Arknights

Concept art of AR Team by Lowlight. The two unused characters are believed to have been reused in Arknights.

Lowlight illustration featuring ^AR M4 SOPMOD IIM4 SOPMOD IIM4 SOPMOD II and a character named W.

Arknights (明日方舟, lit. Ark of Dawn) is a science-fiction, story-heavy, tower defense mobile game by Shanghai-based developer Hypergryph, released in Mainland China in 2019 and in the rest of the world in 2020. It is among the top performing Chinese mobile games by revenue. A spin-off sequel, Arknights: Endfield was announced in 2022 and later globally released in 2026.

Arknights is a competitor of Girls' Frontline (released three years before) but there are background connections between the two from the time of their development.

Connections to Girls' Frontline

• Lowlight, head producer of Arknights and co-founder of Hypergryph, was a member of Mica Team from roughly 2013 to 2016. He produced artworks for Codename: Bakery Girl and Girls' Frontline, notably illustrating four out of five members of AR Team. In January 2016, he presented his position at Mica as a concept designer (概念设计师). 16Lab is also a reference to Lowlight. His last contribution to the Girls' Frontline franchise was The Art of Girls' Frontline Vol.1, released March 2017.
  • In a concept art shared on Weibo in February 2016, during Girls' Frontline's third beta, Lowlight showed a sixth AR Team member with features similar to SOP-II, along with what appeared to be an early concept for the Commander or Angelia. The hood of this character is similar to the one worn by the Doctor in Arknights. At the Shanghai ComiCup 19 in December 2016, Lowlight drew SOP-II and the sixth member for a fan, annotating them respectively “II” and “W”. Like the conceptual sixth AR Team member, W in Arknights shares SOP-II's black clothes and light hair with red highlights. Moreover, W is also a sadistic soldier and she carries an M4A1 CQBR Mk.18 on her back.
  • Persistent rumors attribute some of the early plot to Lowlight, but Lowlight himself indicates he was only an artist and not part of the writing team in his interview in The Art of Girls' Frontline Vol.1.
  • On 17 May 2017, Lowlight made a recruitment post on Weibo to find a graphic designer for a new studio. The post didn't mention a name, but contained an early logo for Hypergryph. Humorously, poorly blurred text reveals that the post reused a job offer graphic asset from Girls' Frontline. On 14 August 2017, Lowlight teased an announcement about a new project. Arknights was announced the next day and Lowlight revealed that the game was the next stage of a personal project called 3.0 (or Xanadu).
• Outlets have listed both titles among the first successful mobile games to rely on dark science-fiction stories, at a time where this genre was considered niche in the Chinese market.
• The characters of Lunasia and Priestess are sometimes compared by fans. Both are mysterious girls existing beyond the physical world, whose appearance resembles that of a protagonist (respectively M4A1 and Amiya), and were originally background characters who eventually took a central importance as antagonists.
• Arknights: Endfield is a spin-off game that entered beta testing in 2023, where the company Endfield Industries operates from the OMV Dijiang orbital station. Endfield and Dijiang are both fictional locations first mentioned in Girls' Frontline's marketing material from 2015, but unused in the Girls' Frontline universe.
• In the introductory dialogue of the 10 November 2025 season of the Extreme Peak mode of Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium Global, Arknights was referenced under the name "Dorknights". The reference was only in the English version, generic names were used other languages (塔岛 (Tower Island) in CN, “TODA” in KR and タワーランド (Towerland) in JP).
• Arknights JP, KR and EN are published by Yostar. Yostar spin-off company Wave-Game distributed Girls' Frontline's betas.
• Between 2020 and 2024, Arknights TW was published by Longcheng, who's also the publisher of Girls' Frontline TW.

References

Games Released: Girl of the Bakehouse · Codename: Bakery Girl · Girls' Frontline · Project Neural Cloud · Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium · Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery · Girls' Frontline: Fire Control In development: Fingertips Breakout · Reverse Collapse: F · Girls' Frontline: Blue Butterfly Contract Canceled: Girls' Frontline: Glitch Land Anime Girls' Frontline (anime) · Healing Chapter & Madness Chapter Books Guns&Girls · The Art of Girls' Frontline Vol.1 · The Art of Girls' Frontline Vol.2 · The Art of Girls' Frontline Vol.3 · Confidential Files · Frankfurt Battle Report · Girls' Frontline: Doll's Song · Others Music Withered · Codename: Bakery Girl Original Soundtrack · Girls' Frontline Original Soundtrack · Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium Original Soundtrack · Project Neural Cloud Original Soundtrack · Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery Soundtrack · Girls' Frontline ECHOES · Mankind Is No longer Solitary · Girls' Frontline Concerts Companies Big Firebird and Liverless · Sunborn (Mica Team) · Vanguard Sound · Game publishers Community Community Resources · Community Events Betas Girls' Frontline · Project Neural Cloud · Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium Misc. April Fools · Arknights · Back to the Source · Content Ratings · Figures · GFL2 Website · List of cultural references · Minigames · Shadow Confrontation · Tale of Intersecting Dimensional Interstice