️ Two new maps and the largest expansion since launch

Homecoming adds two additional maps, delivering the largest main-story map expansion the game has seen since it launched. These aren't token side-zones — they carry the Wuling storyline forward and open new exploration space, combat encounters, and resource nodes.

• Reclaimed Wuling terrain — traverse regions that were sealed off after the Rift, now accessible as part of the containment campaign.
• New encounters and activities — fresh enemy setups and field objectives layered across the expanded map.
• Exploration rewards — the usual chests, upgrade materials, and lore collectibles scale with the new zone size, so budget time to sweep it properly.

For newer Pioneers still learning the flow of Endfield's real-time-with-pause combat, the new maps are a great place to practice — the difficulty ramps gradually rather than throwing endgame walls at you immediately.

🔮 Arcane — the first Intellect/Will stance-switching Caster

In plain terms: Arcane is a spellcaster whose entire playstyle flips depending on how you build her stats — one build makes her a damage dealer, the other makes her a team support.

Arcane (Li Zhiyan) is a 6★ Nature Caster and the first Operator in the game whose combat form changes based on the balance between her two core attributes, Intellect (INT) and Will. This mechanic is called Array Arcana, and it is genuinely new to the roster.

• Array Arcana: INT — active when your Intellect ≥ Will. This is the damage-dealer mode: frequent skill use, strong area damage, and Corrosion application. Build INT-heavy if you want Arcane as a main DPS.
• Array Arcana: WILL — active when your Will > Intellect. This is the support mode: enemy grouping/pull, stronger debuffs, and spreading Arts Infliction across clustered targets. Build WILL-heavy to turn her into a control-and-amplify enabler.

That flexibility is the headline. Most rosters have to slot separate units for "deal damage" and "group + debuff." Arcane can be either depending on how you gear her, which makes her unusually valuable for players with a thin bench. If you want the deep-dive on whether to pull, read our full Arcane pull analysis.

Nature is Arcane's element, and her Corrosion-based INT mode plus Arts Infliction spread in WILL mode both reward teams that can capitalize on grouped, debuffed enemies. Pair her with a hard-hitting follow-up carry in INT mode, or let her set the table for the rest of your squad in WILL mode.

🎤 Liino — the Electric idol supporter (Phase 2)

In plain terms: Liino is a new healer/buffer character who plays like a pop-idol, switching between two "performance" stances.

Liino, the "Morning Star of La Fantoma," is a rising idol who mysteriously disappears shortly before a concert in Valley VI — and she debuts as an Electric supporter in Phase 2. Her kit revolves around two stances:

• Vocalist Stance — geared toward sustained attack increases for the team.
• Cosmovoice Stance — geared toward sustained healing.

The pattern of two-stance operators continues to define Endfield's 1.4 designs: like Arcane, Liino asks you to think about when to swap modes mid-fight rather than pressing one button on cooldown. Because she is a Phase 2 arrival, you can bank pulls during Arcane's Phase 1 and reassess once her full kit is live.

⚙️ AIC factory overhaul: Gas is a whole new material state

In plain terms: the base-building/automation system gets a major upgrade — you can now work with gases, not just solids and liquids, and the factory menus are cleaner.

The AIC (Automated Industry Complex) system receives its biggest expansion yet. The marquee addition is Gas — a brand-new industrial material state that sits alongside the existing solids and liquids. This unlocks a full production layer:

• New resources — collect Inergen and Xiragen, the new gaseous materials feeding the expanded lines.
• State conversion — convert materials between gaseous, liquid, and solid states, opening recipes that were previously impossible.
• New machinery, recipes, and technologies — additional production lines to design and optimize.
• Simplified workflows — existing factory setups get quality-of-life streamlining, so veteran base-builders spend less time micromanaging and more time expanding.

If the AIC is the part of Endfield you love, Homecoming is arguably the biggest patch to date for you. If factory-building is not your thing, the good news is the simplification pass makes the mandatory portions less fiddly than before.

🎁 Half-year anniversary rewards and login bonuses

Homecoming is the game's half-year celebration, and it ships with the kind of free rewards you would expect from a milestone update:

• Login rewards — a login campaign running through the update window with cumulative freebies.
• Anniversary currency and materials — resources to pump toward pulls, ascension, and gear.
• New activities and events — limited-time modes stacked on top of the story to keep the patch busy for weeks.

For returning Pioneers who drifted off after an earlier version, this is the ideal jump-back-in patch — the anniversary freebies plus the new maps mean you will not be starved for things to do.

🎯 What to prioritize in your first week

Here is a clean priority order for the opening days of Homecoming:

1. Claim every anniversary login and event reward first. Free pulls and materials snowball; grab them before you spend.
2. Play the new story chapter for the map unlocks, exploration chests, and Arcane's narrative context.
3. Decide on Arcane (Phase 1). If she fits your roster, pull early so you can build her before the harder new content. If not, save for Liino or a future banner.
4. Update your AIC setup to fold in Gas production once you unlock it — the new lines feed better gear and materials.
5. Reassess at Phase 2 when Liino goes live, especially if your team lacks a flexible Electric support.

⚡ Element and status synergies to know

In plain terms: Endfield's damage is not just "hit hard" — status effects like Corrosion and Arts Infliction multiply your team's output when you stack them, and 1.4's new Operators lean into that.

Both new Operators plug into the status-effect economy that defines Endfield's stronger teams:

• Corrosion — applied heavily by Arcane's INT mode. Corroded enemies take amplified follow-up damage, so pairing Arcane-INT with a burst carry turns her AoE into a setup tool as much as a damage source.
• Arts Infliction — spread by Arcane's WILL mode across grouped enemies, letting your whole team capitalize on softened targets at once.
• Electric support — Liino's Vocalist and Cosmovoice stances layer sustained ATK and healing on top, keeping a status-focused team alive and hitting harder through long fights.

The takeaway for team-building: think of Arcane as the enabler and Liino as the sustainer, then slot your favorite carry to cash in on the debuffs they set up.

🎪 New activities, events, and returning-player value

Beyond the story and banners, Homecoming stacks limited-time activities and events across the patch window, each with their own reward tracks. Combined with the anniversary login campaign and event currencies, the patch gives you weeks of objectives rather than a single-day content dump. For lapsed Pioneers, that matters: the free anniversary pulls and materials meaningfully shorten the gap back to relevance, and the two new maps plus a mechanically fresh headliner give you concrete reasons to log in daily. If you have been waiting for a "jump back in" moment, a half-year celebration patch is the textbook one.

🆕 New to Arknights: Endfield?

Arknights: Endfield is HYPERGRYPH's 3D real-time strategy-RPG spin-off of the tower-defense hit Arknights. You play as the Endministrator, directing a squad of Operators in real-time-with-pause combat while building an automated industrial base (the AIC) on the frontier world of Talos-II. Players are affectionately called Pioneers.

A few quick primers for newcomers reading this before you start:

• Operators are your playable characters, obtained through the gacha or story. 6★ is the top rarity.
• Elements like Nature (Arcane) and Electric (Liino) interact with enemy weaknesses and status effects such as Corrosion and Arts Infliction.
• The AIC is the base-building/automation layer — it produces materials that fuel your team's growth, and 1.4's Gas expansion is a big step up for it.
• Pity on limited banners: soft pity starts at 65 pulls, hard pity at 80 (which triggers a 50/50), and a featured 6★ is guaranteed by 120 pulls.

Homecoming is a friendly on-ramp: the anniversary freebies give you a head start, and the two-stance Operators are a great showcase of what makes Endfield's combat deeper than a typical gacha. For build direction once you have your team, our endgame-mode breakdown and the 1.2 banner guide are solid next reads.

⚙️ Getting the most from the AIC Gas expansion

In plain terms: the new gas materials open recipes you could not make before — plug them into your existing base to churn out better gear and upgrade materials.

Once you unlock the Gas layer, a few practical steps make the expansion pay off:

• Set up Inergen and Xiragen collection early so the new gaseous resources are flowing before you need them for recipes.
• Use state conversion deliberately — turning materials between gaseous, liquid, and solid states is what unlocks the higher-tier production lines, so map which end products you actually want.
• Lean on the workflow simplification to clean up legacy factory sprawl; the streamlined menus make it easier to expand without your base becoming an unmanageable mess.
• Feed the output back into your team — better materials mean faster ascension and gear upgrades for Arcane, Liino, and the rest of your roster.

The AIC has always been Endfield's signature hook; Homecoming makes it deeper without making the mandatory parts more of a chore.

📈 Why Homecoming matters for the game's momentum

Half-year updates set the tone for a live-service game's second act, and Homecoming checks the boxes that keep a roster invested: a genuine story payoff, a mechanically novel headliner in Arcane, a second new Operator in Liino, and a system-level upgrade (Gas/AIC) that gives long-term players fresh optimization goals. The combination of narrative closure for the Wuling arc and forward-looking systems is exactly what a milestone patch should deliver.

Whether you are a returning Pioneer chasing the anniversary rewards or a newcomer picking the game up for the first time, 1.4 is one of the most complete entry points Endfield has offered so far.

🛒 Gear Up for Arknights: Endfield Homecoming

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