Arknights / YMMV - TV Tropes

YMMVs with their own pages:

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A-D

Abandon Shipping: A good portion of fans stopped shipping Kal'tsit and the Doctor together after Episode 8 reveals that the Doctor killed Theresa, something that Kal'tsit can never forgive the Doctor for even with the Doctor's current amnesia. Then after the Tower of Babel Event, a good portion of the remaining fans jumped ship when it turns out Kal'tsit was closer to a daughter figure to the Doctor, with them being the one to name her and give her purpose.
Accidental Innuendo:
- There's an Operator named "Rope", who is a Cautus (i.e. a bunny). While her codename may reference her rope-based weapon, one could easily think of the slang "rope bunny" instead. As such, NSFW fan-artists did not let this one slide, sometimes drawing Rope being tied up.
- Texas the Omertosa's Character song, "Thorns in You". While those "Thorns" could mean rose thorns, it doesn't help that it's the codename of another Operator. The innuendo is not lost on fans, and jokes and memes are abound due to the accidental Double Entendre of the name.
  - Tequila's Operator Record is named "Taste of Thorns" (alluding to why Tequila hasn't completely cut ties with Bolivar). For the record, Operator Thorns makes no appearance in that side story, and he has yet to interact with Tequila in canon.
- Weedy's second module ended up with an amusingly off-colour name. As a Push Stroker specialist (a subclass with an Unfortunate Name of its own), her modules start with the prefix PUS. So her first module was PUS-X, but this meant her second module is PUS-γ (PUSH Module Gamma), which is often written as PUS-Y because most users don't apply greek lettering, and that looks unfortunate all on its own.
And You Thought It Would Fail: From the mere mention of its Tower Defense genre alone, skeptics in the Western gacha communities thought that Arknights at its international launch, would completely flop outside of China and won't be embraced by the global anime gacha fans because the tower defense genre (anime-styled none the less, as per Audience-Alienating Premise) is a rare niche in gacha games filled with Turn-Based Combat and real-time action RPG (the remnants of this still remain in videos showcasing beta gameplay; the comments are mainly from disappointed people who expected the gameplay to be different). Others simply claim that the game won't become popular online. However, these opinions turned out to be drowned by those who are curious of how Tower Defense gachas work, so there was a built-up hype of interest. Arknights then had devoted fanbases in the English, Japanese and Korean markets, and had attracted lots of fan artists online. In terms of profitability, it somehow managed to earn higher revenues than fellow Yostar-published game, Azur Lane, although lesser than the franchise-based, or PVP-reliant grindy gachas.
- On a smaller scale, the operator Mountain. His reddit announcement post is still ridden with comments saying he's dead on arrival, especially since he initially seemed to have no innate dodge talent that the other Brawler Guards do have - not to mention that Brawler Guards are underused in the meta in general. Their block count of one and piss-poor attack stat was the cause of this. Exacerbating the situation was that exact numbers and the second talent of 6-star operators are not known at the moment of introduction (in Mountain's case, it was the physical dodge talent that was expected). And then as those were revealed...he became a staple for high-risk teams, as it turned out that he's pretty good at addressing the main weaknesses of the class by increasing his block count, DPS and survivability overall.
- Angelina was similarly considered the worst 6-star Starter Mon from the beginner's banner. A long time, she was rendered useless due to her not attacking when idle in her S2 and S3, and her S1 where she does attack is nothing to write home about. However, Contingency Contract rolled around and Angelina quickly became the star of the show, to the point that she was considered mandatory for Pyrite Gorge and still managed to play a key role in further Contingency Contracts like Blade. This is because Contingency Contract buffs certain enemies that were annoying before but could be pound into putty with decently leveled operators into near unstoppable high-danger menaces, that need to be dealt with by buying more time to do it. Nowadays, Angelina is far from her initial state as she's revered for her passive global healing and ASPD buff, her potent slowing, burst damage on her S3 bypassing Caster bans and her unique weight reduction enabling some meme strats with Shift Specialists. Funnily enough, Angelina is also in-universe known for being a rookie brimming of potential.
Anti-Climax Boss:
- Crownslayer, particularly when she shows up in 4-4. Despite being introduced as one of Talulah's right-hand women, she's the only boss with a weight stat of 0 (equal to that of a regular fodder enemy), meaning shift specialists can push her around to their heart's content to circumvent her dashing ability (which can also be Silenced to boot, removing her only real advantage). 4-4 also happens to have roadblocks and damaging tiles, enabling the player to use shift operators to push her through a roadblock and force her to go back around in a Cycle of Hurting. This makes it possible to beat 4-4 with a single Operator; and it's not just one, because just about any Shift specialist (and even some other Operators) can pull it off pretty easily.
- Sal Viento Bishop Quintus, the final boss of Under Tides. He's a massive, terrifying Eldritch Abomination who takes up a good quarter of the map by itself, but turns out that besides his titanic amount of HP, none of his other stats are particularly good (making him both defensively frail and unable to do serious damage until much later in the fight), he lacks invulnerability or revival mechanics, and his huge size only makes him highly vulnerable to attack from multiple directions, letting anyone (or multiple Operators) with burst DPS just melt him out of existence. Even his screen-spanning attacks, Nerve damage, and minion spawns can be dealt with fairly easily, and while he's a Time-Limit Boss, it's very easy to kill him within that limit. The EX stages give him stat buffs to alleviate some of these weaknesses, but he's still rather tame, especially compared to the two event bosses before him, The Pursuer and the Essence of Evolution.
- Despite their borderline SNK Boss reputation in the main story, The Deathless Black Snake fought as the final boss of Trials for Navigator 2's TN-4 is a pushover in comparison. Although her stats and mechanics are as menacing as ever, she notably lacks a lot of the advantages she has in her story maps, such as her pathing being much simpler, her Energy Aggregates being clustered instead of scattered (making them easier to destroy and cover less area), and most notably the lack of enemies rushing you during her Deathless Inferno (JT8-3) or Civilians to defend from the firestorm (H8-4). Her battle area in TN-4 also has two lingering Gelato Stops from Andoain's arena which, if captured, can draw aggro from the boss and almost effortlessly block two rows of the Deathless Inferno; not to mention that even without them, the lack of threats during said attack means you can simply retreat all your units, let it pass, and carry on. In addition, not only does she have a fairly simple upgrade in the higher difficulties compared to the other 2 bosses (increased severity of her Damage Over Time), she also has very little synergy with them - Andoain's Light Unto Sufferers will generally be placed too far away for her to get its benefits, and it's even possible to perform an Easy Level Trick by tricking the Emperor's Blade into deploying Dominion on a Gelato Stop in her path, which will severely reduce her ASPD to the point where on higher difficulties (where the ASPD debuff is enhanced), this can practically stop her from attacking at all, making the fight near trivial.^note
- Eikthyrnir from Expeditioner's Joklumarkar bucks the trend of Integrated Strategies second ending bosses being fiendishly hard, and in turn becomes possibly one of the easiest final bosses out of the four seasons to date. Although his HP is massive and his titanic DEF makes him nearly invulnerable to physical damage, his ATK is surprisingly low for an IS-exclusive melee boss despite his fast attack rate, letting any dedicated tank with a few Collectibles under their belt permanently stall him with the help of any source of healing. Even though he has the ability to permanently freeze anyone he attacks, he lacks the Frozen Monstrosity or Last Knight's damage bonus against frozen targets, meaning he often has no way to push through a sole Defender with healing support. His backup can take out blockers frozen by his attacks, but his waves are programmed to come independently of how he's doing, meaning that it's perfectly possible to stall Eikthyrnir until he's the last enemy left, and then go to town. Not only that, but as long as you avoid skills or collectibles that cause either the blocker or the healer stalling Eikthyrnir to deal damage (e.g. Hoshiguma's S2 or the Devotion collectible) the weak starting mobs will permanently soak up the staller's block count keeping them safe from the actual dangerous foes such as the Yeti Icecleavers who will walk past them harmlessly. Every time Eikthyrnir loses 30% of his HP, he'll perform a charge which makes him unblockable and Nigh-Invulnerable as he rushes through a good chunk of the level - this usually causes an instant loss if you aren't prepared for it, but if you block him early and block him each time his buff wears off, he physically cannot make it to the blue box even with all three of his dashes. His stage even telegraphs the chokepoints that can be used to know where to place down blockers against him. While you will most likely lose the first time around going against the boss blind if you try to tackle it like a regular stage, once you know the boss's mechanics and prepare your squad beforehand you will rarely ever have trouble with him again. To add insult to injury, although he can shrug off Binds and Slows in his charging state, there are several loopholes: he's not immune to Levitate, making it possible to further waste the duration (especially if you brought Ho'olheyak or Qanipalaat who can permanently lock him down with a few attack speed buffs), Mostima's third skill with a fully upgraded module can bypass his Slow immunity to completely immobilize him^note, and Shu's third skill can constantly teleport him back to the starting point of Shu's seeded tiles whenever he tries to escape. Compared to the brutal difficulty of the previous secret bosses, Eikthyrnir can be taken down with shocking ease even at the higher difficulty levels with the only additional requirements being a more sturdy blocker to stall him with.
- Despite all the grandeur that the game treats her with, Kristen Wright from Lone Trail is a very straightforward boss with low base stats by modern standards whose only mechanics revolve around turning the Planetary Debris from the event into Star Rings to deal periodic damage and reduce the ASPD of deployed units around them, while buffing her own Block and damage resistance to make herself more difficult to block and kill. However, this is negated by the fact that both her own damage and that of the Star Rings is very manageable with moderate healing support and her slow movement across the stage means it is very feasible to defeat her with a high damage Operator without need for blocking at all. This is compounded with the fact that her second stage, despite transforming all Planetary Debris into Star Rings and increasing her offensive capabilities through buffing her ATK and giving her the ability to attack two targets at once, also makes her vulnerable to status effects similarly to Zaaro which only makes stalling her even easier. While it is easy to get caught off guard due to Kristen detonating all Star Rings upon defeating her on both stages to deal high global Arts damage that can potentially oneshot your units if you ignored all the Star Rings, once that is accounted for (and Kristen can be silenced in her second phase to prevent the detonation) there is very little that poses any more of a threat than the rest of the event's stages. Notably, Kristen's other boss battles on CW-EX-8 and CW-S-4 are more challenging, both more so due to the stage design and more dangerous mobs than the boss herself, although Kristen herself also becomes more dangerous due to her buffed stats and having 4 or 6 Planetary Debris to work with instead of only 3 on CW-10.
Applicability:
- There have been... questions about the precise nature of the messages Arknights is trying to send with its choice of how to depict Reunion, the primary antagonist group.
  - Reunion is a group of oppressed individuals who are "othered" because of conditions beyond their control (namely their infection with oripathy) — prejudice we get to see first-hand as Rhodes Island members also must deal with it — and Reunion members have decided to take to violent means to achieve their liberation. Their aesthetic has a distinctive "anarchist" or possibly "anti-fascist" vibe to it, with lots of facial concealment (especially via mouth bandanas and masks for the lower-rank units) and hoods... which also happens to be a fairly common image of the protestors in places like Hong Kong. This aspect, at least, does appear to be coincidental (the HK protest movement contemporaneous to the game's international release began in June 2019, while even the earliest trailers for the game from 2017 already depicted Reunion using their present aesthetic) but for many outside of China, it does feel very unfortunate. There have also been a number of objections to the Reunion mooks being depicted as they are, as it seems to perpetuate the idea of anti-fascists being terrorists. And then there's questions, especially in the U.S. (with a long history of the oppressed seeking redress of wrongs done to them and often feeling a need to resort to violence to defend themselves, though not to the point of endangering innocents) of just what the game is saying by seeming to frame Reunion as being wholly in the wrong for resorting to violence.
  - The counter-argument mostly coalesces around the fact that Reunion militarizes very quickly (they graduate from "guys with molotovs" to heavily-armored SWAT-style troopers, lumbering axe men, exploding spiders, guys with literal jet packs, and toting mortars pretty rapidly in game progression) and that a number of the Reunion leaders don't seem to have the same zeal for the theoretical cause of the group that the rank-and-file (and Talulah) do; this argument largely boils down to the message being "militarizing for the purpose of ending oppression only results in you becoming the new oppressor and welcoming those into your fold who are useful, rather than those who believe in your cause" and that it is, perhaps, commenting on the arc of the Russian Revolution and CPSU (with bonus points for the game's story kicking off in the world's equivalent to Russia) and even, through heavy allegory, the arc of the Chinese Communist Party. As the game's first arc is still in progress, it's a bit difficult to say for certain what the final message will be, but the whole thing does tend to inspire, shall we say, debates.
- Lungmen has been a particular headache in this regard, even for Hypergryph themselves; the city is pretty clearly a stand-in for Special Economic Zone cities of the 21st century in China, with the most obvious parallel being Hong Kong. The initial emphasis, however, is fairly obviously more meant to be on the pressures it faces with inequality and wealth (with the first story arc having an emphasis on the cycle of hatred and revenge that stems from poverty, sudden deprivation with no safety net, and the resulting desperation & violence), and is meant very much to come across as "Hong Kong by way of magical unobtainium supertech cyberpunk"... and then, a good hot one month and some change after the game's launch, the HK protests and the events around them began, which offered completely different allegorical readings of the game's events and made the topic of Hong Kong period incredibly sensitive in China (and internationally, made the Lungmen chapters stick out a bit more). There's a decent bit of suspicion that the notable delay in the game's sixth chapter coming out (five months after the fifth) may have had to do with Hypergryph having to consider if and/or how the story had to change to ensure no one in power (or in the domestic audience) took issue with the narrative.
Arc Fatigue: At least from the English fanbase, the earliest story chapters are usually criticized for their odd or inconsistent pacing, with some parts thought to be dragged on longer than expected.
- The "Evil Time" arc being an obvious case of a Prolonged Prologue. It consists of two Episodes accounting for approximately 20 missions. The concern is related to how limited-time events like "Grani & the Knights' Treasure" require this arc to be finished first, so someone with a fresh account has to sit through these 20 missions even before they get a chance to play these limited-time events.
- Chapters 2 and 3 are also seen with an arc fatigue mainly because they somehow play out similar to the "Evil Time" arc (as in, a Rescue Arc that spans for 2 chapters or approximately 20 missions, but this time, the rescuee is Misha and the villain is Skullshatterer).
- The length of dialogue lines are often attributed to the localization, especially when some of them appear to be too "wordy" or too long depending on the characters or topics involved. One scene that was joked because of its length is the conversation of Hellagur and Patriot during the Operational Intelligence event's "The Anonymous Ones' War" story arc. If the dialogue is set to auto-play, this cutscene takes around 36 minutes to complete, but Hellagur and Patriot cover around 25 minutes out of those 36.
- The entirety of some story arcs rivals that of novels. A website (EN, CN) keeps track of the word count of all the story arcs, and on CN, Zwillingstrume im Herbst tops it at 148,804 characters, although it's worth noting that these word counts tend to be a good bit lower when translated into English.^note The entirety of the game's story (not even including things like Operator Records, the mangas, or other supplementary texts) is over 1 million English words and counting, and many of the stories also require reading of one or more previous stories to understand.
Base-Breaking Character:
- Ch'en. On one hand, she's a six star operator with great Game-Breaker skills and a cool design to make her popular with fan artists. Story-wise, first impressions of her aren't that great in the fandom despite some Character Development later on. She's disliked because of her initial callous attitude towards the Infected, including her allies in Rhodes Island, treating them either as illegal immigrants at best or terrorists at worst. Not helping her case is that she allows her boss, Governor Wei to treat Rhodes Island like disposable pawns and the reveal that's she's a Boomerang Bigot as she too is also infected. However, in Chapter 7 and 8, she finally has enough and calls out Wei, cutting ties with Lungmen before setting off to battle Talulah, eventually fighting her alongside Amiya, eventually joining the ranks of Rhodes Island at the end of Chapter 8.
- Mephisto, particularly when it comes to whether or not he's redeemable. While he has a tragic and miserable past which shows how all his attempts to do the right thing backfired and drove him to madness (and depicts his villainy to be at least partially thanks to Talulah's manipulation), lost his only friend in Chapter 6, seems to have significantly sobered up as a result in Chapter 7 (even having a Pet the Dog moment with the last of Faust's troops), and is actively seeking redemption at that point, whether that excuses his extreme and seemingly pointless sadism and countless sickening atrocities across the earlier story remains a topic of discussion, especially when his actions in Children of Ursus are concerned. Things get a little more complicated in Chapter 8, where he undergoes a gruesome transformation and forces you into a tragic final battle complete with Sad Battle Music and a heartbreaking final monologue. To further cause divide in the fanbase, his battle lets you decide to spare him or kill him (though it is not very well explained how to do the former), and his fate is ultimately left ambiguous.
- Kal'tsit. On one hand, she has an attractive design, extremely powerful abilities, a cold yet caring personality, a mysterious past with vast amounts of wisdom to offer, and a personal connection to the Doctor and their past (including the popular meme depicting them as ex-lovers providing lots of shipping material). However, she has also drawn ire for her in-story characterization as an unquestionable, invincible, all-knowing hero who always does the right thing and can solve any problem, making her seem almost too perfect; even in regards to her gameplay, most people believe that the reason she is classified as a regular Medic, despite having completely different attributes compared to other Medics of said archetype (ie. Kal'tsit having a unique attack range of 3x5 at Elite 2 instead of 3x4), is likely done so that no other Medic can replicate her performance as a Medic that can deploy an attacking summon, making it so that a "Summoner Medic" archetype is unique to her and only her^note. Her mysterious nature might have also worked a little too well, since she now also has a reputation for never giving straight answers, instead only speaking in riddles and lengthy Purple Prose, not helped by an attitude that is often seen as condescending and even pretentious at times. And then there's what she did in the past with regards to Kazdel, which boiled down to organizing its complete destruction in the name of preserving future civilization and claiming Civilight Eterna.
- Surtr is sometimes divisive for her simple, abrasive personality, near-complete lack of lore, and her absurd Game-Breaker abilities that practically turned the game upside down on her release. She's still one of the most popular operators in the game, likely owing to her attractive design and possibly because of said power and harsh personality making for lots of fanworks depicting her as a Tsundere.
- To a lesser extent, the Abyssal Hunters can be this: they're one of the most popular factions in the game thanks to an array of attractive designs, a cool Bloodborne inspired aesthetic, and expansive lore with their involvement in the lovecraftian Seaborne storyline, along with a powerful team synergy to boot. At the same time, the amount of favoritism Hypergryph seems to show towards them is somewhat divisive at times, particularly with regards to how the Hunters conspicuously have universally good Modules in a system notorious for doling out mediocre ones, giving them insanely strong team synergy compared to all of the other, somewhat underwhelming ones. Not helping is how the playstyle of the Abyssal Hunters mostly revolves around brute-forcing challenges with sheer stats, which some players deride as boring and antithetical to the strategy aspect of the game.
- Gnosis is highly divisive in certain sections of the community due to the contrast between his wholehearted dedication to Kjerag and his friend SilverAsh, and his utter callousness towards everyone and everything else, particularly the way he takes advantage of Monch's trust in him to trick her into being used as a pawn, even though he immediately has a What Have I Done moment when Monch abandons his knife and disappears from his life afterwards.
- Puzzle's appearance as a playable Agent Vanguard had some players questioning his presence after the way he takes civilian hostages in an effort to capture Reed during his debut event, with a number of them perishing during the fight that sparked when his team of Victorian soldiers got into a fight with a number of Eblana's troops.
- Although she has a very popular design, there were a notable amount of players who were uncomfortable with Arturia/Virtuosa's Promoted to Playable status as of Zwillingstürme Im Herbst due to her introduction as the Arch-Enemy of Executor and the instigator of heinous crimes to satisfy her twisted curiosity for emotions. While Rhodes Island has many other operators of dubious morality such as Passenger, W, Harmonie or Ho'olheyak, most of them are more accepted whether due to more understandable motives, the lesser scale of their actions, or genuine remorse and signs of being The Atoner. In comparison, Arturia's Blue-and-Orange Morality leaves her mostly unrepentant for her actions even despite her signs of regret at losing people close to her, leaving her irredeemable in the eyes of many who have her playable status, likely ensuring she remains a Karma Houdini, leaving a bitter taste in their mouths.
Breather Boss: A few of the boss encounters are considered much easier than others, especially for Event maps.
- Jesselton Miller from Mansfield Break. He's a Barrier Change Boss with two phases and the ability to free all imprisoned enemies between them - one that deals and resists Arts damage, and another that deals and resists physical damage. The problem comes from the fact that his base stats are abnormally low for an event boss (especially his HP), and unlike some other bosses with low stats (notably Pursuer), his gimmicks aren't enough to make up for them, with his first phase's Stun being too short to do meaningful damage, and his second phase's Armor-Piercing Attack being gimped by it only being able to hit low ground units and still being decently tankable with enough HP. Although he's a lot more dangerous in the EX map, this mostly comes from there being more numerous elite enemies that can overwhelm the player if he frees them early, rather than his own difficulty.
- Pancho Salas from Dossoles Holiday similarly suffers from glaringly low base stats, special attacks that don't actually pose much danger, and no gimmicks to alleviate his weaknesses outside of spawning minions that really only start becoming threatening if you actively let them. Not helping is that the event he's in offers Stickers that make your Operators even stronger, with some higher level ones being able to pretty much make him a joke. In fact, in his first fight, it's possible to instantly kill him in his second phase by abusing unit placement and Shift to shove him into the moving water. Notably, in the EX stage, he's a lot more dangerous (especially due to the Challenge condition that halves the HP of your units, letting the buffed Pancho or his summons kill them alarmingly fast), but not nearly to the degree as some other event bosses.
- The Endspeaker from Stultifera Navis can be this with the right setup. Despite having four increasingly powerful phases with some nasty abilities (including those it can inherit from the Demonic Spiders that accompany it), it notably lacks the immunity to status effects that most bosses have, making it particularly vulnerable to Stun or Freeze effects. Since the event's Little Handy includes an upgrade that increases the duration of allied status effects by 80%, it is fairly easy to chain crowd control on the boss until it dies without giving it any real chance to fight back. Gnosis in particular benefits greatly from the aforementioned upgrade as well as the upgrade that increases the ASPD of ranged units on first deployment, the combination of which allows him to almost permafreeze the boss with his normal attacks, completely neutering its threat. That said, the rest of the enemies on the Endspeaker's stages can qualify as Demonic Spiders if you lack the means (Silence and status) to deal with them easily.
- The final boss of Lingering Echoes, Kreide, "Worldly Remains", his form while possessed by the Witch King's melody, is extremely easy to defeat despite the story building up the Witch King to be an incredibly powerful and dangerous threat, as he has relatively manageable damage output, a slow and forgiving pathing around the stage, and relatively unthreatening skills aside from his ability to stun your Operators when blocked.^note One of his skills even causes him to deal damage to himself. However, this seems to be deliberate as Kreide is implied to be Fighting To The Inside to the extent that he temporarily becomes an allied unit upon being defeated in his first phase, and the stage itself has a low Sanity cost with no resources to farm, making it more impactful plot-wise than gameplay-wise.
- The Last Steam Knight from Episode 11 can be seen as this compared to the last few chapter bosses, especially since Mandragora and Manfred had more significant gimmicks and could only be reasonably harmed by exploiting their respective level mechanics. While he hits like a freight train and can soak up as much damage as one, he's very slow and all his gimmicks basically boil down to dealing and taking a lot of damage, which means that he can be more reasonably outmaneuvered or just brute-forced; this is especially true if you have a well-leveled tank or means of debuffing his ATK, which will allow players to almost permanently stall him due to being able to survive Furious Defense. His missile barrage, although making him harder to burst down with the periodic invincibility, can also be neutered by bundling up all your units and stacking area healing, with Nightingale in particular almost completely invalidating the attack. Once he's in the second phase, he'll attack faster but also lose almost all of his defenses, making it possible to just deal enough damage to force him to constantly use the barrage attack, or even kill him outright if you unload all your burst during the fixed animation of Furious Defense.
- The Final Boss of Il Siracusano, Zaaro, Signore dei Lupi, is another easy boss on the same level as Jesselton and Pancho, with mediocre stats, weak backup, and easy mechanics. His only ability in his first phase, Hemolytic Horror, is threatening on paper as it targets up to three allied units globally and reduces their ASPD while dealing ramping damage over time and preventing them from being manually retreated, but not only does it prioritize civilians over operators^note, its effects immediately cancel upon the boss taking 20% of his HP in damage, which is not hard to do considering his subpar base stats and lack of invulnerability mechanics. He loses this ability and the damage reduction he passively has upon being knocked into his second phase, becoming a Glass Cannon with heavy hitting ranged attacks, an ASPD debuffing aura, and accelerating the event's Blood Debt mechanics, but between the drop in defenses and becoming vulnerable to stun upon reaching this phase ^note the damage only really becomes threatening if you choose to do nothing and actively allow Zaaro to attack. He's also noteworthy for having a long revival phase of 40 seconds, which while potentially inconvenient as his aura is reducing nearby units' ASPD during the process, also means you have a huge amount of time to redeploy your units or recharge their skills until Zaaro wakes up and is flattened by the full might of your team. Compared to the various gimmicks of other more recent bosses, Zaaro can be brute forced even by a lower-rarity composition.
- Kristen Wright in Lone Trail is actually quite easy to to deal with. She's not particularly tough nor does she deal that much damage on her own. Her biggest threat is the Star Rings she summmons around the map will deal constant AoE Arts damage to whoever is around them, give Kristen a stacking buff that reduces the damage she takes, increase the number of block needed to block her, and explode for global Arts damage when her first life bar is depleted. However, the Star Rings themselves aren't particularly tough either, and often can be easily dealt with by an offensive Fast Redeploy Specialist or helidrop attacker. Once the Star Rings are dealt with, Kristen becomes an easy target again. Still, in CW-EX-8 and CW-S-4 she gets much tougher due to her now having access to 4 or 6 Star Rings (potentially getting her a damage reduction of 95%), her backup being much more difficult to deal with, her Star Rings being much more tanky and a challenge condition being added to the stage.
- In general, the bosses from the fourth Integrated Strategies mode are a lot easier than the bosses of the previous Integrated Strategies, and more annoying than dangerous. Instead, it's the stages that are more likely to murder you, from stage-specific debuff to buffed enemies who will oneshot your operators with 6k+ damage,^* also making the mode qualify as Hard Levels, Easy Bosses. Even then, the boss of the 2nd ending stands out as despite his infuriating mechanic, he deals such low damage that a 4* with Medic support can stall him indefinitely. He has no enrage timer either, so you can (and should) wait until all the trash mobs are gone, and whittle him down bit by bit. As added bonus, the path to face him grants you a Foldartal that can be used at any node, which means you can use it to make any potentially run-ending node disappear as you make your way to the boss.
- While Duq'arael, the Sanguinarch in Episode 13 is by far one of the biggest threats the protagonists have faced in the main story arc, he isn't as much of a threat in gameplay. While he is a Puzzle Boss who can initially seem impossible to defeat without knowing his mechanics and how to counter them, his damage output is actually rather low and his threat mostly comes from his infinite revives in his first stage, debuffs and ability to overwhelm you with swarms of his blood spawn if you can't defeat him promptly. However, his first form is extremely fragile and so long as you have units capable of pushing the Anti-Witchcraft Repositionable Bombs to his Throne of Blood, it's not too difficult to simply neutralize him and destroy his throne to force him into his second stage, which is more dangerous due to his increased stats and 90% Physical and Arts damage reduction, but the latter can be temporarily disabled by pushing bombs into him, and while you have to plan the bomb's route carefully to match his pathing and you have a limited number of opportunities to do so as he will destroy the loading point from which the bomb was delivered each time, as long as you're ready to burst him down each time you remove his protection, you will be able to defeat him with relatively little issue. Not only that, but True Damage goes right through his defenses, and guess what the rate-up 6-star of the chapter's banner has on his third skill. While he's certainly not the easiest boss of recent times, and can be especially difficult if you're lacking in operators with strong burst skills, and he's obviously still a massive threat in the Inferno stages as usual, compared to the Damazti Cluster of the previous chapter he's a refreshing change of pace with a challenging but relatively fair mechanic. In addition, you can deploy but not push the bombs (which have innate taunt), so that he spends his attacks targeting them instead of your operators.
Breather Level:
- Compared to all other Contingency Contracts, CC#11 Fake Waves is generally considered to be the easiest. There are no complex mechanics outside of the water, nor are there any boss enemies or particularly dangerous elites, with the biggest threats effectively amounting to simple damage sponges. The map itself is very simple with only one lane in the middle, and even when you take the risk that takes away some deployment space by lowering the amount of platforms, nothing of note is impacted and the water remains mostly hostile to the enemies rather than your Operators. On top of that, many of the risks are relatively insignificant compared to some of the game-changers found in the previous CC maps; in fact, the -1 Block risk is potentially beneficial instead as it allows ranged units to be deployed in the path of enemies without being attacked, making them effectively invincible outside of the relatively weak casters and divers. It's telling that there's videos of solo Risk 18 clears with Texas the Omertosa, Ling, Dorothy, Magallan, and Pozëmka.
Broken Base:
- The music outside of the official OST. There is a portion of fans who likes songs like "Save us from ourselves" or "Survive", but the vast majority (or the part that is the most vocal about it) dislikes these songs, saying they don't fit into the atmosphere, and have already fixed "Monster" and "Unbecoming" as the Arknights themes. They argue that it might be better that the Starset songs initially were put as 'well that just about fits' and unexpectedly became popular, than songs that are written to be forcibly associated with the game. However, the creators have been noticing this discourse, and have announced an Arknights-specific song from Starset. This discourse is mostly a thing of the past, given Hypergryph's current vast musical reputation.
- One of the first debates in the English gacha communities are about the Sanity costs. One side likes how easy it is to drain the stamina resource in Arknights, making this game one of the best side-game gachas to play when taking a quick break since it doesn't demand too much playtime per day. The other side argues that this game should have more ways to refill Sanity since there are plenty of materials to collect, and a lot of Level Grinding and Money Grinding to fully upgrade Operators. To the first side's defense, the low sanity costs are good for the longevity of the game since players can easily become bored if they accomplish a lot within a short amount of time. The counter-argument to the last one brings up the idea that there are indeed people who wish to treat Arknights as a main game and would like to play it for longer periods of time everyday.
- The common "There are no bad operators, just bad doctors" debacle. On the one hand, it is indeed true that the gameplay loops tends to put more emphasis on technical strategy over roster strength, meaning that even low-tier operators can be surprisingly viable if one knows how to play to their strengths, presenting a clear-cut case of Difficult, but Awesome when one beats a hard piece of content using nothing but Starter Mons or operators known to be below-par. On the other, there are operators that are severely hamstrung by low numbers or a poorly-designed aspect of their kit (Flamebringer, Ceylon, Deepcolor, etc...), who range from very niche to borderline unusable without significant handholding. There stands an undeniable fact that, without some of the Game Breakers, one is going to have a very bad time trying to clear the harder content updates, if not impossible entirely. Not helping matters is that this sentiment is commonly used by those who already have powerful operators to denigrate those with poorer gacha luck or conversely, more hardcore F2P players making fun of less experienced players who rolled high quality operators they don't know how to use yet.
  - This also goes in the other direction at times: new 6-stars of varying strength are gradually released and the power ceiling in unit releases steadily (but mercifully relatively slowly) gets higher over the game's life, which in turn has attracted heated debates over which units are worth raising. One one extreme are the players who quickly dismiss or deride any unit unable to measure up to the meta as not worth attention and those who defend them as inefficient and unable to admit the objective strength of units relative to others. On the other are players who cite the relative freedom the game gives regarding how you win and who you win with as well as how even non-Game-Breaker units can still be decent to strong, and constantly deride the former for being meta slaves who prioritize steamrolling content over having fun.
- In the months after the release of the EN client, there has been a growing divide between the EN and CN fandoms, particularly around EN content creators. There's been a growing dissonance among CN players targeting EN content creators, accusing them of spreading bad information and advice. Meanwhile, the EN community has largely risen up to defend them, accusing the CN players of being elitists due to having access to the game for longer as well as failing to understand that EN content creators largely tailor their content to cater to an EN audience, whose version of the game is at least a year's worth of content behind the CN version.
- The current motion to rush out content on the EN build of the game to catch up with the CN server was met with very mixed reactions. On the one hand, there are a lot of players who appreciate the ability to roll for their favorite operators such as Nian, and soon-to-be W, without having to wait for a full year for them to arrive at the EN banners, as well as the popular quality of life upgrades to the game that come with them. On the other, there's an equally vocal camp who detests the way this rushing policy is screwing with banner orders (e.g. Nian coming out during mid-summer instead of New Year, and W looking like she'll be released far ahead of the game's 1-year anniversary), and pushing events out the door at an uncomfortably breakneck pace. It really says something when CC#0 barely ended for a week and CC#1 loomed ahead in only 1-2 months, which put undue stress on a lot of players, who had to grind extra hard to keep specific operators viable when that happens.
- There is some amount of debate on "Alter" characters and how many of them should be in the game. It's been noted that Alters taking the places on banners could prevent new characters from being introduced, while other arguments propose that this isn't a bad thing, as it helps prevent character bloat while fleshing out existing characters beyond what'd be possible with only one iteration. On a gameplay side, they are both seen as a way to salvage underperforming operators, or a solution that doesn't "fix" the existing unit as much as it does replace them. As for which characters "deserve" an alter the most, it's another can of worms entirely, with some fans basing this off of operators who are subpar in gameplay, operators with hanging plot threads to be explored, operators who have in-story hidden potential or are holding back, personal favorites, or other factors entirely. As a result, alters that don't match the criteria of parts of the fanbase will often be the subject of minor controversy or debate.
- There's been some debate over how Hypergryph handles event medals - namely, that they become impossible to earn after the rerun ends, even when the event is added to the permanent record. While many fans are happy with this, some have expressed a desire for all medals that wouldn't be exclusive to the event's initial duration (e.g. ones relating to spending event currency) to be added back into the game, even if they are no longer guildable.
Canon Fodder: The Flame Demon Incident is a Noodle Incident in-game, but its most common fan interpretation is that it had to do with a flame demon that was somehow inside Ifrit, or even put in her, and it got out momentarily, causing a lot of damage and Ifrit going out of control (not unlike the entire case of Nakahara Chuuya and Arahabaki, but with flames and a little girl instead of with gravity and a young man). Typically, Saria and Silence were the instigators (if unknowing differs from interpretation to interpretation). This is based on Ifrit's E2 art and the fact that an ifrit is a type of flame entity.
- Records of Orignium - Rhine Lab confirms what happened in full: Ifrit did have a semi-conscious Diablo shard implanted in her as part of Parvis and Rhine Lab's experiments, and she went berserk when Silence tried to drug her and break her out of containment, forcing Saria to intervene and nearly kill her in the process.
Casual-Competitive Conflict: A surprising amount for a non-PvP game.
- For the Character Tiers – Because the Early Game Hell of Arknights makes it difficult to gather up resources in promoting characters to Elite 2, beginners may get stuck on deciding which Operator should they invest on first. Casuals who play the game at their relaxed pace prioritize their favorite characters regardless of their rarity or abilities. Competitive players invest first on the higher-rarity operators or Game Breakers available to them in preparation for harder events such as "Contingency Contract". This conflict of comparing characters brought upon the "There are no bad operators, just bad doctors" meme phrase in the fandom, as well as the "Waifu vs. Meta" debates.
- For the Direct Playstyle Conflict – The Hardcore or competitive players would usually remind the other players to optimize the skills of their support Operators who can be borrowed by others, especially if one skill defines an operator or makes them a Game-Breaker. This is because the Friend Support system requires the players to manually assign skills in that specific menu, something that players usually forget after promoting Operators. Take an Elite 2 SilverAsh for example, someone who set him with his third skill is more preferred than someone who still assigned him with his basic first skill.
Catharsis Factor:
- Near the end of the Rainbow Six Siege crossover event "Operation Originium Dust", Ash completely and savagely beats the Big Bad Drudge to near death with just her bare fists after the latter tries to weasel his way out of punishment, as revenge for all the crimes he's committed and for Miarow's death. She only stops short of permanently ending the bastard when Blitz reminds her to save her strength for the other Big Bad waiting. Schwarz even admits that seeing that was completely satisfying.
- "Lone Trail" had a truly satisfying moment when William Loken angers the Doctor due to the way he talks about Rosmontis, leading to a dialogue choice for the player where all three options involve hitting Loken physically (the choice to punch, kick, or slap Loken). In addition to establishing the Doctor as being fiercely protective of Rosmontis, it also is a moment where Loken proves to be such an unpleasant man that for this brief moment, the Doctor's distaste of Loken is strong enough that their reaction briefly synchronizes with the player's desire to hit Loken and their only thoughts are of violence.
Character Tiers: Given the huge amount of characters typical for a gacha game, Arknights is bound to have Tier Lists as well, such as this one, where Operators are ranked depending on their utilities and skills within the same Class.
Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
- In the current state of the game, there are good operators, and there are very good ones. And then there are the Game Breakers, 6-star operators that boast incredibly busted skills and talents that make them hilariously broken to use. For a more detailed breakdown, look no further than this page.
- According to the data shown in the first anniversary livestream for the game's Chinese server:
  - Cuora ranks first among the five most-used 3★-4★ Operators, followed in order by Melantha, Gitano, Jessica and Vigna.
  - When it comes to the top 3 most-common operators promoted to Elite 2, we have in order: Texas, Ptilopsis and Lappland for the 5★ Operators, and SilverAsh, Exusiai and Eyjafjalla for the 6★ Operators.
  - The top 3 most common operators used in the RIIC base are Jessica, Haze and Fang◊ in descending order.
- During the first "Contingency Contract" event, FEater and Angelina were the most common operators brought to stall the Avengers on the top-right lane of the Area 59 map, thanks to the former's push and the latter's slow debuffs.
- Angelina remains to be seen in 90% of all clear videos of Pyrite Gorge, the permanent stage in CC Pyrite. In that stage, there is a Zerg Rush of wraiths and Crownslayer, whose teleporting this time cannot be disabled and there is a risk where she is weighted.
- If we're talking about Contingency Contract more, other operators often seen are Ceobe (since her talent actually scales with the DEF buffs enemies get, turning risks on their head and any ATK debuffs won't affect said talent), Specter (her invincibility is often used to withstand hard-hitting enemies) and Blaze (3-blocker with DPS that makes her able to hold lanes).
- According to the anniversary livestreams, Myrtle was the single most commonly used operator across CC Cinder, Lead Seal, and Spectrum, placing above powerful 6★s like Saria and Surtr, and even her own 5★ counterpart Elysium.
- When it comes to Chapter 8's True Final Boss, expect to see Nightingale almost all of the time. Her substantial RES buffs are a massive boon in the stage when it comes to surviving the very dangerous waves of fireballs in the boss fight (you can't just retreat everyone and deploy after the fireballs are gone, because there are enemies trying to sneak through, and you need to block them) and pretty much brings the SNK Boss fight from 'very difficult' to 'manageable'.
- For Integrated Strategies, recruiting operators goes per sets of generated class tickets, but there are a few operators who are considered universally solid picks:
  - Thorns. He's possibly one of the most versatile operators in the mode bordering on Master of All, as he's able to deal ranged damage (also letting him shoot down drones) coupled with Damage Over Time to get rid of armored enemies, block 2 enemies, and - when promoted to Elite 2 - use his wide-ranged S3 to let him output high sustained DPS while his passive healing lets him handle many enemies by himself and defend isolated lanes. All of this made him a borderline no-brainer pick if players owned him and had the resources/Guard voucher, especially if they had taken the starting loadout that instantly promoted guards.
  - May. Her low rarity meant a low cost of 2 Hope upon recruit, and gave players a fast-firing DPS along with crowd-control to boot. She was especially useful during Duck Lord bonus encounters due to the Lord's high speed and inability to be blocked, as May's rapid crowd control had the potential to almost trivialize him, netting you a free Collection.
  - Scene. While Summoners aren't often seen in the overall meta, picking any of them during Integrated Strategies didn't just mean picking only them, but their army of summons as well. The survivability of Scene's summons, their low cost, her ability to infinitely regenerate them, and the relative commonness of isolated lanes during the event (or even smaller, as per the 'Ambush' map) gave her her nickname 'Queen of Integrated Strategies'.
  - Jaye. Similarly to May, he has the favor of being of a low rarity, which he returns for a solid pick when it comes to taking care of isolated lanes and acting as a pseudo-Medic (especially when one hasn't been able to get one yet) due to his ability to steal the life out of anything he hits proportionally to his damage. He scales well with a lot of artefacts, either increasing his ASPD, his damage and thus his Life Drain, or making his downtime so short that it may as well not exist.
  - For both Integrated Strategies and Stationary Security Service, Goldenglow has been high on the popularity list due to her rapid Arts attacks, a talent that greatly increases her damage potential and her passive RES ignore. Her third skill expands her range to the entire map while simultaneously keeping the same priority, making it very effective at catching leaks. The icing on the cake is that buffs for ASPD and ATK are very accessible within these gamemodes, letting her reach the rampup on her talent much quicker while she will rapidly spam her drones all over the map in her third skill, spending very little time to off each individual target.
- For Integrated Strategies, the absolute best choice of starting Operators would be the First Move Advantage team (Vanguard, Sniper, Specialist) consisting of Fang, Jaye, and Kroos/Blue Poison. This team has everything you need to ensure a smooth start. DP generation, 2 melee Operators for separate locations, long-range/anti-air capability, insane DPS to kill everything, even Metal Crabs, healing, and fast-redployment. The team also cost only 5 Hope at higher difficulty so you can always afford them, and low DP cost so they can be plopped down early. Look at Arknights' That One Level entry for the early part of Integrated Strategies, and know that this team can take each and every one of them with no issue, even the Emergency version. They can even take on the early Metal Slimes thanks to fast self-heal, high dps, and 2 Operators to reveal the invisible one.
Continuity Lockout: Because several plot points or backstories are scattered and require the fans to make an effort in putting them together, the story of Arknights can be complex and confusing at certain points, especially to newcomers who missed out on limited-time story events. Fortunately, lore discussions, lore documents, wikis, and cutscene archives exist to help in catching-up with the overarching stories.
- Meteorite gets casually mentioned in the "Grani and the Knights' Treasure" event despite not appearing there at all.
- Players who started during the "Heart of Surging Flame" event may be confused on who "Male Tourist B" is and why he had a cameo. He is Big Bob, who made his debut on the "Knights' Treasure" event, which takes place before "Heart of Surging Flame".
Difficulty Spike: Several in the Main Story, which extends to the stages based around their difficulty level.
- Episode 2 is where the game starts to take off its easy mode gloves and assume you know what you're doing. Not only does the level design start to get less straightforward, the new enemies are significantly stronger than before, particularly the large numbers of heavy units and enemy Casters (especially the Senior Casters that do splash damage). Furthermore, the boss fight against Skullshatterer, is significantly more dangerous than the ones against Crownslayer and W before them. These new enemies will handily dismantle an unprepared defense, so unless you pulled a Disc-One Nuke from the gacha, it demands that you raise your units to a high level and develop the appropriate strategies to deploy them, particularly when it comes to drawing aggro.
- Episode 5 is a smaller but still noticeable one. The stage layouts tend to be very open and are more complex than ever, and the chapter very rapidly starts rolling out improved enemies - basic soldiers and casters are upgraded into their significantly stronger Spec Ops variants, while new and dangerous enemies like the Breakers and regenerating Possessed are introduced. Notably, up until this point the aerial threats were limited to the rather weak Monsters, but the chapter adds in special drones like the Bombtail, Frost and Arts Master units which require specific planning to work around and will decimate you if you give them half the chance.
- Episode 6. The first half of the chapter is similar to Episode 5 up until the Enraged Possessed start appearing, upon which the difficulty goes up several notches due to their hyper-inflated stats that can rip right through even a well-leveled squad. The difficulty only goes up past that point, as the Yeti Squadron and their annoying Cold mechanic is thrown at you - their often unavoidable freeze debuffs are essentially guaranteed to collapse your defense if you plan poorly, and nearly every enemy past this point (along with some of the indestructible hazards) will either inflict Cold or deal significantly boosted damage against Frozen targets, letting them overwhelm you. And no, this isn't something that high-rarity units can solve alone, because even units with status resistance can still be easily frozen forever due to the sheer number of ice-based threats the game throws at you at once.
- Episode 8, but not for the reasons one might expect. The new enemies are quite powerful, but the focus now lies on Escort Missions where the player must safely ensure Ursus Civilians (or Talulah) make it to the end of the level without dying. The latter isn't too bad since they're a formidable fighter, but not only are the former slow, weak, and defenseless, about every enemy in the chapter is programmed to prioritize them, meaning that they will easily kill them and make you fail if you aren't able to eliminate or stop the enemies as fast as possible. Further complicating things is the fact that the Civilians often take long paths to the exit that may be obstructed by very tanky roadblocks that you have to get rid of before they get mauled to death by enemies. Any level that isn't an escort mission is instead stuffed to the brim by Demonic Spiders like regular and enraged Possessed, and there are no less than three boss fights which are each candidates for That One Boss.
Does This Remind You of Anything?: Silence's over-protectiveness of Ifrit and refusal to let her see Saria after a Noodle Incident in the past sounds a lot like two parents fighting over custody of their child. Further evidence can be found if you scrutinize their CGs, where both Ifrit and Saria seem to possess one of Silence's feathers, a token she only ever gives to those close to her heart.
- That Saria still holds onto hers implies that Silence still means a lot to her, not dissimilar to how the dads in many separated families still hold onto keepsakes of their (ex-)wives for their sentimental value. The rift between them was torn when something happened to Ifrit in the past and Saria apparently "walked out" when she needed her the most, something she only came to realize later and Silence never forgave her for, much like a neglectful father having a sudden Heel Realization. As typical for such fathers in reality, Saria has a strong desire to make up to Ifrit for her absence, despite objections from the "mother".
- Ifrit, meanwhile, acts as the typical child who's utterly confused by the tension between her "parents", something she's too young to understand. More revelations from the official Record of Originium: Rhine Lab comic show that she blames herself for whatever drove the wedge between Saria and Silence, something that children from broken families can relate to all too well.
Draco in Leather Pants:
- In general, many of Rhodes Island's Operators aren't exactly paragons of virtue even discounting those with violent pasts or abrasive personalities, with the crew including sadistic mercenaries like W or Ho'olheyak, morally ambiguous scientists like Dorothy, war puppeteers like Passenger, or sociopathic fugitives like Virtuosa. In fan works, fans tend to heavily downplay those parts of their personalities, outright remove them, or spin them in a way that makes them more appealing.
- FrostNova seems to get this the most, especially due to Chapter 6 revealing a significant amount of her character and backstory, as well as giving her a lot of interaction with the Doctor themselves. The fandom's adoration of her reaches Fix Fic levels at times, with many pining for an eventual Heel–Face Turn despite her death at the conclusion of Episode 6. With the announcement of the Destiny 2 crossover looming in the game's future, her fanclub began clamoring loudly for Yelena to return as a resurrected Guardian, even if it meant sacrificing her old memories to come back from the dead this way.
- Likewise, her dear ol' daddy Patriot is also reasonably popular, especially after players found out how he's just a Punch-Clock Villain who's actually a very chill person, and is still quite chummy with his old friend Hellagur despite working for opposite factions. His sheer indomitable strength combined with his story being possibly the most tragic of all the Reunion leaders earns him even more points, particularly since he tragically joins his daughter in death after a last stand at the end of Episode 7.
- From the Knight's Treasure event, there's Big Bob. Not only is he one of the sanest Reunion bosses seen so far and not actually evil, the fact that he qualifies for status as The Woobie endeared him to a lot of players.
- After the introduction of Flamebringer, W slowly started to get this treatment as well. The release of Darknights Memoir, which puts W on the center stage, only further fans the fire, particularly regarding her relationship with Babel. This ultimately culminated in Hypergryph tossing the playerbase a gigantic bone, when W is eventually announced as a recruitable Sniper in the 1-year anniversary livestream.
- Among the event bosses, Jesselton gets some love from fans thanks to his cool design, his composed and charismatic Faux Affably Evil personality, his iron manipulation and enhancements giving him Armstrong-like powers that let him fight toe-to-toe with the likes of Mountain, and some Awesome Music for his fight on top of it. Even his status as a Butt-Monkey sometimes only seems to make him more popular, with him often being the subject of amusing memes.
- Fans and fan works often downplay Mandragora's murderous instability, seething hatred for Victoria, and various crimes (particularly executing civilians and killing off Bagpipe's old squad) in favor of playing up her somewhat innocent design to paint her as a Troubled, but Cute girl who must be protected. Her getting more backstory, alongside being left for dead by Dublinn and rescued by Misery in Chapter 10, left many fans hoping that she'd undergo a Heel–Face Turn and become playable in spite of it all.
- Dame Gertrude, from Lingering Echoes, for all her willingness to sacrifice Ebenholz and an entire hall of bystanders in order to kill a number of Witch King's loyalists in what was ultimately an act of petty revenge, has had a number of fans of her own due to her generous figure, her unusual resemblance to the later released Texas the Omertosa, and snappy dress sense. A number of her down-bad fans lamented her death at Biegler's hands and proclaimed they would have been willing to rehabilitate her just to recruit her into Rhodes Island.
- Ho'olheyak, from Dorothy's Vision, despite being a morally ambiguous mercenary who is rather cavelier with people's lives and almost gets Muelsyse killed at Saria's hands, has had a number of people 'down bad' for her due to her shapely figure, smug demeanour, and flattering dress. With the announcement of her becoming a playable character, the reveal of her maniacally delighted smile in the Lone Trail PV, and her selection of teasing and seductive voiced lines in both Japanese and English, her growing fan crowd was utterly delighted at actually becoming able to bring her home.
- Lone Trail saw Ferdinand Clooney warming up to some players despite being the Big Bad of Dorothy's Vision. He still very much remains the morally questionable egomaniac from before outside of being slightly tempered by his time in exile, but the story further fleshed out his personality and motives along with his valid criticisms of Kristen's obsession, as well as further elaborating on how his enormous arrogance is backed up by a genuine, unshakable drive for science and progress as he repeatedly spits in death's face just for a chance to salvage Kristen's research, all while continuing to be a a massive narcissist.
- From the same event is Justin Fitzroy Jr.. He's a slimeball with a propensity for bribery and foul play, along with being almost comically corrupt when it comes to money and business, but he still earned some fans due to his immense charisma and interesting backstory leading into his desire to take control of opportunity itself.
- Kristen Wright herself is generally honored as a visionary and legendary pioneer for her role in shattering the false sky and revealing the truth of space to Terra, even with all the in and out-of-universe concerns about how her obsession paved the way to her goal with suffering and apathy.
- Arturia, Executor's morally-dubious yet attractive-looking cousin who delights in watching tragedies unfold after enabling repressed people with their own memories, has her own fanclub who wants her to play them like she plays her cello. Players who liked her are extra pleased that the CN server has already revealed her to become the playable operator Virtuosa, and have already declared their intent to save headhunting tickets and Orundum to pull for her when that event banner arrives on the Global servers.
- Subverted in Oren's case, as his antics in Hortus de Escapimo have cost him most of his fanbase from Guide Ahead. Being a Sankta pretty boy didn't help him retain his fans after he went too far and tried to order a massacre of the Sarkaz civilians taking refuge at the monastery out of sheer paranoia.

E-G

Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Ace, the bearded Rhodes Island Operator is popular with Western fans since he's a normal-looking older man^note amongst the cast of pretty animal people and looks like he came from Rainbow Six Siege.
- Big Bob is perhaps one of the most well-liked Reunion leaders because of his personality, Punch-Clock Villain status, and receiving a genuinely happy ending by the end of his debut event.
  - His close friend Mudrock would follow suit when they appeared as the Arc Villain of Twilight of Wolumonde due to their sympathetic characterization and motives, but especially because at the same time the event debuted on Global, it was announced that she would be joining Rhodes Island as an Operator on CN, while also revealing what she looks like beneath her armor. To put things into perspective, the fandom were even more excited for her than they were for Rosmontis, the Limited Operator she debuted alongside and a hotly-anticipated character in her own right.
- The Emperor very quickly became a Memetic Badass after his formal introduction. While he didn't get as much screentime during Heart of Surging Flame, Code of Brawl firmly cemented his position as a fan favorite due to the silly antics he and the rest of Penguin Logistics got into. Such is his popularity that a decently-sized portion of the fanbase actually lobbies for him to be implemented as an actual Operator in the future, and they actually got their wish (albeit in the form of a joke stage) in April Fools 2021.
- Code of Brawl featured a subplot with Waai Fu fighting the mafia together with an Ursus cook named Fillet. Though Waai Fu was introduced as an Operator when the event launched, Fillet was just an NPC, but he quickly gained fans for his cool design, combat prowess, and the fun dynamic the two had together, to the point that there was still a demand for him to become an Operator long after the event was over. He finally made his playable debut alongside the rerun of Heart of Surging Flame under the new name Jaye, where he picked up even more fans for being surprisingly powerful despite his low rarity.
- Viviana Droste, the Candle Knight, quickly became a fan favourite after she became a prominent character in Near Light due to her unique and stylish clothes and the way she quickly established a strong rapport with Nearl. Fans of Viviana were quite happy when she was revealed as a 6-star Arts Fighter in Zwillingstürme Im Herbst.
- The Nightmare Knight Tola and the Blood Knight Dikaiopolis are also quite popular. The former is due to his status as one of the wandering last descendants of the ancient Khagan, his insane idealistic persistence in making sure his traditions stay alive, his cool armor design and illusory Reality Warping powers (particularly the moment where he summons an illusory horde of his ancestors), and his unknown future after venturing into the unexplored northlands. Meanwhile, the Blood Knight is fairly popular due to invoking Dark Is Not Evil by being a towering, immensely powerful crimson warrior with dangerous blood Arts and a brutal boss fight, only to turn out to be a hero to the Infected and a genuinely nice man just trying to survive in the cutthroat world of Kazimierz.
- Sharp became the most popular of the four Integrated Strategies-exclusive operators after Break the Ice gave him his day in the limelight. His calm, professional nature won him a lot of fans, as did the climax of the event in which he faces off against the Black Knight and, despite being clearly outmatched, is able to win her respect and buy enough time for the Doctor's plan to succeed. His Western popularity is also helped by the fact that, much like Ace before him, he's a realistic-looking grizzled soldier in a world of cute Little Bit Beastly girls.
- The Black Knight, Degenbrecher, also became a massive hit among the fanbase with her introduction in Break the Ice. With her sharp-dressed and attractive design, and her absolute badassery in battle, she is among the most requested characters by players to make playable. Her fans would finally have their prayers answered when she was announced to be a playable 6* Operator in "The Rides to Lake Silbernherze".
- The Chained Sarkaz Girl, from a Schmuck Bait encounter node in Integrated Strategies, quickly got herself a bunch of fans who made fan vids and fanart of her, due to how attractive she was and the nature of her encounter. Hypergryph seems to be aware of this, as a similar event with a nearly identical Sarkaz woman has appeared in every iteration of Integrated Strategies since then.
- Introduced in "A Light Spark in Darkness" as a full characterization of the Hateful Avenger Elite Mook, Red, the Redblade grew popular due to his design and the existing popularity of the Avenger-class enemies, along with his personality and how helpful he had been to Goldenglow throughout the event story. Fans are quick to attribute the Operation Blade lobby theme to him whenever he draws his sword.
- Andoain from "Guide Ahead" garnered significant popularity due to a combination of his charismatic design, his sympathetic ideals which to some make him more compelling than the main characters of the event, and his boss theme which quickly became one of the most well-known songs in the entire game.
- Ulpianus, first appearing in "Stultifera Navis", quickly became popular for being an Abyssal Hunter with a badass design, his backstory as a mentor and leader to Skadi (some even fanon him as a Parental Substitute to her, usually for comedic purposes), his stoic and no-nonsense personality, and his impressive feats within the plot, namely being the one to finish off the Endspeaker after a drawn out Rasputinian Death. Many fans hope for him to be eventually added to the roster as the first male Abyssal Hunter.
- Logos managed to win over the fanbase before he even had a character design. He made a great first impression as the unseen viewpoint character in Rewinding Breeze — Recollection, where he saved the lives of Mudrock and her squad and brought them to Rhodes Island, making him directly responsible for another dark horse becoming playable. While further information about him was scarce, this air of mystery only piqued further interest. It wasn't until Episode 11 that he'd make his onscreen debut, and it quickly became one of the most talked-about aspects of the chapter.
Epileptic Trees: The game is littered with Story Breadcrumbs in every Operator's profile, event cutscenes, and oblique references in furniture and designs, so it's no surprise that it spawned so many bizarre fan theories:
- Kal'tsit's interactions with the Doctor have lead to the popular interpretation that the two were romantically involved at one point prior to the Doctor's amnesia, and that she's being a tsundere this time around. Chapter 7 and 8 confirms this to be completely untrue. Kal'tsit holds the Doctor openly responsible for killing Theresa, and actively hates them. The BABEL event debunks it further by revealing that Kal'Tsit is created by the Doctor.
- As written on the WMG tab, it's quite a mystery why Kroos doesn't want to open her eyes. The fandom interprets that once Kroos does open them, it's a sign of getting serious, or showing a hidden side of her personality that was repressed for too long.
- The Archive Files and Operator Profiles are vague at explaining Texas's "old self" and why Lappland or some characters in the Code of Brawl event mention it. This also makes her dynamic with Lappland quite confusing.
  - The most common fan theory is that Texas lived to the thrill of fighting and they used to duel a lot, judging from the lore tidbits that hint how Lappland hates the currently coward version of Texas and is seeking to restore her more serious side. The Penguin Logistics trailer also implies that Texas scarred Lappland in the face. Texas herself is noted to be holding back her true strength, while Lappland's backstory covers the theme of revenge. Because of these, it's common in the fandom to think that Lappland wants to have a rematch with Texas at their peak performance. However, a line from Lappland^note hints that she wants the old Texas back without necessarily resorting to violence nor a rematch. Il Siracusano sheds some light to this and instead reveals that Lappland was fixated on Texas for how she willingly made the decision to leave the Mafia on her own accord, and thus jossing and mitigating this theory.
  - Another popular theory about the whole "Lappland and Texas" plot is that the former is a stalker Yandere. It's a bizzare theory because there's nothing in the profiles or archive files that imply Lappland having a crush on Texas. Even though it's as simple as it sounds, this theory is a reason for why Lappland and Texas are very popular in the fandom in terms of shipping, fanart and memes.
- Due to the existence of old concept art from Girls Frontline that depicts a character that resembles W being part of AR Team, one of the theories among the fandom is that W is in fact a recycled concept character from Girls Frontline that was carried over to Arknights when people from Mica Team split off into Hypergryph. Fueling this is the revelation of an Girls Frontline artbook with many old discarded concepts, such as animal people, magic, crystal outgrowths; things that seem the basis of Arknights.
- There's a massive whale-like skeleton in the background of the base menu that hasn't been acknowledged by anyone in-game, leading to speculation as to why that skeleton is seemingly integrated into Rhodes Island's ship. "Darknights Memoir" hints that that the skeleton was always inside the ship as Babel operators discover it when they're securing the vessel that would eventually become Rhodes Island. Episode 13 fuels the flames by revealing Theresis is in possession of a similar skeleton which is the remains of a fallen Feranmut, and that it's capable of some form of space-time bending despite being a mere corpse.
- Amiya and the Doctor are seen facing a massive reptilian eye behind several windows in trailers and promotional art. Said massive reptilian eye has not actually shown up in the game yet, leading to mass speculation as to what the thing actually is.
- The "Heart of Surging Flame" event had some Arknights fans from communities like Reddit who thought that the music artist D.D.D. is supposedly Closure in disguise. What doesn't match though are the characters' races (Vouivre and Sarkaz respectively) and the sizes of their chests (Closure is noticeably busty). This theory is later Jossed in one of the event's side chapters which reveals D.D.D. talking with Closure on the phone and both of them are friends.
- There are many FrostNova fans holding hope that she actually survived Chapter 6 and is just in hiding at the moment. They point out that her body was last seen in the Doctor's custody, and there do exist methods of seemingly bringing people back from the dead (such as the procedure used on the Doctor). In addition, the chorus line for the official character song of Chapter 6 is "You haven't seen the last of me.", implying FrostNova's eventual return. Despite the fact that as of Chapter 7, Frostnova's body has spent some time in an incinerator, some fans refuse to give up hope. Unfortunately for those fans, she seems to have been permanently laid to rest in Chapter 8.
- When Folinic, the first Medic with the capability to damage enemies, was added to the game there was speculation among fans that Hypergryph may have been using her to test the waters before reintroducing Kal'tsit as an Operator, as she had previously appeared as a Medic with a damaging summon in the closed beta before being cut from the final game. Whether or not this was the case, a playable Kal'tsit would eventually be re-implemented come the second anniversary event Under Tides.
- Several descriptions in Ceobe's Fungimist hint that there is something terrifying hidden in the frozen northern regions of Terra that people either don't know about or don't want to know about. The collections associated with it (a frozen claw and a piece of incredibly dense connective tissue, as well as an unknown project in the tundra that was terminated upon finding said tissue), and the existence of the Frozen Monstrosity (who was turned into a demon by becoming assimilated by "the tundra's curse") hint towards things ranging from an Eldritch Abomination beneath the surface of the ice, a curse permeating the tundra, the icy land itself being an Eldritch Location like how the game describes the sea, or all of the above. A Walk in the Dust confirms that there are extradimensional demonic entities encroaching on Terra through Sami, and that Ursus' elites have not only been battling them, but taking them into themselves for power and containment.
- Executor's distant relative was theorized to be Sora as his Trust Increase 1 line mentions a distant relative who had great musical talent and managed to pursue that path against all expectations, all the while using illusions for her craft. This was seen as fitting with Sora's unknown race as she uses illusions to make herself appear as a Lupo, but it was officially revealed to not be the case in "Guide Ahead" as his relative is named Arturia, the reason Executor has enmity with her is because she's a declared criminal of Laterano, and she's been hiding in Leithania for the past several years.
- The second anniversary post-credits PV has several scenes (Most notably Amiya and Theresa's voices overlapping, and an older-looking Amiya with Theresa-like pink eyes and white arts) that seem to be implying that not only is Amiya Theresa's successor, but Theresa may be actually be inhabiting her body as a second consciousness, similar to Kashchey and Talulah.
- Because of how abrupt their reveal was and the sheer lack of information on them despite their seeming significance to the grander story and the Doctor's backstory, pretty much everything regarding Priestess is this. One particularly popular fan theory posits that she's a colleague or close partner of the Doctor from a bygone era, who put them into the Sarcophagus to save them from some apocalyptic disaster that turned Terra into its current state. Many of these theories also involve the disaster in question involving the creation of Originium or the Little Bit Beastly races of Terra, the latter of which stems from the fact that neither the Doctor or Priestess have any visible animal traits. Lone Trail elaborates that the Doctor and Priestess did work together at some point, and that Priestess is supposedly "responsible" for Originium, although the circumstances of the Doctor being put into the Sarcophagus or their relationship to the Ancient races remains unclear.
Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory:
- While most of the plaque furnitures are obvious references to fairytale literature with matching Flavor Text, the "Uniqueness" plaque is instead, interpreted by some fans to be an allusion to the story Virgin Mary's Child. The story details how a girl opens twelve doors, behind them she finds the 12 Disciples. And after the 13th door, which she shouldn't have opened, she finds the Trinity.
- There are several allusions in this game to the biblical story of Noah, the Ark and the Great Flood:
  - The game's title itself, Arknights might be named after the Ark that Noah built. The Chinese title of the game, Tomorrow's Ark, certainly indicates that specific context is appropriate.
  - The Catastrophes are natural disasters that broke the society, similar to the Great Flood that wiped the Earth clean.
  - The game's usage of "mobile/nomadic cities" that move around in order to avoid Catastrophes. The Ark was built to safeguard those inside, as it travels across the sea. The protagonist party, Rhodes Island, is also noted to be using one in a smaller scale, and it might mean that among the mobile cities, Rhodes Island is the allusion to the Ark.
  - All of the Operators that ally with Rhodes Island are classified based on their Ancient race. The Ancient races represent individuals with animalistic physical traits, similar to how the Ark housed several pairs of animals from different species. The only non-animalistic Ancient races are Sankta and Sarkaz, which represent Biblical angels and devils respectively.
  - A Trust line from SilverAsh speaks a desire to let his bird Tenzin to fly on the deck. In the Biblical narrative, Noah sent out birds to seek for signs of life after the rain calmed down.
    Could you show me to Rhodes Island's deck? No, I'd just like to get a view of the area. Tenzin needs to spread his wings every once in a while as well. He must be longing to soar through the night sky.
  - At the end of the flood, no one survives except for those in the Ark. This has led to fans theorizing that at the end, Reunion will lose, but anyone not in Rhodes Island (i.e in the Ark) will die too.
  - And then there's all of the hints about a Greater-Scope Villain in the form of the Abyssal Hunters, who live under the sea and have their own plans for the surface world.
  - The backstory contains a number of biblical references that ties into this, like the Law of the Sankta being like the Ten Commandments that Moses received, the original Tower of Babel event that split the ancient Teekaz peoples into the Sarkaz and the myriad Ancients and provides the name for the doomed organisation Kal'tsit and Theresa founded, and Horn's responsibility for breaching the great defensive fortress walls of Londinium to break the stranglehold the Kazdel Commission held over the city, as lampshaded by Manfred, being a sly nod to the blowing of the horns that broke the walls of Jericho.
  - Mudrock's Silent Night swimsuit skin has her offer you an apple that evokes the icon of the original Forbidden Fruit, and her hammer has Biblical references engraved into it.
Evil Is Cool: The Emperor's Blades may be the cruel top-ranking soldiers of the warmongering Ursus Empire, but their inhuman designs, incredible combat prowess, supernatural abilities, and the revelation that they're empowered by Eldritch Abominations from beyond civilization and work to keep them at bay wins them a lot of points with the fandom, helped by them having a memorable but tough-as-nails boss fight in the form of the Pursuer.
Fanon:
- Lappland is often treated as an honorary member of Penguin Logistics by fans, both for her close association with Texas and for being drawn by the same artist who handled the team. This does go against her Archive Files, which note the Penguin Logistics Operators don't like her and she rarely interacts with any of them besides Texas, but at the same time she's never shown any intent to harm them, and this piece of official art showing them all playing video games together suggests it's not out of the question that she could befriend them someday.
  Lappland: It's been a while... I see that Texas has gained some buddies. Ha... very well, I'd love to get to know them.
- In the Operational Intelligence substory Survival Notorization, Executor decides to become Vermeil's bodyguard until she can be brought to Rhodes Island for treatment. Fans like to take it a step further and make him a full-blown Parental Substitute for her, usually for the sake of cuteness and comedy. The manga anthology chapter A Life Less Lived would later use this same interpretation of the characters, though the game itself has yet to show them interact following their arrival at Rhodes Island.
- One scene from Twilight of Wolumonde in which Mudrock talks about the farm Big Bob and his squadmates started in Columbia following Grani and the Knights' Treasure, and shows an obvious interest in the fact they're growing hops, has led to a moderately popular depiction of her as a heavy drinker.
- Saria tends to be treated by the fandom as a Bumbling Mom who makes lame dad jokes. In canon, while Saria is very kind and caring towards Ifrit, she is generally a serious, no-nonsense hardass.
- The fanbase have collectively agreed that the King Mook Avenger who serves as the boss of Contingency Contracts Beta, Operation Blade, and Operation Basepoint is actually Red from A Light Spark in Darkness, as he's heavily based on the Avenger enemy type himself, and the lyrics of Basepoint indicate that Red came back for revenge after Beta and Blade. It helps that the Avenger of Area 59 and Basepoint is also called "Reid" in the commented gamecode, the same as Red in the CN script for "A Light Spark in Darkness".
Fandom-Enraging Misconception:
- Mistaking canon from fanon-only content and memes especially when somebody wants to have a serious discussion about the lore. This is why the "SilverAsh Bloodline" memes ^note from the English fanbase are being discredited by lore enthusiasts. He doesn't actually have a desire for the Doctor to bear a child with his sisters, yet it was quite common for some fans to admit they were led to believe in thinking that it's SilverAsh's canon characterization. The "Ex-wife Kal'tsit" memes are also derided and received flak for similar reasons as they disregard the Doctor's murder of Theresa and Kal'tsit's justified hatred and distrust towards the Doctor over it.
- Mispronouncing names. This is one reason the sponsored WatchMojo videos aren't taken seriously. An infamous case is when they pronounced Ptilopsis's name like "Tioplsis" or "Tea Apple Sauce". The latter was so memorable that the English fanbase uses it as a comical nickname for Ptilopsis.
- For some Global players, stating that Yostar is the game's developers will earn ire from others. This is because the game is developed by Hypergryph and Studio Montagne while Yostar is the publisher for the game's Global and JP server.
Fandom Rivalry:
- With Girls' Frontline, big time. A fair bit of this extends to the bad blood between the developers themselves; Hypergryph, the game's primary developer, was founded by developers who left Mica Team due to substantial creative differences and wanted to create the game they felt GFL "could" have been. This has bled over into the fanbases, thanks especially to Arknights' broader concept bringing players who are otherwise turned off by some thematic aspects of GFL. Also fueling things from the GFL side is Yostar's (A long time rival of Mica) involvement in both Hypergryph and the game.
- On January-February 2020, Epic Seven got compared a lot to Arknights simply because both are published by Yostar in Japan. Some E7 fans claim that AK stole the thunder and fanfare from their game in terms of marketing and online presence, especially since AK got released in Japan just 3 months after E7 did. But as some time passed, this was dismissed as a minor thing by fans who play both games and explain that they can be played together instead of being rivals. The debates about the games' popularity also ended when fans just accepted how the choices of games between the Western and Japanese audiences can vary.
- In a similar case to how the E7 fanbase initially reacted, there are some tensions in the West between Azur Lane fans and Arknights due to feelings of the latter getting a bit more focus from Yostar when it was released, and the former game having feelings of toes being stepped on (Artists and players jumping ship). In China, things are worse with the playerbases at outright war for a number of reasons. Fortunately, there still exists an overlap of Friendly Fandoms in most other areas.
- A rather toxic and serious rivalry cropped up between the Arknights and Genshin Impact fanbases in China. Stuck in a relative content drought, Chinese Arknights fans began blaming Genshin Impact and various other popular mobile games for taking attention away from Arknights, and vented their anger by deliberately posting extremely graphic art of characters from rival games on their respective fan forums. Needless to say, this was the start of a bitter Flame War between ''Arknights' fans and multile mobile game fandoms. This rivalry resulted in a significant amount of gloating when the controversy of Genshin Impact's lackluster first anniversary came out alongside the follow-up controversy of Mihoyo attempting to whitewash over the outrage by spamming fake reviews to prop up their Google Play Store review ratings, with Doctors around the world persuading angry Travellers to ditch their Emergency Meals and come to Rhodes Island instead.
Foe Yay Shipping: Lappland is reaaaaaally obsessed in getting Texas back to her "old self" and stalks her constantly. It's highly implied that they've dueled a lot in the past and probably always end in a stalemate. Since Lapp is a Blood Knight, well you get the idea.
Fountain of Memes: Quite a few, actually, namely Kroos, Skadi, Shaw, Exusiai, and a lot more that can be found here.
Friendly Fandoms:
- Of course, there are also Girls' Frontline players who are drawn to Arknights by the similar tone and aesthetics. This is more prominent in the English-speaking playerbase, as the drama between MICA Team, Yostar, and HyperGryph happened mostly over Chinese social media.
- Some Azur Lane players also expressed their interest in the game, usually citing Yostar's management of AL as the reason.
- Quite a good number of Fate/Grand Order players have also picked up the game for a variety of reasons ranging from having a similarly story-focused content, taking a breather from the game's monotonous grind, the gorgeous art or just the fact that the gacha is more generous.
- Speaking of grindy gachas, there's an overlapping fanbase with Epic Seven, Granblue Fantasy, Honkai Impact 3rd and Sinoalice, treating Arknights as a side gacha that is played simultaneously with one of the four grindy gachas mentioned, or as a refresher when one is waiting for the stamina to be refilled on their "main" game.
- With Plants vs. Zombies because of their similar Tower Defense genre. It's common to hear comparisons between this game and PvZ, or sentiments about AK players feeling nostalgic on older tower defense games that they've played before. On the flipside, some detractors use the comparison (to the game or genre) as an insult. The devs seem to be aware of this, as the mechanics of the Dossoles Holiday event have been compared to the game in question, with DH-EX-4 being for all intents and purposes an exact replica of the Backyard Pool.
- Outside of fellow gacha game or tower defense communities, there has been an overlap of Arknights and Rainbow Six Siege players, judging by the amount of crossover jokes, memes, photo-edits and fanarts that the English communities create. It also helps that both games have similar military themes and Operators who are identified using codenames or aliases. The fans rejoiced when the two crossed over for "Operation Originium Dust".
- Surprisingly, with the Command & Conquer: Tiberian Series - both are set on worlds where there are hazardous crystals that slowly poison the planet, but also have extreme economic value, and feature a highly0advanced terrorist organization as the main villains.
- The game has an unexpected positive relationship with Pokémon with the overlap of people who like both. This may be due to the high amount of correlation the Operators have with the Pokémon themselves in regards to basis on real-life animal species^note. The usage of some RPG Elements within Arknights as mechanical overlap with the Eastern RPG nature of the Pokémon core series definitely helps.
- A rather healthy relationship exists with that of hololive. While it was initially of limited interest and only involved the occasional fanart, mainly due to how some of Hololive's cast having Little Bit Beastly designs that wouldn't look out of place in Arknights, this relationship skyrocketed after the more popular talents like Shirakami Fubuki started livestreaming themselves playing the game, some of them even having personal favorites. However, things got decidedly less friendly between Hololive and the Chinese subset of the Arknights fanbase following the "Taiwan Incident" in the Fall of 2020, with Chinese fans swearing off Hololive and the Hololive talents no longer streaming Arknights or any other Yostar-published properties.
- Blue Archive shares some of its fan community with Arknights, in particular the Laterano and Sankta fans. Guide Ahead in particular improved the kinship between the communities with the crossover jokes that resulted.
- Uma Musume, likewise, has a similar shared fan community, due to the similarities with Kazimierz and the competition Knight/Idol Knight scene. The Nearl trilogy of sidestories (Maria Nearl, Pinus Sylvestis, and Near Light) in particular brought the fan communities together, and a number of crossover jokes, fic fuel, and memes are shared as such.
- Arknights has players who are also vocal Capcom fans, particularly from the Resident Evil, Monster Hunter and Devil May Cry franchises. It was first evident when the Chrisposting memes were cloned into SilverAsh's memes, when the "Lappdumb" memes were briefly mixed with Vergil's memes, and finally when an Arknights x Capcom/Monster Hunter crossover event was officially revealed. Hilariously prior to the latter's announcement during the Arknights 3.5 Anniversary Stream, the Devil May Cry 5 title screen announcer was played in the background, causing Arknights players to briefly expect the Capcom collab was with DMC until Hypergryph posted an apology for the mistake.
- With the latter's release, there's a significant overlap with Limbus Company fans due to both games being strategic gachas with a similar aesthetic, an emphasis on story within a dystopian setting, and even a faceless and slightly unhinged Amnesiac Hero with an implied dark past who is constantly depicted as being beleaguered by their employees. In pieces of crossover art and other media, it's often joked that the venn diagram between the two fandoms is a perfect circle.
Gateway Series: From the general gacha communities, a lot admit Arknights as their first entry to the Tower Defense subgenre of gacha games, especially after the Turn-Based Combat and real-time action genres have oversaturated the market. Aside from this curiosity of knowing how a tower defense gacha plays like, the anime art style worked in attracting the audience. It also helps that there aren't that much anime-styled tower defense games competing with Arknights in the first place.
Genius Bonus:
- Some materials exist in real life.
- Several concepts are taken from the field of medicine. Fitting for this game's main organization that focuses on the care and treatment of the sick.
  - Rhodes Island may have been named after the real-world Isle of Rhodes, which was occupied by The Knights Hospitallers at one point of its history. The Hospitallers were known to provide care for the sick and wounded pilgrims, and possessed some of the best medical knowledge of its time.
  - The Faction Motto of Rhodes Island ("May I enjoy my life and practice my art, respected by all men and in all times"), is an excerpt from the Hippocratic Oath.
  - Perfumer is a reference to aromatheraphy, a healing treatment that uses plants and natural oils which may come from flowers. Even in the ancient times, perfumery used flowers and herbs. In this game, Perfumer also has a Talent named after the Lavender, a flower used in many ways including perfumes.
  - Myrrh is named after the resin that can be used as an annointing oil, a frankincense or a perfume. It has also been documented as an analgesic or a painkiller.
  - Hibiscus is named after the flowering plant which also has supposed medicinal benefits aside from being a perfume. It could also be served as an herbal tea.
  - Lancet-2 is named after the alternate name of scalpel ("lancet"), both of which refer to the surgical knife.
  - Warfarin is named after the drug that reduces blood clots in veins or arteries. There could also be a sense of irony here if we remember that the playable Warfarin in Arknights is a vampire...
  - Nightingale is named after Florence Nightingale, the founder of Nursing.
  - Folinic is named after Folinic Acid, a multi-purpose chemical used in treating cancer, certain poisonings, among other complications. Though the In-Universe reason why Folinic chose that name is because it was the answer to the first mistake she made during a study session.
- The various "Ancient" races are categorized depending on the characters' animalistic features, and are named from the foreign words describing their respective animals or mythological creatures:
  - Anura - Latin for "no tail", which represents frogs in this game.
  - Archosauria - Derived from a Latin word that represents the division of large reptiles, such as crocodiles.
  - Aslan - Turkish for lion.
  - Elaphia - Derived from "elaphos", the Greek word for deer.
  - Feline - Latin for cat.
  - Liberi - Derived from "liber", the Latin word for "free". The name could also be a reference to the idiom/phrase "free as a bird".
  - Lupo - Italian for wolf.
  - Oni - Japanese for demons, devils, ogres or trolls.
  - Perro - Spanish for dog.
  - Petram - Derived from "petra", the Greek word for rock. In Arknights, this race is represented by turtles.
  - Pilosa - Derived from the very same genus name of sloths and anteaters.
  - Sankta - Derived from "sanctus", the Latin word for "sacred", which also applies to angels.
  - Savra - Derived from "saura", the Greek word for lizard.
  - Ursus - Latin for bear.
  - Vouivre - Also known as "guivre", a mythological creature with the head of a dragon and a body of a serpent. It's also a reference to vipers and their Latin etymology of "vipera" which alludes to how some vipers reproduce via live birth. This is also how we now have the word wyvern, which alludes to vipers.
  - Vulpo - Derived from "vulpes", the Latin word for fox.
- The name of the theme that plays during Frostnova's death is titled "37°C" in Volume 2 of the OST, which is the commonly accepted normal human body temperature. A fitting name considering how the perpetually-freezing Frostnova's body only warms up to a regular temperature in the moments before her demise.
- The epilogue of the "Break the Ice" event shows a CG of the Doctor and SilverAsh in a chess game that ends in a draw. The state of the chessboard seems to be a reference to this chess game. Note that SilverAsh is playing White (he instigated the conflict of the event) and is apparently forced into a draw by threefold repetition (the payoff of his plan was much smaller because of the Doctor's involvement).
Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
- The game itself gets this treatment. Since its global launch on 2020, Arknights quickly got devoted English, Japanese and Korean fanbases, with the game and its characters getting traction in the anime/gacha communities in just a short amount of time. Members on online platforms like Twitter, Reddit, Pixiv and YouTube are aplenty, so do the number of fanarts and doujinshi. Some factors in its popularity were the built-up hype in the gacha communities leading to a number of Friendly Fandoms with several gacha IPs. There's also the idea that the Tower Defense genre is unique in the gacha market that's oversaturated with Turn-Based Combat and real-time action games, so quite a lot of players admit Arknights as their first tower defense gacha game.
- The game has a strong playerbase in developing countries, particularly Southeast Asian developing countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia, due to having high production values for a game that does not strictly require money to play, and many gamers in those countries already have a smartphone but cannot afford high-end PC hardware or game consoles. It helps that many players consider the story-acquired Operators to be quite reliable in their own right, and so the player isn't necessarily prevented from progressing further just because they don't have the money to spend on Originium Primes for gacha rolls or good luck with said gacha.
Goddamned Boss:
- Although her stats aren't necessarily dangerous, Crownslayer can be annoying due to her "blink" ability which allows her to pass operators who try to block her. She's even worse in Pyrite Gorge under the Crownslayer: Wolf's Fang contracts as they make her much more dangerous, increase her weight so it's harder to push or pull her, and make it so she can't be silenced.
- Andoain the Martyr from Guide Ahead. His Pinball Projectile is legitimately dangerous, but it's easily baited and limited by ammo. He can't be blocked, but his stats are largely average. The problem is his Light Unto Sufferers field, as it grants him and his allies damage reduction and evasion, which can make them nigh unkillable if the RNG isn't in your favor. It doesn't make them any more lethal, but it makes them obnoxiously tanky, earning him a spot here.
- The Last Knight from Caerula Arbor is this, as while he's a Mighty Glacier extraordinaire, his defense can be nerfed by -80% and Contractual Boss Immunity is largely averted. Instead, it's his Cold-inflicting Counter-Attack that's a pain to deal with, keeping your Operators frozen most of the time. This turns him into a soft Time-Limit Boss as he makes way to the blue box, though depending on your Operator lineup, it can also turn into That One Boss if you lack the required DPS to kill him in time.
- Clement/The Gardener from Hortus de Escapismo, capping off an event largely regarded as highly frustrating, is just as much of a massive pain due to being built around said event's mechanics. Instead of an actual fight, he's an invincible hazard who will continously debuff your units and activate Crumbling Masonry around the map, while leading around a couple Monastery Inhabitants and periodically soothing their panic. The player is only required to survive for a certain amount of time, but multiple problems quickly arise in this Escort Mission turned boss fight. First of all, his boss maps are full of holes that need to be patched up with Makeshift Walkways to stop the civilians from jumping to their deaths when they try to follow Clement, which is made harder by the large number of boulder traps Clement will activate, destroying your platforms and sometimes even killing the Inhabitants outright due to their fragility combined with the constant chip damage fron panic. Secondly, his backup is just as painful as before with their ability to spawn directly onto the map and drain your DP, plus he can summon more enemies at random once he's in his second phase, making him impossible to predict. Thirdly, the global debuffs he cycles through can get really nasty, especially in phase 2 where they intensify - lower ASPD makes it harder to kill enemies or sustain allies with heals, lowered HP makes the Crumbling Masonry or even enemies liable to one or two-shot even physically bulky units, and lowered block makes it difficult to stop enemies and, more damningly, can sometimes render units unable to block boulders, letting them roll past them and potentially into the Inhabitants for a quick loss. On top of this, Clement is prone to directing the civilians to the wrong locations if inflicted by a "field" slow that bypasses his invulnerability (like Mostima's talent or Ines' Shadow Sentry), which can potentially render the level Unintentionally Unwinnable. The end result is a boss fight that isn't actively dangerous, but slow and highly annoying due to taking the already arduous task of babysitting the Inhabitants and making it even harder by adding in so many hazards.
- The second boss from IS4, Eikthyrnir, is infamous for his special mechanic. His attacks inflict Cold and he also constantly pulses AoE Cold bursts around him, but thankfully he has no damage bonus to Frozen operators and deals low enough damage that a 4* Defender and a 4* Medic can tank him indefinitely. However, every time he loses 30% of his health, he will become unblockable and unstoppable before making a mad dash towards the objective, covering 5 squares in barely a second, with the only means of negating the dash being Levitate, Mostima's S3, or Shu's S3. It says something that the most common method to deal with him is to wait until all the trash mobs are gone, get ready to intercept him as he finishes his dash with another blocker, and rinse and repeat until he dies.
- Crazelyseon, the third boss of IS4 isn't necessarily that difficult or complicated once you understand how it works, but it has an unbelievably irritating mechanic. The boss spends the entirety of the stage invincible by default while teleporting to four cardinal directions around the map in a clockwise fashion while attacking up to two targets with Arts damage perpetually. It also periodically leaves Seedbeds in two random tiles close to it which are essentially Dominion tiles, which greatly reduce the ASPD of units standing on them, except they also deal constant Arts damage and increase Crazelyseon's damage dealt to them. You can remove the Seedbeds, but only through activating the pylon which has a limited range, meaning any Seedbeds farther away are there for good, which can be very inconvenient if you want to put longer-ranged units in those positions. The only way to deal damage to it is by using the Dimensional Anchoring Pylon to make it vulnerable, but the effect only lasts for a maximum of a meager 10 seconds, while waiting for the device to overcharge takes 80, and with how increasing the difficulty of the mode inflates the boss's stats, those 10 seconds can feel like practically nothing. If you only wait for the pylon to charge halfway, it only makes the boss vulnerable for 5 seconds and will not remove any Seedbeds. This means that the typical way to beat the boss is to set up your entire arsenal in one of the four set positions Crazelyseon will warp to, then once it appears there, activate the pylon and unleash hell on it with everything you have. Hopefully you deal enough to kill it in that short time it's vulnerable, or you're stuck waiting for the pylon to recharge and for the boss to warp back to that same position while they're dropping Seedbeds everywhere. Oh, and unlike the first and second bosses of the mode, Crazelyseon revives with higher ATK after being defeated the first time, meaning you have to do this at least twice. If the fight drags on long enough for whatever reason, it will start warping rapidly in erratic patterns, making it even harder to get them in the position you need to end the battle in time. If you take too long, the boss implodes, dealing 30 damage to your Life Points and, assuming that doesn't instantly end the run, covers the entire map in Seedbeds just to make it harder to clear the remaining mobs if you do somehow survive. Adding onto this is that while killing the boss is a massive pain, actually surviving it is pretty much a simple matter of outhealing its DPS since it only directly attacks two targets at once which can be easily sustained against with a decent multi-target Medic, particularly Nightingale, while making sure your units aren't standing on top of Seedbeds to deny the boss its increased damage. This amounts to a boss that isn't all that hard unless playing at a very high difficulty, but is annoying due to being barely interactable and forcing you to play a waiting game that ends with a couple of DPS checks.
Good Bad Bugs:
Good Bad Translation:
- The "ANNIHILATIO" written in the Loading Screen of Annihilation maps. Some may say that it fits because the word is based on Latin, while others see this as a misspelled word. Hypergryph did patch it on mid-2020 to display "ANNIHILATION", but the misspelled word returns for a few frames just before the stage loads. The fanbase then joked on where the letter "N" went, or believed that Hypergryph intended it as an Ascended Glitch. This too, was finally fixed in another update.
- When you're searching for clues in the Reception Room, the text on the bottom left reads "Searchin". Is it a misspelled word? Or a radical slang? Fans agree on the latter, as if it's something Croissant would say with her accent.
Growing the Beard:
- The earliest main story chapters (e.g. the Prologue to Chapter 4) are considered weak in terms of writing or characterization because they either stretch a plot point for too long, miss chances to expand scenes, or miss potential to expand backstories of characters who die early on. Another oddity has the story sometimes inserting new details when recounting past incidents. It's only from Chapter 5 onwards where the fanbase notices improvements all around. Even limited-time story events like "Code of Brawl" and "Darknights Memoir" are considered to be superior than those early main story chapters.
- On the technical aspect, it's the English voice lines. Originally, the English voice lines were subjected to scrutiny for not relying on the more well-known English voice actors from the US, as Hypergryph instead relied on less-known British voice actors or English actors from other regions. While decent, the English voice lines originally didn't leave much positive feedback from the players due to the voice actors' relatively unknown reputations. However, the voice lines are steadily getting praise, particularly with Horn's and Ebenholz's English voice lines (by Anna Burnett and Atilla Akinci) that are felt more in tune with their character lores' and origins (Horn being a Victorian and Ebenholz being a Leithanien), and some even sprinkling in dialogue in their "native" language. Starting with Ideal City, fans who wanted renowned English voice actors to join the cast would get their wish, with Cardigan and Istina's VAs in particular being the first Genshin Impact voice actors to voice Arknights characters.
  - Adding to this, Italian voice actors were hired to deliver Italian lines for key characters in the Il Siracusano event, which takes place in the game's equivalent of Italy. Fans hope that this opens the possibility of other foreign voice overs for characters who are from outside the game's equivalent of the US and UK. Their wishes were granted when Hypergryph later added German and Russian dubs for certain characters from Leithania/Ursus respectively along with regional dialects for certain Yan (Chinese) characters, with potentially more to come.

H-L

Harsher in Hindsight:
- Shortly after the game launched in China, the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests began to spring up, drawing uncomfortable parallels with Reunion and Lungmen. Shortly after the game launched globally, news of a deadly coronavirus outbreak in China began to spread, resulting the Chinese government quarantining large sections of the country, mirroring the in-universe treatment of those infected with oripathy. This has led to troubles for players who want to introduce their friends into the game and its lore.
- The fanon portrayal of Saria as a Bumbling Dad can be seen in a new light with the Rhine Lab manhua showing both a glimpse of her childhood and her early interactions with Ifrit. Saria's own dad only showed her Tough Love, which affected how she approached everyone, including Ifrit.
- The results of Levi Klitschko's Originium experiments (after twenty years back on Rainbow Six Siege's Earth, plus six months on Terra) may have been Foreshadowing a shocking implication in "Lone Trail": specifically, Preserver implying that the current nature of Originium on Terra was an accidental result of Priestess's experiments on it.
- In "Vigilo", pre-amnesia Doctor advocated for a traitor to be exiled, but Kal'tsit wanted that traitor executed out of prudence. In Episode 7, Kal'tsit relieves Guard of his duties to Rhodes Island since he sees himself as part of Reunion now, which is apparently rewarded in Episode 9 with him being a crucial part of the reformed Reunion breaking Talulah out of Rhodes Island custody. In the moment, you would think Kal'tsit executing traitors on the spot now sounds justified, since Guard exploited his knowledge of Rhodes Island's security. This is lessened by the scene hinting that this was ideal for Rhodes Island's political situation with Victoria and Yan: Talulah's captivity could only give them leverage for so long before either nation decided to attack the landship themselves, and Reunion managing to break her out lessens the political pressure on Rhodes Island by "absolving" them of fault.
- "Babel" alone may have caused the most examples to be seen in a darker light, so it gets its own section here:
  - Every interaction between the Doctor and Kal'tsit becomes this in light of the event's reveals: Kal'tsit was created by the Doctor and Priestess, effectively making her their artificially created daughter, and she once treated the Doctor with much more care and respect akin to a parent, even choosing to awaken them early under the belief that they would help save Terra from the damage of Originium and was thrilled when the Doctor appeared to come to love Terra and be willing to help Babel. Except Kal'tsit had no idea that the plan was always for Originium to consume the land so that the precursors could create a new world, and the Doctor ended up (albeit regretfully) killing Theresa because her actions were getting in the way of that plan being achieved. Essentially, Kal'tsit put her trust in the Doctor and they betrayed it in every way imaginable. The fact that she acts so coldly towards the Doctor and is practically an Emotionless Girl now is almost certainly because she's realized that her entire purpose was never to help Terra survive and her only connection to the precursors intended to speed the process of its destruction along. Her only silver lining is that the Doctor now no longer remembers that purpose and is genuinely trying to fix things this time, but it's clear that Kal'tsit is unable to trust them ever again and has a very good reason to be afraid of them getting their memories back.
  - You as the player can directly spend Originium Prime to gain a stamina-like resource; this turns out to be Foreshadowing Gameplay and Story Integration. The Precursors, including pre-amnesia Doctor, planned to turn all of Terra into Human Resources via the spread of Originium. The initial hard cap of 10 OP per day may have been post-amnesia Doctor's subconscious resolution to not resort to using Originium to succeed.
  - The event gives Arknights common ground with Infinite Space. The Precursors in the former and the Overlords in the latter happen to share a modus operandi.
  - One of Gitano's fortune-themed skill lines is "The Priestess will destroy all." Priestess and pre-amnesia Doctor were planning to turn all of Terra into Human Resources.
He's Just Hiding: The fandom seems to be rather skeptical about the fates of certain popular characters, despite them dying (or at least implied to be) the last time they're part of any major story development.
- Ace and FrostNova are especially popular examples of this, and the latter's case is even more complicated due to her body being put in an incinerator as of Chapter 7, and said incinerator is now frozen. Chapter 8 seems to have put both of them to rest for good, although her reappearance in the 'D' bracket of the first Interlocking Competition set alight more speculation of her death being faked.
- Another such example would be Ines, who was reportedly killed by Talulah for knowing too much. However, her body was never visually confirmed, and the way a certain Sarkaz messenger reacted to Hoederer's order at the end of Darknights Memoir and W's Promotion Record both imply that she's very much alive, only in hiding.^note This was eventually made explicit in Vigilo, with W learning of her survival, along with Episode 12 making Ines playable.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Gamepress's April Fools' 2020 concerned around multiple Reunion leaders becoming playable with hilariously overpowered skillsets. 25 days later, W would be announced in the CN server to become playable for real. Gamepress had to put a notice on her April Fools' page that that page isn't real.
- In early March 2020, the CN server received its first official Contingency Contract PV (a.k.a. Operation Barrenland). The electronica music in the video really pumps up the player to get ready for the challenge. Then in early April, the Dancing Pallbearers (a.k.a. Coffin Dance) meme became viral on internet. Its background music, "Astronomia", sounds familiar to the PV soundtrack. Given how challenging CC is considered, fans joked that Hypergryph had foreshadowed that most doctors won't survive the event with their operators. For additional information, this is a comparison version of the two songs, headphones recommended for comparison purpose.
- In June 2020, the Code of Brawl event premiered in the English server. This tumblr post speaks of wanting an operator version of one of the newly introduced NPCs named Fillet, tagged 'arknights stop giving me cool ass npcs then just leave them'. Come end July, said NPC was introduced as an actual operator named Jaye.
- The 2020 fanfic Another Destiny imagines operators from an Alternate Timeline where they're in a different class due to changes in their past (eg. Shining being a Guard instead of a Healer or Ifrit became a Healer instead of a Caster) arriving to the canon Arknights universe. Alter Operators are a possibility with Amiya gaining a class change ability and Operators like Lava and Skadi gaining alternate "Diversity" forms, with fans hoping other Operators get to change their class as well.
- All of the fandom's jokes comparing the game to Plants vs. Zombies came full circle with the release of W's Epoque: Fugue skin, which has her placing potato mines for her second skill.
- A section in Blaze's Archive Files mentions that her Hot-Blooded, reckless nature makes her a terrible role model, and ends with the plea "Whatever you do, don't become another Blaze". The writer of this file would likely have an aneurysm if they met Flint, an operator added later down the line who idolises Blaze and joined Rhodes Island in the hopes of becoming her apprentice.
- Many jokes and memes about Hypergryph being secretly a music company due to all the Awesome Music they made becomes this with the fact that Arknights officially had a collaboration with Rayark's Cytus II in December 2021. This later gets doubled into hilarity as in 2023, that years's Ambience Synesthesia concert won the HMMA Awards.
- Lancet-2's "Shore Rescue Modification" skin, an alternate chassis for her with a built-in floatation device for use in deep water, is probably the closest we'll get to seeing her in a swimsuit like she suggested back in Gavial: The Great Chief Returns.
- All of the "chrisposting" memes about SilverAsh wanting the Doctor to continue the SilverAsh bloodline by pairing the Doctor with his sisters becomes this come the "Break the Ice" event and his Operator Records revealing that SilverAsh's stance is the complete opposite of the memes. It's SilverAsh who is interested in the Doctor rather than his sisters.
- A few days before the 3.5th anniversary livestream was held, one Tumblr user joked they should add a new operator to the game that was just the various small animals seen in other operators' artworks stacked on top of each other and wearing a trenchcoat. During the livestream, it was announced that Arknights would be crossing over with the Monster Hunter series, which would bring its own unique operators with it. The first of the operators to be revealed? A trio of Palicos, stood atop each other's shoulders. All they were missing was the trenchcoat.
- Possibly also Harsher in Hindsight, due to spoilers in Coffin Princess Chaika. Pozëmka's JP voice actor previously voiced Chaika Trabant, and both are runaway princesses of ruined noble families with memetic quirks (the former's friendliness with Durins and the latter's funny speech pattern), hence the Hilarious part; the Harsher part is the latter having an explicitly villainous father and being on a mission to gather his remains (a mission that is revealed to be via brainwashing magic, thus not a fully complicit goal), while the former can't bring herself to cut ties with her homeland, not even through her characters in her own novels.
- The community often likes to portray the Doctor poking fun at Kal'tsit's age, being well over 10,000 years old. Then "Lone Trail" reveals that the Doctor themselves is actually even older than Kal'tsit, at over 13,000 years old. Cue the hilarious reversal of roles.
- Many a chuckle was had about Sideroca's operator files detailing how she was assigned to ensure the Doctor didn't skip out on their physiotherapy sessions. The joke got even funnier as of Lone Trail, as it turns out the physio was enough to strengthen the Doctor to the point that when they got angry at Loken's treatment of Rosmontis and struck him, Loken had the wind knocked out of his sails and was left wheezing.
- A Black Comedy example. This isn't the only game where a character named Ace dies from being incinerated. The only difference is that the latter only meets this fate in one ending, while Operator Ace has been Killed Off for Real.
Ho Yay: In a game that has a large female cast, this was inevitable.
- Lappland is obsessed with Texas, many of her actions revolving around "bringing the old Texas" back, behavior which only continues and deepens during the Il Siracusano event where Texas returns to her homeland.
- During Near Light, Margaret Nearl shares a moonlight dance with Nightingale, while Shining smiles and looks on. The Kazimeirz Red Wine Newspaper (a tabloid) also fuels this in-universe by spreading gossip about Nearl and Viviana taking a walk and going to a hotel together.
- Silence and Saria joining forces to take care of Ifrit during her time at Rhine Lab can easily be read as having romantic undertones, especially in the Records of Originium: Rhine Lab manga, where a whole chapter is devoted to Saria asking Silence about the keepsakes at her desk and what they mean to her. Silence also gives Saria one of her feathers, something which Saria still wears on her belt even after they had their rift, and for a time, Silence admires Saria intensely, and Saria reprimands Silence's co-workers harshly for speaking ill of Silence and Ptilopsis. Silence admires Saria so much that Parvis even uses her feelings to manipulate her into keeping Saria out of the project, by pointing out to Silence how exhausted Saria is and making it seem like it's Silence's own fault.
- Along similar lines, Saria and Kristen. They promise to build a company together and Saria swears to always protect Kristen, and though they have a falling-out later, Kristen refuses to accept Saria's resignation from Rhine Lab, maintaining the position of Head of Defense unfilled because she believes it belongs to Saria and that Saria will eventually return to it.
- Ebenholz and Kreide in Lingering Echoes are all but an official couple. Ebenholz falls all over himself to buy Kreide a new cello and new clothes for their performance, lashing out at anyone who questions or says anything mean to Kreide, even going as far as to sleep in Kreide's room (in Kreide's bed as there is only one bed) so they can practice. There's also the fact that Kreide dies in Ebenholz's arms as he succumbs to the Voice of Terra and tells Ebenholz to defy fate and live on. The distraught Ebenholz refuses to let Kreide's body go at first and even gets Infected in the process, but doesn't care.
- SilverAsh and Gnosis also have a lot of subtext in Break The Ice, from Enciodes commenting that Gnosis has lost weight and Gnosis blaming him, to Scirius straight-up calling Enciodes Gnosis's "sugar daddy," Gnosis saying that Enciodes "promised him a future" and calling Enciodes his "partner-in-crime," to the two of them promising that they'll still work towards their mutual dream of making Kjerag great as they part ways as children, and Enciodes telling Gnosis they "will have plenty of time to argue later" when Gnosis nags him for enjoying a challenge he can't afford to lose (and tells him he hasn't changed in twenty years). It doesn't help that most of Gnosis's voice lines have some comment about SilverAsh, and that the lore tidbit of his "Forerunner" skin states that he becomes the first Speaker of Kjerag's new parliament by Enciodes's recommendation. Even Gnosis's JP VA joked that Break The Ice was an otome game after he finished reading it. Further fuel was added with the release of the "Sharp Swordbreaker, Silver Edge" prequel manga, which features more of Gnosis's nagging and his acting like a jealous, overprotective boyfriend towards Degenbrecher as he insists that "[he] can get Enciodes all the [bargaining] chips he needs" and Enciodes doesn't actually need her (much to her amusement).
Idiosyncratic Ship Naming: "1-11" for Adnachiel x W, due to the Scripted Event of map 1-11 where the former tries to Hold the Line against the latter.
Informed Wrongness: In "Guide Ahead", Patia constantly accuses the Sankta of oppressing and discriminating against Laterano's Liberi population, and we know that the Sankta are capable of Fantastic Racism if their attitudes towards the Sarkaz are any indication. However, from all portrayals of Lateran society so far, while the Sankta empathy does raise some barriers between Sankta and non-Sankta being able to understand each other, most clearly shown through Fiammetta's emotional turmoil, it is hard to go as far as to call it "oppression". Their leader, Pope Yvangelista XI, is shown to be a highly tolerant man who is willing to turn a blind eye to even Sarkaz if they don't cause any harm. Fiammetta, being Liberi herself, was able to rise to the highest ranks of the Notarial hall on her merit alone and is close friends with equally high ranking Sankta, and her adopted grandfather, Patrizion, is supportive of her and the two have no trouble communicating with each other whatsoever. All of the Sankta characters seen so far both in and out of Rhodes Island show no issues with working or living with Liberi. This gives the impression that Patia is simply projecting her own feelings of inferiority against the Sankta.
It Was His Sled: Because the Chinese server is way ahead of all the other servers, any plot twists in the lore can easily spread to the other communities through translated discussions on the Internet, even before the other servers finally catch up.
- For story-related events, the English fanbase already knew that FrostNova dies in Chapter 6, and that Patriot is going to be a main antagonist in Chapter 7, etc...
- Because the 1st Anniversary announcements and the "Darknights' Memoir" event in the Chinese server were hyped by the entire fanbase, the fact that W is Promoted to Playable and that she's actually affiliated with Babel are already known then and there.
  - Though the fact that W is Promoted to Playable isn't this anymore since they were playable on Tribulation mode for one of Twilight of Wolumonde's stages.
- When Mudrock appeared as the antagonist of Twilight of Wolumonde, their appearance and gender were a mystery on account of their armour, and despite being an Anti-Villain with goals that aligned with Rhodes Island, they still parted ways with the organaization as enemies. By the time the event made its way to the Global server, the fandom were fully aware that she was a woman under her suit and would end up joining Rhodes Island in the future, mostly because at the same time Global was fighting her she was introduced as a playable Operator on CN.
Just Here for Godzilla: Many players admit having been drawn into Arknights by the Awesome Music and extensive worldbuilding, themes, and lore rather than the game itself.
Late Character Syndrome: Amiya's Guard form would've been a decent option as an Arts Guard for early players if she didn't come so late in the game in the climax of Episode 8, as players who reached that point are most likely to have already E2'd a lot of other Operators, including most likely other Guards. The two things that make "Guardmiya" unique are her Arts Dodge with her S1 and her True Damage with her S2. The specific situations where players might need the former are fairly rare, as most enemies in those particular maps with a lot of Arts damage would have fairly high RES as well, which hampers Guardmiya's damage against them, and the latter is limited to exactly one use per battle even if she is retreated and redeployed. Combined with the lateness of her availability and her niche skills, Guardmiya struggles to be relevant as a Guard option.
Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
- Despite their ambiguous gender, the Doctor is mostly depicted as a male in fanarts, paired romantically with female characters. At first he was paired with Kal'tsit, Amiya, Angelina, and Warfarin, and then came Pramanix, Cliffheart, Blue Poison, and Ptilopsis because of memes. It doesn't stop there, as multiple operators canonically openly show their interest in them - Platinum^explanationShe invites the Doctor to a weekend date at a theme park using her off-days, the tickets for which are her Potential tokens, her dialogue is peppered with slightly snarky teasing at the Doctor's obvious interest in her that goes beyond curiosity of her previous career, Kal'tsit remarks in Platinum's operator file that her loyalty lies more with the Doctor personally than with Rhodes Island as a faction, and the Doctor helped rescue her from the Armorless Union in the epilogue of Near Light and Gravel^explanationShe immediately kisses the Doctor when she joins Rhodes Island (which is revealed to have happened in their first meeting in Near Light), then gets increasingly serious about pursuing a relationship with them as her Trust improves, cumulating at Trust 200 where she swears a Knightly oath on her real name to remain by their side latch on to them fiercely, while Angelina^explanationShe blatantly has a crush on the Doctor, Ambriel^explanationShe invites Doctor to watch romantic movies with her, Blue Poison^explanationShe invites the Doctor on a clothes-shopping date, which is reflected in her Potential token, and her Trust lines have her openly asking them to hold her hand in front of the others, Ptilopsis^explanationShe's very open with her interest in the Doctor in her Trust and Trust Tap lines, Skyfire^explanationShe admits in her Trust lines that she gets fired up when she walks past their office, Skadi^explanationHer normally stoic bearing cracks when she gets flustered during a Trust Tap, and another operator whose name is redacted makes a note in Skadi's file that she feels that the Doctor should take care of Skadi (because she can clearly see that Skadi is interested in them), casually offers to let the Doctor touch her hair, invites them to visit her home in the ocean in her Trust lines, and Under Tides takes it to a new level - she has a faint smile briefly when another operator brings up the Doctor and decides to rewrite a report properly for the Doctor's sake, and her Alternate incarnation as the Corrupting Heart siren clung so hard to her attraction to the Doctor that she transcended time and space to reunite with them in another timeline besides the original Bad Future she comes from, SilverAsh^explanationHe has tremendous respect for the Doctor and regularly plays games of chess with them, and has never been upset that the Doctor has opposed his plot to conquer Kjerag, instead seriously attempting to persuade the Doctor to join him at his side, Ho'olheyak ^explanationHer voiced lines indicate she has a lot of fascination with the Doctor's history, loves to tease and flirt with them, and gets openly jealous upon hearing about other girls like Muelsyse spending time with them, and Swire^explanationShe has asked the Doctor for a date in her Trust lines have all openly expressed their interest.
  - In turn the Doctor has several characters that they've shown strong interest in, like Frostnova^spoilers, Muelsyse ^spoilers, and Priestess and/or PRTS^spoilers.
- Bison, as of Code of Brawl. His most popular pairing seems to be with fellow Forte Defender Croissant, with Mostima as a close second due to all the time they spend together during the event and his obvious admiration of her, but he's also been shipped with basically every other member of Penguin Logistics too.
- Texas from the very launch of the game has commonly been shipped with numerous other characters, particularly her Penguin Logistics coworkers with the leading candidates being Lappland, Exusiai, and Sora. This has led to memes and jokes that Texas is in reality a harem protagonist, albeit a reluctant one.
- Mostima, like Texas, has her own pick of shipping partners, from Exusiai and Lemuen (yes, yes, we've all heard the shimaidon jokes), the other members of Penguin Logistics (especially Bison), and Fiammetta. Between her and Texas, one wonders if the Emperor allows fraternization in his workplace, as long as they get their jobs done.
- Ch'en is spoiled for choice when it comes to pairing options, with Hoshiguma^explanation, Swire^explanation, Lin Yühsia^explanation, and Bagpipe ^explanation all having their supporters.
- Margaret Nearl, the Radiant Knight, has managed to forge strong companionships with many others that fans take to also include those who have fallen for her gallant, strong-willed, and caring nature. Amongst the people she has been shipped with include both of her fellow Followers Shining ^explanation and Nightingale ^explanation, and she has gotten a bunch of ships with others, including Viviana Droste the Candle Knight ^explanation. There's even a subset of Nearl fans that ship her with the Doctor, and a small fringe group that vocally ships her with her own relatives in defiance of incest shipping taboos.
- Platinum has her fair share of ships - She's been paired up with both Margaret and Maria (and sometimes even Zofia) Nearl, the Doctor, and Gravel. She sure takes after her predecessor (the previous Platinum) a lot more than she's willing to admit.
LGBT Fanbase: There's a lot of love for this game's characters from the Kemono/Furry and Bara community. Love particularly goes to characters such as Mountain or Hung.

M-S

Memetic Badass:
- Hateful Avengers are infamous for causing leaks and/or losses in high-level Contingency Contract runs. Even though every CC event has one or multiple enemies that take the spotlight of the map, the Avengers are still notable for being the main threats in the very first CC event, as well as appearing twice throughout the Contingency Contract seasons. Some even say that Contingency Contract Blade's theme song, Art of Blade seems to boast about how badass and unstoppable they are. They even later get an entire Contingency Contract built up around them, Operation Basepoint, that features a Boss version of the Avengers, who came back for revenge.
- Based on the few tantalizing glimpses we get of them in flashbacks and the reputation they'd built up in the eyes of other characters, the fandom have decided that prior to losing their memory, the Doctor was the single greatest tactician the world has ever known. If you look up a video of someone completing a max-risk Contingency Contract stage or some other brutal Self-Imposed Challenge, you'll likely see someone in the comments suggesting this is what it would look like if the pre-amnesia Doctor was in command.
- Passenger, mostly due to the sheer dissonance between his gameplay performance^note and his in-game lore^note. Fans tend to exaggerate his characterization as a living god or joked that is simply just ridiculously strong, but was just holding back/pretending to be weak. When the game buffs him from Dossoles Holiday onwards, fans started joking that he is becoming way too strong now, putting even more emphasis on the "Badass" in Memetic Badass.
- High Inquisitor Dario quickly became known as one of the most powerful men on Terra in the wake of Under Tides, simply because he was able to stop Kal'tsit from waxing philosophical at him. And that isn't even getting into how he managed to attack Skadi and come out on top. Not even his death in Stultifera Navis was enough to put a dent in his reputation, since he made such a formidable Last Stand against the Sea Terrors that he managed to instill a species-wide, instinctual fear of him into a species with no concept of fear.
- Lappland rapidly became one during the events of "Il Siracusano" due to her sheer insanity and willingness to defy vastly more powerful opponents without a care, including throwing the proverbial middle finger at Sicilia and her own father. At the end of the story, she duels Texas the Omertosa and is noted as her equal, with the two of them actively trying to kill each other, and in the epiloge she forces Zaaro to submit to her through sheer willpower and insanity over a three month long battle of endurance. This, coupled with the fact that she was already a Game-Breaker due to her Anti-Magic Power Nullifier ability in game has led to her being commonly referred to as an overpowered 6-star unit disguised as a 5-star.
- Degenbrecher, from essentially the moment she was introduced during Maria Nearl as a mere cameo in the Hall of Champions where it's revealed that she won the Kazimierz Major three consecutive years, and probably would have continued her winning streak if the Kazimierz General Chamber of Commerce hadn't tried to get rid of her because her continued appearance was boring and if SilverAsh hadn't bought her. Her sheer badassery has made her a very popular character in the fanbase due to just how cool and powerful she is. Come her actual appearance as an NPC in Break the Ice, and her badassery continued: not only are basically all the opposing clans' warriors scared stiff of her and immediately submit the moment she appears in front of them, but she also effortlessly cuts through a steel wall that "crumples like shredded paper," and Rhodes Island Elite Operator Sharp can only manage to stall her in battle for a mere ten minutes, during which she makes it clear that she doesn't care for notions like honor and fair play, only destroying her opponent as efficiently as possible, and after which she recommends he not overuse his arm for the next several months (an arm he's already lost sensation in). This continues even further during the prequel manga "Sharp Swordbreaker, Silver Edge," where during a flashback to her last few days in Kazimierz being hunted, she mocks Roy the Lazurite and comments that Darksteel must be very upset to have lost so many arrows to her, implying that not even the leaders of the Armorless Union can take her down (further confirmed by her file which states she parried their spear at the cost of breaking her sword in half), and not even her injured shoulder prevents her from goading the Lazurites to come at her all at once. Her strength continues in The Rides to Lake Silberneherze where she makes her playable debut: she single-handedly holds off an army of one thousand Victorian soldiers. Players have concluded she's effectively one of the most powerful living warriors on Terra, and there's basically nothing she can't do, and she's frequently pitted against the likes of Mlynar and Margaret Nearl in power level debates. As of her playable release, many players have also said she is truly the embodiment of "playable boss" due to the fact that she is a Game-Breaker in her own right and brings all of her overpowered lore with her to the battlefield, dealing Mlynar-levels of damage and breaking the unspoken rules of her archetype with her S3 being auto recovery rather than offensive. She's also something of a Memetic Badass In-Universe, as despite her retirement, she still has many adoring fans who are excited to see her and ask for photos and autographs (with Sharp even commenting during their duel that he's disappointed she isn't the symbol of rebellion she used to be).
Memetic Loser:
- As a general rule, being an Anti-Climax Boss is one of the easiest ways to earn the fanbase's mockery:
  - Being the Warm-Up Boss for every player, Crownslayer has a very limited repertoire and the most she can do is sneak past your defenses in order to infiltrate your blue base. However, as she lacks the innate resistances to being jostled by Shift-type Specialists, she becomes one hell of a pushover (literally and figuratively) once the player has gotten at least one, usually Shaw. Thus, the "Crownslayer bully" meme was born, and now every time poor CS is mentioned, it's usually at the expense of herself with said Specialists asserting their dominance over her in a number of ways. In a response to this, her appearance during Contingency Contract: Operation Pyrite has modifiers in place to specifically protect her against Shift operators by significantly increasing her weight, along with a slew of other buffs, yet not even that was enough to stop players from forcing her to bully herself.
  - Mephisto found himself becoming the favorite punching bag of many players. Due to a combination of his roles as a Hate Sink and a Non-Action Guy, as well as the fact that he has an obscene amount of HP in his Challenge stage, many players typically reserve him for last in 5-10, in order to to bully him even more than they're already doing Crownslayer, with more creative methods still being discovered as more operators are being added to the game. The perennial favorite of the community seems to be trapping him in a Cycle of Hurting with creatively set-up Shift Specialists.
  - Jesselton is often ridiculed for his rather low difficulty, him being prone to an infamous bug that made it possible to send him off the map indefinitely, and his in-story boasting to Saria and subsequent Curb-Stomp Battle, giving him a reputation of an egotist who talks big only to immediately get stomped into the dirt by anybody. This is a borderline Ascended Meme with To Be Continued as Jesselton's story is not only a nonstop Humiliation Conga for him, but also implies his suffering in jail is being televised as a reality TV show. Ironically, "Lone Trail" event saved Jesselton's face by demonstrating the incredible power of Saria's Calcification(strong enough to survive the fall and burn from atmosphere). Fans began to realized that Jesselton did not lost in a short fight with Saria, but withstood three solid blows before defeated.
  - Jokes at Pancho's expense got circulated due to his being one of the easier sidestory bosses, and grew to include memes about how the Doctor effectively took custody of his kids after he got arrested by Candela, and a pathfinding bug that could cause him to slip and fall overboard during his second phase in the boss battle only made more jokes surface.
  - Zaaro, despite being a strong, immortal Wolf Spirit of Siracusa, quickly gained a reputation as a sore loser and a dumb punk after Il Siracusano had him made a fool of by his own Fang, disrespected repeatedly by The Emperor, driven off by his kin for being a cheat and a sore loser in their Great Game, and finally he was unable to best Lappland after three continuous months of duelling with her for dominance. It didn't help that his boss battle in IS-10 was relatively easy due to his somewhat lackluster stats and his gaining a weakness for Stun-based status effects during the second phase.
  - Ya, the boss of Where Vernal Winds will Never Blow, is considered to be exceptionally weak for a Feranmut by the fan community, since they get stymied in-story repeatedly by mere mortals before being forced to leave Yumen after a veritable Curb-Stomp Battle by Chongyue (who at this point has given up almost all of his godly powers), and their lackluster performance in their fight in WB-9 with a predictable (and often ignorable) gimmick soon caused players to create strategies to put them on Trust Farm status.
- Gameplay-wise, Amiya is considered to be a big loser by the fandom because of her stifled growth (her tokens are tied to the main story, which isn't even fully released at the start), and her later skills are very situational if not outright useless. It doesn't help that there are characters better than her in every aspect, such as fellow Caster Eyjafjalla, or Supporter Angelina.
- The release of Hellagur instantly shunted Skadi into this category. Despite boasting vastly superior ATK, Skadi lacks most of the flair that makes Hellagur such a broken Guard, like his absurd survivability and burst damage potential. While Skadi herself is still a perfectly strong and viable unit, she's so badly Overshadowed by Awesome that the meta had shifted away from her, and many memes have been made at her expense. This ended up being almost reversed as the game went on, as Skadi's powerful modules and extremely strong synergy with the Abyssal Hunters earned her back a spot in high-end gameplay while Hellagur was increasingly relegated a more niche pick.
- Eyjafjalla was this for a time (until the rerun of Gavial: The Great Chief Returns), not for gameplay or lore reasons, but rather being the only 6-star available since the release of the game who had the longest period of time without any skins; by the time of the 1st anniversary of Arknights, she was the only launch 6-star left without a skin, only to finally receive a skin after over two years of waiting.
  - After Eyjafjalla finally got her first skin, it has become a trend to label this trope on the oldest-released Operator that has no skin released yet. After Rosmontis got her first skin, Savage and Vulcan are currently the only launch Operators without a skin.
- Passenger fell victim to this mere days after his release due to taking Low-Tier Letdown to its logical extreme, and arriving as not only a member of a famously bad archetype, but with skills so hamstringed by various deficiencies that players were unable to find any good uses for him, to the point where he is regularly outperformed by 4 or even 3-star Operators. Although many still like him for his design, thematics, and lore, in terms of gameplay he has the dubious honor of almost unanimously being declared the worst 6* Operator to date, with many jokes being made at his expense. The recent buff to his archetype did help alleviate him from this trope to an extent, though some fans didn't forget his former infamy. After obtaining his Module in Near Light, he has finally abandoned this trope.
- Goldenglow became this for a very long time, due to the fact that she was one of the few operators who was shown in a teaser at the end of the 1st Anniversary livestream, alongside Thorns, Surtr, Saga, Archetto, and Mountain, but unlike said group, Goldenglow was not released at any point before the 2nd Anniversary of Arknights, remaining unmentioned and unannounced until her proper debut in A Light Spark in the Darkness, about three months before CN's 3rd Anniversary. The long gap of time until that point resulted in her becoming the butt of many jokes, such as depicting her sad and jealous when a new Operator joins the roster.
- To a much lesser extent, poor Dorothy suffered a similar fate on global servers due to the altered schedule which delayed her event by multiple months, spawning many memes and fanart of her being sad over being forgotten by Yostar. Even worse was the fact that while Dorothy is a very good unit, the delays meant that she ended up being released in-between Pozëmka and Młynar, two of the biggest Game-Breaker units released thus far, meaning a lot of people skipped her banner due to either having their coffers drained from the Ideal City banner or stocking up for Młynar's banner instead, which only spawned further jokes about her finally arriving only to be forgotten immediately.
- Bison is a highly skilled messenger who has been part of the industry since childhood, and holds the position of executive manager to one of the largest corporations in Lungmen; a job he clearly takes very seriously. However, his young age and role as the out-of-his-depth Only Sane Employee during his stint with Penguin Logistics in Code of Brawl saddled him with a reputation as their put-upon intern, and as a result his appearances in fanworks often involve the poor guy getting teased by the Penguin Logistics girls. Amusingly, one of his Archive Files suggests this is how he's seen In-Universe as well.
- Many jokes are made at Phantom's expense due to him being one of the biggest victims of Power Creep in the entire game, as not only were the flaws in his kit starting to show with more recent content, he was subject to the release of two utterly game-breaking Executors in the form of Texas the Omertosa and Kirin R Yato, who completely blow his capabilities out of the water. It doesn't help that as much attention as Hypergryph gives him outside of gameplay, they seem to enjoy repeatedly rubbing salt in the wound in gameplay, such as his second Module being almost comically lackluster, and even him being put up for Distinction Certificates during the global release of Kirin R Yato.
- Drudge from "Operation Originium Dust" became one of these, because, not only is he a mere puppet for the Columbian backers and easily been tricked by Levi into becoming his pawn, but, after he is released from his cell, he gets beaten to a pulp by a mere homo sapien in a straight up slugfest. This is despite Drudge, a terran, being far stronger than baseline humans, which the Team Rainbow comprise of, in the physical department. The fact that he can't defend himself against the likes of Ash made him a laughing stock in the eyes of the fandom.
- Vigil's underwhelming combat strength as a Tactician Vanguard, which saw him immediately get power creeped by Muelsyse when Lone Trail debuted, has led to fans joking about Mumu being the first real six-star Tactician, or cracking that they only hired Vigil to run their reception room(s) as a clue-hunter.
- Viviana had the dubious honor of being the second six-star Arts Guard, and unfortunately remains overshadowed by Surtr despite her kit being totally different from Surtr's to try to set her apart. Viviana's more defensive nature as a boss and elite duelist left many fans disappointed in her lackluster combat performance, further exacerbated by the fact that she lacked many of her signature moves from her boss self, namely her long-range fireball explosion. Her playable debut is frequently contrasted negatively/memed on with Degenbrecher (who released shortly after Viviana), with fans lamenting that Viviana was poorly translated to playable while Degenbrecher retained all of her boss characteristics. Despite this, however, Viviana remains beloved by many for her character and design.
Memetic Molester:
- Lappland is commonly depicted in fanworks as such due to her obsession with Texas. It's all but stated in-game that Texas avoids her like the plague but Lapp is dead-set in following her around and bring her back to her old self. Fans did not let this one slide.
- Warfarin tends to do some "unladylike behavior" because of her strange attraction to the Doctor's blood, to the point where Kal'tsit placed a restraining order on her. While this wasn't detailed in the lore, fan comics and memes depict Warfarin being clingy, sexual or perverted towards the Doctor.
- Because of a certain NSFW image that turned into the "UnderTable" meme, fans now see Ptilopsis as a pervert, especially when the Doctor is sleeping in his desk.
- As a result of certain undertones in Theresis's dialogue, the way he had Theresa's body kept in his basement in his Victorian mansion in Chapter 8, and then reviving her Empty Shell to be his puppet princess in Chapter 10, certain corners of the fan community mock the Sarkaz regent for being a creepy siscon obsessed with Theresa. It certainly doesn't help that a fan theory posits that the Theresa is modelled after one of the Hapsburg princesses, which only adds to the "incestuous royals" memes surrounding him. This is in spite of the fact that he holds great respect for her and actually wanted to let Theresa rest in peace, and had to be convinced to revive her in the first place.
- Ribald jokes about Pozymka being a Durin-con begin circulating around the fandom after Ideal City launched, complete with gags of her being arrested by Ch'en (LGD) or Ash (FBI) for inappropriate behavior after she gets caught doing suspicious things with Myrtle and Durin.
- Dorothy herself gets called out for checking if the Doctor's office has active noise-cancellation when she notices the Doctor napping in her Idle line; fans immediately took this line, combined it with comparisons of Dorothy's Vision's plot with Neon Genesis Evangelion, and jumped to the conclusion that Dorothy intended to take advantage of the sleeping Doctor.
Memetic Troll:
- Warfarin. If she's not depicted by fans as a pervert out for the Doctor's blood, she's turned into a stalker who wants to drug Skadi into sleep, often with hilarious results like in this video. It's all because of a Flanderization from Skadi's Archive Files that state Warfarin attempting, but failing to sedate her for dissection.
- Closure. In addition to being a shopkeeper eager to help Doctors empty their wallets, she's also shown to have a touch of prankster to her that fans love to play up. The gag treadmill that lifted off the ground and didn't let you down until you watched the ads that she was revealed to be responsible for in Vigilo certainly contributed to her reputation, as did Kal'tsit admonishing her not to 'go too far' teasing the Doctor.
- Biegler started getting this treatment after killing Dame Gertrude at the end of Lingering Echoes, appearing in memes to mock her substantial Draco in Leather Pants following with tasteless jokes about how their waifu is dead and will never be playable.
- Lappland turned into one after "Il Siracusano" was released, due to the majority of her actions being done to either piss off her father Alberto or to disrespect the famiglia system. She goes so far as to smash a truck into a courtroom in the middle of a trial, grinning with joy after goading Alberto into beating her, and leaving bad reviews for the opera.
Misaimed Marketing: The earliest Global advertisements (like this one) were controversial or considered as odd marketing choices because they didn't show the exact gameplay or premise. Fortunately, the succeeding anime-styled ads and promo videos got praised because of their better quality, although a stigma is still present for those who remember the earliest ads.
Moe: Predictably for a gacha game, there's plenty of characters who fans consider adorable.
- Suzuran is a nine-tailed Vulpo supporter known for instantly charming everyone who meets her, in-universe and out, due to a combination of sheer cuteness, kindness, and earnest desire to help Rhodes Island any way she can.
- Jessica, the feline sniper operator has endeared herself to many with her timid disposition and very low self-esteem, leaving players uncertain if they want to bully her or pamper her.
- Pramanix, due to her chibi sprite and animations being quite adorable combined with her droopy eyes, sweet personality, and Lazy Bum tendencies.
- Maria Nearl, the Blemishine, with her younger and cuter air compared to her sister Margaret, strongwilled determination to protect people, and earnest interest in engineering, manages to evoke strong feelings of moe as a result.
- Reed, with her quiet demeanor and the warmth she exudes in her trust lines, manages to evoke in a number of Doctors a strong desire to cherish and protect her from the horrors she was forced to experience and partake in as part of Dublinn, especially from her manipulative and overbearing sister.
Moral Event Horizon:
- Chapter 6 pretty definitely shifts Wei from a ruthless but well intentioned businessman to an outright genocidal dictator, as it is all but shown that he took advantage of Reunion's attack to completely purge Lungmen's slums without attracting unwanted attention. This proves to be the last straw for Amiya, who witnessed countless Chernobog survivors and Lungmen residents forced to flee the city to escape Wei's secret death squads, and Ch'en, who finds the mass graves of slum residents hidden in the sewers. This is somewhat subverted by Chapters 7 and 8 going more into his motivations, backstory, and reasoning being explained, while also revealing his secret police ended up abandoning his orders and helped the slum dwellers evacuate instead, but some still have an understandably hard time forgiving him for even trying to pull this off.
- For many, Mephisto crosses the line in Children of Ursus where he locks all the Chernobog students in Peterheim Middle School regardless of their social standings, leading to horrific infighting that killed countless innocents and scarred the U.S.S.G. for the rest of their lives. This is all while it's implied that watching them tear each other apart was his entire purpose for doing so. While The Reveal of his absolutely horrific backstory, where every attempt he made to do something good completely and utterly failed won back some sympathy, several players feel that his actions are irredeemable regardless of his past.
- In Hortus de Escapismo, Oren's displays of Fantasic Racism towards Sarkaz to the point of gleefully anticipating genocide against the innocent refugees of the Sanctilaminium Ambrosii shifted perception of him from a character who in Guiding Ahead initially seemed somewhat amoral and slimy but hadn't done anything inexcusably terrible to an outright Hate Sink. Even the cast all unanimously despise him by the end of the story, with Lemuen who was shown to be gentle and patient with practically everyone resorting to assaulting and threatening him after Oren made a comment too personal with her.
More Popular Replacement: The Chained Sarkaz Girl encounter from Phantom & Crimson Solitaire is one of many repurposed events from Ceobe's Fungimist, replacing a similar one with a Cautus girl feigning injury to try and lure you into an ambush. While her predecessor was largely forgotten, the Sarkaz girl became an instant fan favourite thanks to her appealing design and more interesting characterisation as a powerful Vampire noble as opposed to a mere wasteland bandit.
Most Wonderful Sound:
- The moment all chaos from battle goes silent and there is a single voice proclaiming: "Mission accomplished!" Even more satisfying if it was a particularly difficult level that you managed to clear without losing a single life.
- The sound effects generated from certain powerful game-breaking skills, such as SilverAsh's Truesilver Slash ("SHRIING SHRIING") or Hellagur's Full Moon ("SWANG SWANG"), can deliver a sense of satisfaction to the player as you watch their attacks pummel the enemy waves to dust.
- When you pull a 6 star, a holy-esque sound accompanies the exploding golden light, giving off a very good feeling that your hard earned orundums have paid off in the end... unless the 6 star in question happens to be a duplicate of an operator you already have, in which case, all your hard earned orundums have been wasted.
- The appearance of Sora, Ethan, and Skadi the Corrupting Heart as they enter the battlefield is accompanied by the musical sounds that briefly overwrite whatever the BGM playing in the stage. The latter is also notable for her enchanting vocalizations, reminiscent of the calls of sea mammals, whenever she activates a skill.
- Specter the Unchained switching to her substitute is accompanied by an enchanting ethereal vocal as the substitute's prayer hamstrings every enemy in the vicinity.
Narm:
- The WatchMojo advertisement videos aren't taken seriously, as their advice is mediocre at best. They make basic mistakes (e.g., calling Projekt Red a Guard when she's actually a Specialist), mispronounce a lot of names (e.g., Ptilopsis as "Ti-opl-sis" or "Tea Apple Sauce"), and give bad strategies in general (e.g., saying that FrostNova should be taken down in the bottom lane in 4-10). These errors made them infamous for not doing their due diligence, especially "Dave", the person who covered most of them.
- The attributes in the Who Is Real event being renamed Hui and Ming, while they are obvious references to Yin and Yang and were initially named as such in the Chinese version.
- Rockrock is generally a serious operator who fights for revenge against the Sarkaz who killed her father. Players have a hard time taking her seriously though, because of her codename. Seriously, her codename is Rockrock? ^explanation
Never Live It Down:
- Lappland is most likely going to be forever remembered as a stubborn, Texas-obsessed maniac who won't stop at nothing in order to bring her rival back to her old self.
- Because of a Trust dialogue line, Projekt Red is mostly remembered for wanting to touch the tails of other Lupos like Texas or Provence. Any fan content about Red usually includes her obsession with fluffy tails.
- Originating from the Chinese fandom and their Bilibili videos, this trope is the reason why Warfarin is treated as a Memetic Molester and a Memetic Troll in fan content and memes. She had awkward incidents in the Archive Files about her "unladylike behavior" when near the Doctor (because she's attracted to their blood), and her failed attempts to sedate Skadi (because Warfarin wants to dissect and study her body).
- Surtr's lack of story relevance and background information so far despite her popularity and Game-Breaker status has caused Flanderization of her character as an arrogant Jerkass with an ice cream obsession, though her voice lines and archive files portray her as more of a Defrosting Ice Queen to whom ice cream is mostly considered as a Comfort Food.
Older Than They Think: Yostar's advertisments for this game in YouTube are animated scenes with original music playing in the background, such as "Code of Brawl"/"Speed of Light". This marketing strategy is well-received in the gacha fandoms, with Arknights being praised as proof that mobile game ads can be comparable to music videos. However, this game isn't the first to do such kinds of ads. Honkai Impact 3rd also uses original songs in their ads before AK did, "Befall" being their most popular example.
One True Pairing:
- Texas x Lappland is one of the most popular pairings in the game. Fans really love them because of their interesting connections with each other, the latter's utter obsession with the former, and both being some of the most popular characters in the game. The amount of their fanworks together is just outright absurd, especially after the game launched internationally.
  - Texas x Exusiai is a close second since the two of them are close friends and are almost never seen apart. Exusiai likewise is one of the most popular characters in the game.
- Exusiai is often paired with Mostima, since Exusiai is constantly looking for her and seems to get exasperated whenever Mostima vanishes for too long, while Mostima seemingly cares for Exusiai in her own way. Helping are the implications that they have a lot of history together, what with Exusiai specifically mentioning Mostima in her voice lines (with them even being implied to have been classmates before), and the fact that they're both Sankta with opposing color schemes.
  - With the advent of "Guiding Ahead", Mostima's preferred shipping partners quickly became Fiammetta, who has been keeping an eye on Mostima in the background since before "Code of Brawl", and Lemuen, Exusiai's sister, who was previously only mentioned in both her and Exu's files, and is someone that Mostima had a strong connection to. As a result of the three-way rapport shown between all three of them during Guiding Ahead, the fan consensus quickly shifted towards Mostima, Fiammetta, and Lemuen as a threesome.
- The speculation of Kal'tsit's relationship with the Doctor in the past made Kal'sit x Doctor quickly become one of the most popular pairings among fans as they latched onto the "tragic romance" potential. Not even The Reveal that the Doctor and Kal'tsit both hated and distrusted each other during their Tower of Babel days and the fact that Kal'sit's hatred for the Doctor deepened after the Doctor killed Theresa stopped several fans from shipping the pair, and "Lone Trail" only gave it more fuel. However, the revelation in Babel has many fans abandoning the ship.
- Doctor x Blue Poison got a lot of traction or fans not only because of the "UnderTable" memes, but also because of her high Trust line: she wants them to hold her hand in front of everyone.
- For yuri fans, many prefer shipping Blue Poison with Glaucus. Not only this has to do with the fact they're both connected with the Abyssal Hunters but in game lore reveals Glaucus likes eating Blue Poison's cakes unlike most operators who are afraid to eat her food under a mistaken belief it's poisonous. There's also the Fridge Brilliance over the animals they're based on, Poison Dart Frogs(Blue Poison) and Sea Slugs(Glaucus), since Sea Slugs can eat poison unaffected meaning Glaucus has no problem in "eating" Blue Poison. This got expanded into a love triangle by the events of Preluding Light, which not only adds more shipping fuel between Blue Poison and Glaucus, but also adds some attraction between Blue Poison and Indigo, given how the former ended up tranquilizing and then recruiting the latter into Rhodes Island to keep her close, and Indigo's operator records also detail that Blue Poison made her a special pair of gloves to protect her from contact with poisons.
- When the "SilverAsh bloodline" variant of the "Chrisposting" meme from Resident Evil surged in popularity within the western community, the Doctor is commonly shipped with Pramanix or Cliffheart, or both.
  - However, in the Asian side of the fandom (with some western supporters as well) the Doctor would much rather continue the bloodline with SilverAsh himself. This becomes Hilarious in Hindsight come the "Break the Ice" event and SilverAsh's Operator Records revealing that SilverAsh was so interested in the Doctor that he boarded Rhodes Island as an Operator after "Break the Ice".
  - Meanwhile, Cliffheart is often paired with Courier, with SilverAsh as the unapproving big brother.
- Grani is typically shipped with Skadi, due to their bevy of close interactions during Knights' Treasure. Other fans ship Grani with Carol, the heroine of Knights' Treasure event thanks to the amount of Ship Tease between the two with Grani acting as Carol's knight and Carol constantly worried about Grani.
- Skadi is commonly shipped with fellow Abyssal Hunter Specter. They even have their own moniker of "Deep Sea Lovers" among CN fandom. The pairing stems from the (normally-taciturn) Skadi's concern for Specter's wellbeing, as well as the implication of a shared past, even though Specter doesn't seem to remember her. Grani and the Knights' Treasure happened due to Skadi looking for a way to help Specter. Once Under Tides came out, it gained more steam as Specter being kidnapped caused Skadi to chase after her, thereby setting the event's plot in motion.
- Midnight, the Casanova Wannabe he is, is frequently shipped with his boss Orchid, due to his perceived interest in her and her own particular awkwardness when referring to him in her quotes. It smells like a load of Belligerent Sexual Tension to a large portion of the playerbase, to be sure.
- Saria and Silence, whose tense present relationship alongside their mutual protectiveness over Ifrit has strong overtones of "divorced couple that both want the best for their daughter, but disagree strongly over each other's methods". The Record of Originium - Rhine Lab supplemental manhua from the Terra Historica collection shows that their relationship was once of a very senpai-kouhai bent, with Silence rapidly developing a strong admiration for Saria and having few difficulties with her strict adherence to proper protocol during work hours, as well as Saria appreciating Silence being able to cling hard to her ethics and morals despite some of the more questionable practices at Rhine Labs; it also revealed that Saria was indeed given one of Silence's feathers as a token of extremely close friendship and trust. To put the cherry on the top, when they argued over the handling of another Infected child named Darya, their argument (tragically) reminded little Darya of her own parents having a domestic dispute. Furthermore, one of the in-game Side Stories (as well as one of the other supplemental manhua) showed that ultimately Saria and Silence managed to come to terms and agree to cooperate more for Ifrit's sake. The events of "Lone Trail" seem to have allowed them to finally bury the hatchet and openly trust each other, and in front of Ifrit.
- Hoshiguma and Ch'en became one of the most favored pairings in the game as they are shown to be very close to each other in the story, with Hoshi typically being portrayed as having a Subordinate Excuse just so she could always be close to her boss.
- Schwarz and Ceylon recently had a surge of popularity thanks to the "Heart of Surging Flame" event which gave them the spotlight. Same as Hoshiguma and Ch'en above since Schwarz has an Undying Loyalty for her Mistress, is very protective of said Mistress, and both also have a Lady and Knight dynamic. Their voice lines and archive files are rather shippy as well, with Ceylon's flat-out stating that Schwarz is dearest to her heart. Although there is evidence that they are considered sisters to each other, this is very likely an instance of Incest Yay Shipping.
- Due to them both being penguins as well as good friends with each other, Magallan and the Emperor are typically paired together.
- Franka and Liskarm are typically paired together, since they are actual partners who are almost never seen apart and are Vitriolic Best Buds. It also helps that when Franka was diagnosed with Oripathy and sent to Rhodes Island for treatment, Liskarm immediately requested a transfer to Rhodes Island to stay with her. Their theme song, "Beautiful and Lovely", has massive shipping fuel in it once you realise that the lyrics are Franka singing about how Liskarm appearing in her life added 'You and I' to her vocab.
- Immediately after Jaye/Fillet was made into a playable character, people started shipping him with Waai Fu, due to them already being introduced as close friends during Code of Brawl.
- Warfarin and Aak, the 怪医组 in China, by favor of both being Team Killers with their buff skills and taking a much more morally dubious approach to medical practice compared to other medical professionals at Rhodes Island. It helps that Warfarin is the only operator outside of Aak's colleagues at Lee's Detective Agency he gets along with, and the two regularly hold research meetings to discuss their latest findings, which often devolve into loud cheering and laughter from both parties.
- Leonhardt was shipped with Ayerscarpe the moment the latter was introduced, and it's not hard to see why; the two are inseperable childhood friends turned client and bodyguard and act Like an Old Married Couple, down to essentially sharing their finances.
- There many fans who ship Scavenger, one of the few Arknights characters confirmed to be a lesbian and LGBT, with Provence, since the former has a crush on her but she Cannot Spit It Out due to the death of Scavenger's first love which has made the former reluctant to seek a relationship. Fans are hoping Scavenger might got over her past and confess and hopefully become a couple with Provence. It also helps that Scavenger and Provence are both drawn by the same artist who also ships them both.
- And then there's another case of Incest Yay Shipping between Whislash and her nieces, Nearl and Blemishine, particularly the latter. Throughout the events of Kazimierz Major, Whislash shows constant worries for Blemishine, who acts more like a lover than a worried family member. Fans have no problem with this ship due to the low age gap since Whislash is just a few years older than her nieces and is actually a distant relative. And there's also some In-Universe shipping as well since Kazimierz tabloids mistaken Whislash and Blemishine hanging out at the same bar as a lovers liaison.
- There has been quite a bit of shipping between Lava and Nian, especially after the events of both "Ancient Forge" and "Who Is Real", which shows both girls being rather close with Nian being something of a Trickster Mentor to Lava. And despite how much Lava claims that she doesn't like Nian, she often ends up collaborating with her on projects such as writing movie scripts. Lava even goes out of her way to help Nian find her sister Dusk.
- Pallas and the anonymous Sarkaz mercenary she is partnered with in "Preluding Lights" have been commonly paired together after Pallas' debut, primarily because of their back and forth banter as well as the Sarkaz mercenary stepping up to protect Pallas from a Sarkaz assassin and being concerned enough about her Oripathy that he brought her to Rhodes Island.
- After Fiammetta had been Promoted to Playable, there's been a surge of fans shipping her together with Mostima due to their history together, their Vitriolic Best Buds status, as well as the two of them teaming up in the "Guiding Ahead" event.
- Flametail and Ashlock are commonly considered to be a couple by fan shippers due to the sheer amount of chemistry they have with each other. Ashlock regularly teases Flametail about various things, including the time she stole points from her during a competition, and will generally settle down if Flametail asks to her to chill even if someone (like the Plastic Knight, for example), pushes her buttons; she even completely loses her shit when Roy seemingly kills Flametail and goes berserk on him, only cooling off when Flametail tells her to chill. Flametail, who's known to collect cute things, also has a small and growing collection of Ashlock merch, and has complete and utter confidence in Ashley's ability to defend herself against Ingra the Brassrust, and yes, she calls Ashlock by a pet name that she doesn't like Iwona using. They generally share a chemistry that Iwona and Justyna don't quite match.
- The events of "Near Light" saw an explosion of shipping between Nearl and Viviana, given how the two of them became very fast friends who found a lot in common in their ideal vision of knighthood, and is even pointed out in-universe with many tabloids claiming an illicit affair between the two of them. This isn't even getting into the fact that some of their dialogue together can be interpreted as flirting or outright sexual innuendo.
- SilverAsh and Gnosis have a small but dedicated fanbase on account of their fierce dedication to their mutual childhood dream of uplifting Kjerag and their secretly plotted coup d'etat. It's not helped that even in-universe, Sciurus calls SilverAsh Gnosis's "sugar daddy" and they refer to each other with monikers like "partner-in-crime". There's also the fact that despite Gnosis being Hated by All, SilverAsh just flat-out ignored anything anyone says about Gnosis and made him CTO and is implied to give him anything he wants. With the release of Gnosis's "Forerunner" skin and the flavor text mentioning Gnosis assumed the position of inaugural Speaker of the new Kjerag parliament by SilverAsh's recommendation, fans have portrayed them as founder-like figures who have brought Kjerag into modernity with the rest of the world.
- "A Light Spark in Darkness" has many fans shipping Goldenglow with Red the Red blade due to their interactions and how much Red had been saving Goldenglow from peril throughout the event story in several occassions. Namie ^explanation herself certainly approved of Red's protectiveness of her daughter during the livestream where she read the story of A Light Spark in Darkness.
- Lumen and Irene have their decent amount of fanart and shippers thanks to their interactions in "Stultifera Navis" and their Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy dynamic.
- Ebenholz and Kreide are basically treated as a married couple (and Ebenholz as Kreide's widow) by the entire fandom.
- "Lone Trail" saw whole new ships spring up between the Doctor and Muelsyse, due to both being long-lived and alone without others of their race for company, plus the surprisingly tender and romantic voiced lines she uses when chatting with the Doctor. Also, the Doctor and Ho'olheyak, due to her interest in the Doctor's long history and fascination with his bloodline, coupled with her teasing and seductive voiced lines which includes her performing ASMR and breathing in the Doctor's ear, causing him to blush, stacked on top of the fan community's suddenly inflamed wild lust for her after her animated appearance in the Lone Trail PV and the release of her English and Japanese voiced lines.
- The Ines/Hoederer ship only seems to get stronger with each story chapter which features them, as for all of Ines's tendency to snark at Hoederer when given the opportunity it is clear she cares about him, with the Ship Tease reaching its peak in Chapter 13 in a conversation in which they essentially discuss W's future as well as their own plans to settle down together in Kazdel once the Victorian conflict ends. As a result, it's become commonplace to regard the Darknights Memoir trio as a family at this point with W (and sometimes also Paprika) being the pair's adopted daughter.
Popular with Furries: The games boasts a pretty big roster that also involves a few characters that are Little Bit Beastly and some outright anthropomorphic. No surprise that members of Kemono and Furry Fandoms are quite enamored with this game. Hung◊, Mountain◊, and Waai Fu◊ are some of the more popular anthro/furry playable characters from this game.
Portmanteau Couple Name:
- "Texland" for the Texas x Lappland shipping.
- "Gloopy" is often used for Glaucus x Blue Poison, drawing from the latter's Fan Nickname of "Bloopy".
- "Wines" is used for W x Ines.
Player Punch: As the Doctor, the player controls how well the operators perform in the mission. But fail a mission with Ifrit and she would blame you for making a fool out of her.
Robo Ship:
- You'd be surprised by how many people unironically ship Lancet-2 and Castle-3 together.
- According to her voicelines and Archive Files, Eunectes views Lancet-2 as a Cool Big Sis, but this hasn't stopped some fans from pairing the two of them romantically thanks to the former's... intense reaction upon realising the latter is a talking machine at the end of Gavial: The Great Chief Returns.
Scrappy Weapon: Well, items, but the King's Collectibles from Integrated Strategies see very little use outside of extremely niche strategies. The buffs they give are fairly substaintial, but they only trigger when you're at 1 life, forcing the user to intentionally bring themselves to 1 HP and then fight under the pressure of not being able to leak even a single time. Furthermore, many encounters, squads, or buffs can force players to pick up Life Points, which would instantly invalidate the items and force you to leak again just to trigger their effects, even if you took Spearhead Squad, which is otherwise perfectly suited for the items - albeit with no guarantee of whether or not you'll even get them that run, with the randomness of the mode also severely undermining the game seemingly want you to collect as many as possible and synergize their effects. You can't even get Objective Shields as they count towards Life Points for the purposes of the item, which makes the King's Fellowship (sacrifice all Life Points for an equivalent amount of Shield) not even work the way it was seemingly intended to. Integrated Strategies 3 and 4 also penalize life loss with the Light/Collapse mechanics to make it more punishing to even trigger the effect, with the former additionally punishing you harshly for fighting at low life points, meaning you have to shoot yourself in the foot to even use the items. If you can't meet all of these requirements, all of the items are dead weight, especially the King's Crown which not only has the 1 LP requirement, but only reaches its full power with three or more King's items, with no guarantee whether you'll get either the Crown or the other items. And while "useless" is still not actively detrimental, the King's Crystal defies this and drains 2 LP on every battle in exchange for Hope and Ingots, which while setting up for the King's items...also doesn't guarantee that you'll get any to make use of it, which makes it an active liability in most situations, especially if it was forced onto you as a random Collectible.
Self-Fanservice:
- There are fanarts (like this one) that depict Hellagur with a younger adult appearance and build, seemingly making him look Bishounen in the likes of Geralt of Rivia, Sephiroth, or Alucard. It helps that Liduke originally envisioned Hellagur to be significantly younger than he appears in the final version of the game.
- A number of operators with visible signs of Oripathy have it downplayed in some of the more fanservicey artwork. For example:
  - A few regarding Lappland:
  - Lappland has black crystal patches on her legs and they cover a significant portion of her thighs as seen in her Elite 2 artwork. In fanarts such as these, the black crystal patches are usually omitted, covered, or downplayed.
  - Her Elite 2 artwork implies that she's wearing a midriff-baring top underneath her jacket. Unfortunately though, the position of her arm obstructs most of her bare stomach from view, which can come off as a letdown to some fans. That being said, most fanarts of Lappland have her remove the jacket in favor of a tube top that fully shows her midriff.
  - Just like Lappland, Angelina has blue crystals protruding from her right thigh, as seen in her Elite 2 artwork. But in fanarts such as these examples, the crystals are gone, showing her with normal thighs instead.
- Ch'en wears her coat normally as seen on her initial artwork and story images, but fan artists mostly base their works on her Elite 2 art instead because she loosens up her coat to reveal more of her bare shoulders and inner shirt. To Ch'en's fans, this is a form of fanservice and some artists would even depict Ch'en without her coat, leaving her sleeveless skin exposed.
- During gameplay, whether she's fighting enemies in the field or relaxing back at the base, Mudrock is never seen without her bulky, fully-concealing suit of armour. When appointed as an assistant, she'll explain this is because she's not yet comfortable showing her face to others. The vast majority of fanartists prefer to disregard that and draw her as she appears in her Elite 2 artwork, which depicts her in a black sports bra with her helmet and the upper half of her armour removed, her Coral Coast: Silent Night skin, which is a black bikini, or her Ambience Synesthesia skin, which is a sleek and flattering black dress.
- Several operators, like Sideroca, Utage, and Fiammetta, often have their generous bust size exaggerated even more in fanart.
Self-Imposed Challenge:
- A common challenge involves clearing stages with the least amount of Operators possible. However, this mostly relies on having overpowered characters, or those with situational gimmicks. The infamous "Shaw 4-4" challenge is an example of the latter kind.
- As a reverse of the above, there's also a challenge of clearing harder content using only low-rarity or starter operators.
- Another type of challenge is using only one class to clear a map and trying to get around inherent disadvantages like the lack of healing from Medics or most non-Defender classes not being able to block as many enemies. This type of challenge coined a term among the community, called "XXX-knights" (ie. Vanguardknights, Casterknights, Defenderknights). However, a "Medicknights" run is the least feasible challenge to perform since the class has very few offensive options (limited to Incantation Medics, Folinic, and Kal'tsit) compared to the other seven Operator classes.
  - Sometimes, players will also impose stricter team restrictions like that of specific archetypes (eg. "Enmityknights" for Juggernauts/Reapers/Mushas), or ones that don't have to do with gameplay at all, such as using only operators from one faction, of one race, or even those drawn by one artist.
- Because of the game's playable roster being heavily slanted towards female Operators, there's a challenge to try and beat maps with male Operators only (often called "Maleknights") due to the notable variety of tools this cuts off from the players (ie. before Chestnut and Lumen were released, the only Medic that could be used in this challenge is the 3-star Ansel, making maintaining heals on a Marathon Level a lot more tricky).
- The "Contingency Contract" event is an entire mode built around this trope. Players can freely choose what Risks would be enabled to make the stage harder just like the Challenge Maps. The higher the Risk level cleared, the more rewards can be obtained and more options are unlocked after turning over some tasks.
  - Because FEater became a popular or recommended operator in the event's Area 59 map, various content creators on YouTube had their own self-imposed challenge of not using her on the higher Risk levels.
Ships That Pass in the Night:
- As a literal example of Angel/Devil Shipping, Executor and Flamebringer make for a popular couple. However, despite both of them debuting in Operational Intelligence, they have yet to interact in canon.
- On a similar note, Executor is also paired with Ptilopsis due to their similarly-robotic demeanor.
- Fans began pairing Ifrit with Eyjafjalla due to both girls being relatively young 6-star fire Casters inflicted with serious Oripathy despite both of them having yet to interact with each other. Ifrit's Operator Record has since provided fuel: she's Eyjafjalla's team captain for a mission, calls her "little goat" while they're being pursued by Originium Slugs, and orders her (and Mint and Beeswax) to run to safety so she can let loose on the Slugs. "So Long, Adele" may have shaken it a bit since Eyjafjalla the Hvit Aska's age was confirmed to be 22 (making her base version 20) and Ifrit is essentially a minor mentally, if not physically (the Rhine Lab manhua notes that her mental age is 4-6 years behind her physical one).
Ship-to-Ship Combat: Surprisingly, "Babel" stoked a pre-existing rivalry between Doctor/Priestess and Doctor/Theresa shippers. Fans on both sides discredit each other for mind-controlling Doctor via memory altercation. It's also not surprising to see that fans on each side have differing opinions on Doctor's betrayal. Doctor/Priestess fans believe that this is justified, as Doctor is supposed to be responsible for the Precursor Civilization. Doctor/Theresa fans believe that Doctor's actions were actually Priestess's decisions, and Theresa saved Doctor from Priestess's manipulation.
Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: With Integrated Strategies becoming a permanent roguelike game mode with multiple versions, it is not uncommon to spend hours upon hours just experimenting with operators you never thought you'd use in combination with the mode's wide array of collectibles.
Starboarding: Those not dissuaded by Kal'tsit's hatred of the Doctor for killing Theresa, especially after "Babel" paints the pair as akin to a parent and their daughter, might have a hard time pairing them after reading "Lone Trail": she explicitly tells the Doctor that their Strictly Professional Relationship over 10,000 years being anything more than that simply won't help either of them in their mission to protect Terra, which makes the idea of Kal'tsit reciprocating the Doctor's affection quite implausible (at least up to that point in the timeline).
Strawman Has a Point: In Chapter 7, Ch'en confronts Wei over his decision to purge the Infected from the Lungmen slums. However, Wei points out that even though everybody knew Reunion was infiltrating the slums, not a single Infected resisted them or tried to warn the LGD. The Infecteds' complicity with Reunion's infiltration demonstrated their lack of trust in Lungmen's institutions, and therefore that meant they would always be a potential threat to the city as long as they remained.
Superlative Dubbing: When it comes to the English dub, the voice acting direction has been given much praise by many fans and players for the many voice actors who dubbed the characters for matching the character they are voicing and their backstories, in addition to often giving them accurate regional dialects. To note:
- Allegra Clark voices not just one, but three characters that shows off her versatile range from Dorothy, Proviso and Penance, with her performance as Penance being given praise as Allegra was able to make Penance sound distinctively native to the nation her character is inspired from.
- Anthony Howell as Młynar was well received by fans for his richly textured voice acting that conveyed the depth and tiredness of this Nearl family member from the many life experiences that turned him into the man he is today. His well articulated Polish for a non-native speaker was the cherry on top to pull it all together.
- Christina Kowalchuk's performance for Lappland is well received due to the hammy energy she brought out to match Lappland's Ax-Crazy air and several Italian players commend on how wonderful she sounded along with her accent.
- Khoi Dao's performance as Puzzle is met with high praise for the direction taken for his voice acting to match Puzzle's calculating nature along with his well-articulated British accent to match Puzzle's origins.
Suspiciously Similar Song: Hypergryph's internal investigation confirmed that the composer of the two songs for the Cinder map in "Contingency Contract" was discovered to have outright plagiarized the references they gave him, so they blacklisted that composer and replaced his songs.
- The initial song's reference was Taishi's "Strayer" from CROSS×BEATS.
- The Risk 16+ version's reference was "Calling" by rejection.
Squick:
- Courier is noted to have a Signature Scent that he leaves on the letters he delivers. He's based on musk deer. Male musk deers have scent pouches in their crotch. Granted, it is used as a base ingredient for perfumes.
- Magallan's "Rhodes Kitchen: Aftertaste Frost and Snow" skin replaces her weapons and those of her drones with Surströmming (a.k.a. fermented herring). While it looks funny at a glance, Surströmming is widely-known for its extremely pungent odor that will make even the most hardened person retch if they haven't been acquainted to it. Such is its pungency that Surströmming is basically banned by most hotels and airlines worldwide, and merely opening a can of it in public is considered fair grounds for legal action against you. Which all makes it better that she's making enemies suffer with it instead of you. In fact, has made several fans wanting the skin more.

T-W

That One Achievement: The Stationary Security Service game mode is already largely considered That One Level due to the multitudes of Scrappy Mechanics, but another thing that fuels the ire towards it is the fact that the there is a trimmed medal for completing all eight stages of a mission without resetting once. Considering how much of a ridiculous Luck-Based Mission the entire mode is due to the inflated stats of the enemies coupled with depending on getting the right combination of units to get properly buffed up to withstand the waves of enemies, managing to do an entire perfect run is considered almost entirely a matter of luck, making this possibly one of the most difficult and frustrating medals to acquire in the game. Not helping is the tendency of the game mode to randomly crash due to its relatively new release on global, which counts as a mission failure if happening in the middle of a stage and would fail the medal's conditions. The icing on top of the cake is that this medal will no longer be acquirable in six months from the game mode's release once it gets overhauled, meaning players aiming for 100% Completion are on a (albeit fairly long) timer.
That One Attack: Several foes (especially bosses) have at least one particularly messy attack.
- If any enemy has the ability to self-destruct for area damage, chances are that it'll be this, since it forces you to be careful where you dispatch the enemies or suffer massive damage or even a Total Party Wipe. The most infamous of them are the Infused Originium Slugs that often come in large swarms, and their Glacial variants that inflict Cold and potentially Freeze onto anything nearby.
- A number of bosses have "true" instakills (ie. ones that force-retreat units instead of reducing their HP normally), which tend to be a massive pain in general for exactly the reasons one might expect. In particular are FrostNova's black ice spikes which are psuedo-random and permanently disable tiles they hit, and the Pursuer's Dominion zones which not only make wide areas permanently prone to being one-shotted, but also makes him extremely hard to damage if he or his attackers are in one.
- Attacks that inflict Stun can really ruin your day, as a stunned operator not only can't fight back, but also can't block, meaning a single ill-timed stun is often enough to let enemies breach your defense. Certain bosses or stronger enemies will have the ability to do this to multiple friendlies at once to maximize the chances of opening a hole in your lines. By extension, Nervous Impairment in general is also this, as it not only triggers a lengthy Stun on full buildup, but also deals a massive burst of true damage that can kill the victim outright.
- Certain bosses have moves that can simultaneously hit every unit on the map, sometimes for overlapping splash damage. With the difficulty of making sure everyone on the entire map has enough healing to survive, this can often instantly wipe out chunks of your defense that were either unattended or already under pressure from existing enemies, on top of whatever other secondary effects the attacks carried.
- Several bosses like Mandragora, Manfred, and Duq'arael have defensive abilities that render them Nigh-Invulnerable and can only be temporarily neutralized by exploiting the stage mechanic on the levels they appear. Actually doing this is often more unwieldly than it sounds, especially while the boss themselves are threatening you, and it's often very unforgiving if you miss a precious opportunity to hit them hard, since said mechanics are generally not readily available. Miss enough chances and the boss will shrug off everything you can throw at them, outside of particular cheese strategies such as those using the rare sources of True damage.
- ATK-lowering abilities fortunately don't appear too often, but will often ruin your day if they do. They're generally unavoidable and cripple not only Operators' ability to fend off enemies in time, but also their ability to heal, letting enemies easily overwhelm them. Worse still, the enemies that can inflict ATK down can generally do so to multiple units at once, gradually weakening your entire team.
- Andoain's Light Unto Sufferers is particularly infamous for letting him create permanent zones that massively buff up the damage reduction and evasion of every enemy in range, leaving your ability to kill them in time at the mercy of RNG and making them painfully durable even if the odds are in your favor. He will also use this move a minimum of four times over the fight, which if you're not careful can render every enemy on the map near immortal.
That One Disadvantage:
- Out of all the Rejections Operators can get in Mizuki & Caerula Arbor, the most reviled one of them all is Metastatic Aberration. The other Rejections can range from mildly inconveniencing to dangerously lethal to even beneficial depending on the circumstances, and can often be worked around with some effort.^note Not so much with Metastatic, which halves the HP/ATK/DEF of an Operator, with the only upside being it also halves deployment cooldown and DP cost, the two stats that the majority of operators won't be making use of. Halved stats renders almost any combat-based operator near useless, and if you get Metastatic Aberration on one of your core Operators, it has the potential to end the run right then and there, especially on higher difficulties where you need every advantage you can muster. Plus, as per a Rejection, if your Light isn't full (which it won't be if you're on higher Surging Waves or doing the third/fourth endings), you have no way of deciding who it lands on, when it will appear, and if you're able to cure it since that relies on several exceedingly rare boons, not to mention that a cured operator has a chance to just contract it again later. Furthermore, if one operator gets Metastatic, that will be the only Rejection you get for the rest of the run, potentially rendering half of your team dead weight for the simple crime of having bad luck.
- Downplayed in Expedition Joklumarkar. Collapsal Paradigms aren't as punishing as Rejection, and while they can be gained at any time (instead of only at the start of a floor) and can stack, they are also much easier to remove. But among the bunch, the worst is Propagating Collapse and its stronger variant, Substantial Collapse, which put 4 and 8 Dominion zones on random spots in the map, with the stronger variant also buffing the Dominion's ASPD debuff to -75. Considering how crippling Dominions are, this can gimp your operators' performance to the point of not being able to deal with the enemy waves. What really makes it this is that unlike most of the other Paradigms, which can be very dangerous but also have more ways to work around them,^note if the map places a Dominion on an essential tile, there's nothing you can do to mitigate it.
- Bosky Passage side areas randomly debuff and buff your team, but a few of them stand out for being a much bigger hinderance than they are a help:
  - "In this place, allied units have reduced ATK, but deal significantly more damage to enemies 2 or more tiles away": Your team's ATK is reduced by a whopping 40% while doubling damage dealt from attacks 2+ tiles away from an enemy, which is a requirement that you may not be able to take advantage of if you lack long ranged units in the first place, causing the rest of your team to hit like wet noodles; on top of this, the buff being a damage multiplier means that if your unit can't punch through the target's DEF with their reduced ATK, then the buff ends up being totally negated anyways.
  - "In this place, you have a lower deployment limit, but Operators' Redeployment Time is greatly reduced": The deployment limit is reduced by 4, which in most cases will leave you stuck with the minimum limit of 2 operators while being faced with several ferocious battles that were not designed to be able to be beaten with only 2 units. In exchange, redeployment time is reduced by 80%, but if your team is ill-suited to helidropping (like units who need to charge up or scale) or doesn't have enough DP to fund the constantly ramping costs, then you're in serious trouble.
  - "In this place, all enemies have reduced Movement Speed, but gain increased Weight, DEF, and RES": All enemies get +800 DEF and +30 RES along with a +1 Weight increase, which turns almost all of them into unstoppable bulks despite also halving their speed, as they can simply disregard all but the strongest of attacks as they march towards the goal. This is even worse with ranged Squishy Wizard type enemies, as not only does the "squishy" part of their name get dropped entirely, the movement speed slow actually helps them as they'll be able to spend more time pelting your units before moving into range.
That One Sidequest: Some of the collectibles in Integrated Strategies can be real hair-pullers to get if you want to complete your collection.
- Phantom & Crimson Solitaire had the Guard Cap, which required players to deploy 200 operators in a single completion. If your team doesn't rely on fast-redeploys, most combat nodes will be lucky to have 10 or more operators deployed in total, and you generally don't encounter that many combat nodes, meaning you'll have to actively go out of your way to stall out levels and redeploy as many units as possible, which is a colossal time waster. To add insult to injury, the actual item is somewhat underwhelming for the effort needed to unlock it, giving a 25% HP buff that increases by 25% each time a unit is redeployed, limiting its usefulness to units with short cooldowns like Executors, Merchants, or Agents. Expeditioner's Joklumarkar brings back this requirement with the Inextinguishable Torch, although this item is at least pretty powerful to justify its lofty requirement (units gain +30 ASPD for every unit in the adjacent tiles).
- Mizuki & Caerula Arbor tops this with the Pathfinder Fins, the finding of which is a gigantic Luck-Based Mission unmatched by any other item in the game, as the Fins will only show up if the player rolls a 7 or higher on the reroll of Cannot's shop. This essentially forces you into Resourceful Squad from the get-go and making even hitting the criteria for its appearance a colossal RNG check, as you only get one reroll per shop, and shops in themselves aren't even guaranteed to be readily accessible outside of the first and sixth floors. Secondly, the item is a relatively low-grade one compared to the others, meaning that it's highly likely that it'll be pushed out of the rerolled shop by other higher-rarity items, making it border on Permanently Missable Content once your item pool has grown a little bit (before which you likely didn't even know about its existence or criteria). It says something when the main strategy for unlocking it is just to repeatedly beat the first floor with Resourceful Squad, gamble on Pathfinder Fins on the first shop, and restart the run if you don't get it. It's also technically is unlocked by default and only has a strict criteria for appearance, so even if you find it once, you're likely to never see it again afterwards, making it near useless for a normal player despite its fairly strong effect (+30 Light). To add insult to injury, the Light restoration is mostly made obselete by other, more accessible Light regeneration items from the second expansion.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: This mostly applies to characters who died very early in the main story with little backstories to expand their characterization:
- Ace. He's noted to be a loyal member of Rhodes Island. But in the first chapter, he dies trying to stall Talulah just to give his team a chance to escape. He does get a little more screentime after this, when he treated a fellow soldier's wounds despite himself losing an arm, but that's it. Fans view his role in the story as a Sacrificial Lion who's only killed to prove that death exists in the game's lore. Not helping his case is that one of his scenes is treated as an example of They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot (see below).
- Skullshatterer, or specifically, Alex is remembered by fans as a one-dimensional, revenge-driven Reunion member with a goal of taking Misha back home and with a Freudian Excuse for a backstory. These are basically what Chapters 2 and 3 tell about him. It doesn't help that Misha is the center of these chapters, which means his spotlight is shared with her. This is especially the case in Chapter 3 when he dies in the first half for Misha to take on his identity. Then there's the implication that he's such a leader worth serving for since his men seem to have an Undying Loyalty to him as they risk themselves to drag his body back to their base, and the medics desperately try to revive him with first aid. Unfortunately, the story doesn't show in detail how he interacts with is men. Not helping the matters is W claiming that Skullshatterer doesn't really care for his men at all, which begs the questions of why his men are still loyal to him if this is indeed true, or if W is actually lying. Lastly, Skullshatterer is one of the major Reunion figures in the main story who didn't get his face revealed.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
- The Doctor's amnesia is brought up as a huge mystery right from the prologue along with cryptic scenes such as a mysterious voice speaking to them, and a flashback of Amiya talking to them in an old place. But for a large part of the next story chapters (e.g. Chapters 1-6), this whole amnesia plot is rarely brought up again and sidelined in favor of Rhodes Island stopping the Reunion Movement's plans in Lungmen. The prologue also hints that the Doctor may recover memories through flashbacks, but that's the only flashback instance in those chapters. Some characters like Kal'tsit and Amiya are also hinted to know more about the Doctor's past but don't actively try to help recover their memories despite being on the same side. And judging from her Cryptic Conversation in the first chapter, W is also hinted to know a lot about the Doctor, but unfortunately, she barely interacts with them after this scene. It's worth mentioning that the "Darknights Memoir" and "Vigilo" side stories, well as Chapter 7 of the main story, are well-received among fans in terms of worldbuilding and lore because at least, those finally try to focus on the Doctor's past, slowing solving this whole amnesia thing as compared to the earliest chapters.
- The fight between Ace and Talulah in Chapter 1. It's a Curb-Stomp Battle with Talulah as the unscathed victor while Ace dies losing an arm. However, the part that begs an expansion to this plot point is when Mephisto and FrostNova are quite amazed that Ace lasted longer than they expected. It implies that Ace did manage put up a fight even when he knows that he's about to die. Unfortunately as the game details it, Ace is just Killed Offscreen, without any dedicated scenes, narration or background CGs depicting how he fought the Reunion leader by himself.
- Chapter 9 is generally seen as this, especially since it follows up the extremely popular Chapters 7 and 8, which reveal quite a lot about the Doctor and Amiya's pasts. However, Chapter 9 largely ignores the Doctor and Amiya in favor of focusing on Bagpipe and Saileach and setting up the brewing conflicts and conspiracies within Victoria. Chapter 9 also hardly even mentions Siege's role in Rhodes Island's journey to Victoria despite it being heavily teased at the end of Chapter 8. There's really no new revelations about the Doctor, Amiya, or Siege. All in all, players felt that they were just playing a very large sidestory rather than anything relevant to the main plot.
  - Stage 9-21 is extremely controversial due to its plot. While the entire plot of this stage is played out logically and reasonably in hindsight, it hits almost all the wrong sentimental buttons of the audience. Simply put, a rag-tag of reformed Reunion Movement member, with a former Rhode Island Operator involved, breached Rhode Island security to rescue the imprisoned Talulah so that they will put her in their custody instead. done using a high-speed transportation out of nowhere. While ignoring the potential collateral damage their rescue heist had caused, despite promising that they will not follow Talulah's path. The backlash caused by this stage is possibly one of the reasons why Reunion Movement played a role in "A Spark of Darkness", elaborating on their reformation, as well as how they managed to acquired such transportation in the first place. In later chapters of the main story, reunion member has at least one designated stage for them to tell their stories. As of Episode 13, the reunion took up a quarter of the storyline to tell their rescue of the Victorian infected, Talulah's redemption arc, and culminated to Guard's heroic sacrifice, which marks the rebirth of Reunion Movement as a revolutionary organization to free the infected from being oppressed. By this time, unfortunately, there are some sees Guard's sacrifice as a convenient plot to dispose a character that audience had been hated since Episode 9.
Trans Audience Interpretation: It became fairly popular to interpret Stainless as a trans man after his Elite 2 art was unveiled, which noticeably featured a calico cat laying by his side.^note
Viewer Gender Confusion:
- Ansel is a male, even if he looks androgynous and is voiced by a female actress.
- On a similar note, Earthspirit receives the opposite treatment, with her typically being mistaken for a male character due to the androgynous design of her default CG, her attire, and Aoi Yūki putting up a much deeper vocal performance compared to her usual voice.
- Mizuki, another male, also gets this treatment due to his androgynous looks when he was first revealed (but unlike Ansel, he is voiced by Ayumu Murase)
Ugly Cute: Originium Slugs, the most basic Mooks in the game, may be Big Creepy-Crawlies covered in Originium shells, but their somewhat dopey demeanor, the fact that they generally aren't hostile if not agitated, and the fact that they can be domesticated to be outright friendly makes them somewhat endearing both in-universe and out.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Skullshatterer is supposed be a tragic villain with a horrible past that many would feel sorry for him. Instead, the fandom saw the opposite as they see him as a big hypocrite with a severe case of Moral Myopia where he constantly accused Rhodes Island of being traitors to the Infected and killing them despite the fact Rhodes Island has done more for the Infected than Reunion has while the latter commits war crimes and attack innocents including fellow Infected, something he ignores or refuses to acknowledge (or if he does, he simply justifies it by saying they deserved it for not actively taking a stand or being complicit in their plight) when Amiya calls him out for it. Even after he dies, Skullshatterer still refuses to admit he is just as bad as the people who ruin his life, still insisting Rhodes Island are the bad guys who betrayed the Infected and not Reunion. It says something that Mephisto, who is all around built up as and acknowledged to be worse than Skullshatterer, not only has a more sympathetic backstory, but actually acknowledges his actions were terrible and tries to atone for them after hitting the Despair Event Horizon, despite being more depraved than Skullshatterer ever was. It's telling that even the writers of the anime adaptation seem to have recognized this and toned down most of his worst aspects, most notably changing his delusional last words towards Amiya into a much more sympathetic cry for his sister instead.
Unpopular Popular Character: Quite a few Operators get this treatment.
- W is unsurprisingly disliked within the Rhodes Island landship due to her stint as a Reunion-affiliated mercenary along with her provocative behavior that leads her to pick fights with other operators for her own amusement, with many characters seeing her as a madwoman. Many fans on the other hand adore her for her attractive design and have a clearer view of her Hidden Heart of Gold that even she denies, which many find endearing.
- Młynar, while not hated by people who know him, has few friends due to his cynicism and abrasive personality to the point that he even keeps his own family at a distance. Within the fandom he is one of the most well-loved characters due to his character depth as well as being ridiculously strong both in story and gameplay (many consider him flat out the most powerful Operator in the game), and for being an extremely handsome man in a primarily female cast.
- Outside of the playable roster, we have post-Chapter 8 Talulah, after being freed from Kashchey's possession. To the world at large she is viewed as a notorious criminal who manipulated Reunion and turned it into a terrorist faction that committed atrocities against entire nations, with only a few who know the truth about her and are still alive. To the fanbase who are aware of her backstory, she's generally considered one of the biggest Woobies in the story so far, with many hoping to see a redemption arc and potentially her becoming a playable operator.
Woolseyism:
- The "ANNIHILATIO" text in the loading screens of Annihilation Maps may be seen as a "Blind Idiot" Translation or a text field limitation to some English players (because the mode's name is correctly spelled everywhere else), but "annihilatio" is actually the Late Latin word from which the English word "annihilation" was derived from. When keeping in mind that the Ancient race names are derived from foreign words, it can be easy to understand the text as an intended translation instead of a misspelling. This was fixed in an update, now properly being read as "ANNIHILATION". Though for a few seconds before the loading screen ends, the text would briefly switch to "ANNIHILATIO", yet this too was eventually patched.
- Lappland's 3-star victory line actually refers to mille-feuille (as in corpses mille-feuille). The translation renders it as "slice'n'dice" instead, until her lines were rewritten for the her English dub, with her line now appropriately using the Italian term for the dessert (mille foglie).
- The English localization changed Eyjafjalla's nickname for the Doctor from "Sempai" to "Professor". While some fans think that the change is jarring since her voiced lines do not match, especially for Risa Taneda's popular Casting Gag, one side argues that the change is more appropriate when the relationship between the two is treated as professional/medical co-workers instead. A neutral side argues that this is merely a minor thing, and that the Translate the Loanwords, Too trope is in effect.
- When breaking down Cronin's office door in the "Heart of Surging Flame" event, Vigna's one liner quip in the original Chinese version is based on their "Express Delivery!" meme. In the English localization, this got turned into the "FBI open up!" meme instead.
- Projekt Red's name in the Chinese version is 红, which simply translates to "red". The official English localization translated it instead as "Projekt Red", making her reference CD Projekt RED.
The Woobie: It is hard not to feel very sorry for some operators due to the hardships they've faced in their lives.
- Children of Ursus basically turned every single Ursus student into one following the destruction of Chernobog, especially Gummy. Long story short, due to the food shortage of the place they're kept in, Gummy is hinted to have resorted to eating the corpses of her fellow students in order to stay alive. The PTSD caused by this still haunts her to this day, where being hungry enough or shrouded in darkness will cause her to go feral and start biting people indiscriminately. Worse still, she is aware of what she had become, but is unable to do anything about it. It is extremely hard not to feel sorry for her, since of the three starting members, Gummy stood out as the most cheerful and happy, if a bit childish, and always optimistic about everything. After learning of the truth of their past, one comes to realize that it's a coping mechanism, since while she still has her friends, who love her despite what she had to go through, Gummy is ultimately terrified of herself, and constantly haunted by the nightmares of her past.
- A Light Spark in Darkness showed how tough life in Victoria had been for Susie Glitter before she joined Rhodes Island as Goldenglow. Along with having Oripathy that makes her constantly suffer from static shocks, a mob that was persecuting Infected nearly beat her to death, another mob burnt down her barber shop, and corrupt cops that were aiding and abetting the mobs kidnapped and threatened her. She actually hit her lowest point when her shop was burnt, was depressed enough to seriously consider suicide, and was only talked out of it by Haze. Even as an operator, her portraits look like she's been crying, with her E2 portrait in particular having a backdrop referencing the anti-Infected mob that persecuted her. Not helping is that Goldenglow is based on a Scottish Fold, out of all cats, who constantly suffer from medical problems due to their mutation causing their folded ears.
- Ebenholz had a constant roller coaster of suffering before joining Rhodes Island. In addition to his painful history that had a lack of personal freedoms and dodgy Arts experiments performed on him by Witch King loyalists, during the event, the only truly good friend he makes is taken from him because of the consequences of said dodgy Arts experiments Kreide and himself were subject to. The musical performance he wanted to deliver was ruined by this, and then he ends up losing Kreide to aggravated Oripathy and contracts it himself. The title screen for Lingering Echoes drives the knife home by changing its look after you beat Story Mode and unlock the Extra Stages, changing from Hibiscus watching Kreide and himself practising under Czerny's watchful eye to Ebenholz all alone on the now-darkened stage, and his potential token will always remind you of what he's lost.
- Rosmontis's past is a very prolonged parade of pain that angers and confuses her whenever she remembers it - her memory problems and all her heartache stems from the rushed and brutal experimentation that she was subject to, and said experiments also claimed her brother's life. Her Epoque skin in particular is a callback to her days shortly after destroying Loken's lab, complete with her grieving over a picture of her late brother and wiping her tears. It doesn't help that her fearsome performance as an Elite Operator at Rhodes Island spooks people and has left a number of people fearful of her abilities, which leaves her alienated from many, with only her fellow Elite Operators, Amiya, and Ifrit as her closest friends.

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