Actually, we don’t need to speak up for the Endlands

This morning, Shanghai Xuhui released a statement that laid out a set of figures regarding *The Last Land* in black and white: two weeks after the game’s launch, its cumulative revenue across all platforms has surpassed 1.2 billion yuan. Of this total, the domestic PC market accounts for nearly 60%, while the combined PC and PlayStation revenue from overseas markets accounts for 70%.

By the time the tea house saw this article, the news had already been circulating in the community for a while, so I came across a player’s comment on social media saying, “Finally, I don’t have to argue with people anymore.”

To be honest, I can really relate to that sense of relief.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but at some point, the mobile gaming community has become increasingly frivolous—so much so that it’s almost impossible to find a relatively objective review of a game anymore.

Nowadays, as soon as a game or a new update is released, it seems like it has to be judged within 24 hours—either a "hit" or a "flop"—with no middle ground. Everyone in the community is in a rush to voice their opinion and take sides right away.

Given the sheer scale of *Arknights: The End*’s launch, even an editor like me—who has no real life and spends nearly 24 hours a day in front of a computer—wouldn’t dare to pass immediate judgment on the game. Sometimes I even wonder: has anyone actually played it?

The result of this atmosphere is that the gaming experience—which truly requires time to unfold—is severely compressed for many people. And when it comes to forming a quick opinion, what makes the best material for discussion? Tens of thousands of words of story text? Or gameplay that takes time to experience? Neither. It’s definitely the superficial data and sales charts that can be viewed with a single click, along with the “reviews” from established—or rather, the loudest—online communities.

So at this point, you may begin to realize that, in many online communities, first impressions based on hearsay often become the only impressions people have—and those impressions, in turn, shape their preconceived positions. Any comments made from such a preconceived standpoint are likely to have absolutely nothing to do with “objectivity.”

The voices of those willing to take the time to play the game for a few more days before speaking out were drowned out in the torrent of short-term opinions that arose during this process.

As a result, after the Xuhui District Government released this document today, it received a lot of positive feedback. For once, it wasn’t met with a barrage of criticism, but instead garnered a high number of likes and was pushed to the top of the feed in some online communities.

Returning to the content of the Xuhui District Government’s announcement itself, we at the Teahouse believe that the most interesting aspect isn’t actually the figure of 1.2 billion yuan in two weeks.

Perhaps the most surprising revelation from the tea house event was the breakdown of player demographics for *Arknights: Endland* across PC and console platforms: nearly 60% of players in China are on PC, while overseas, the combined share of PC and PlayStation players reaches 70%. This ratio is unprecedented in the mobile game category—or, more broadly, among cross-platform titles.

Clearly, this result is by no means a passive consequence of mobile issues forcing everyone to switch to the PC version. On the contrary, as I’ve often mentioned to industry friends over dinner these past few days, the mobile experience of *The Last Land* is definitely top-tier. In fact, its consistent presence in the top ten of the best-seller charts for a week straight demonstrates that its performance on mobile is also quite impressive.

The success of the PC and console versions is essentially attributable to a strategy that Yingjiao likely established from the very beginning of the project: building the game around a single-player experience.Many articles and players have already highlighted this point, and we at Teahouse believe that players who have played the game to this day will realize: *Arknights: Endland* integrates industry, combat, and sandbox exploration. The synergy between these three elements makes it a game that, while featuring anime-style art, offers a genuine console-level gaming experience.

The appeal of *Endland* lies in the act of "playing" itself. The high adoption rates on PC and consoles simply reflect players voting with their feet; at the same time, it likely indicates that there are many silent non-anime fans who, alongside anime fans, are genuinely enjoying the fun of games rooted in the anime subculture.

Teahouse would like to thank Xuhui, and we have to admit that official endorsement really does speak louder than a thousand words—it cleared up a lot of previously unclear issues in one fell swoop.

However, Teahouse has always believed that a truly great game ultimately speaks for itself.

After all, even without these figures, *The End*’s revenue figures are undeniable, and the game’s quality speaks for itself. These facts won’t change with fluctuations in the sales charts, nor will they be swayed by the ebb and flow of community sentiment.

What *The End* needs right now is perhaps not more defense, but more time. Time will allow the short-term noise to settle, letting the quality of the product itself shine through. The game that Eagle Corner has spent four years crafting deserves a longer period of market scrutiny—and, in fact, it can withstand such scrutiny.

As the poem says: “Though sifting and washing a thousand times is hard work, only when the wild sand is blown away does the gold appear.”