Akane Rin's Return Made Me Think About Arknights

NTE is bringing Akane Rin's side story back after 4 patches, and it got me thinking about Arknights. There's something really satisfying about a game remembering its own characters, stories, and consequences. So let's talk about continuity, why it makes a live-service world feel more alive, and why I want NTE to do more of it...but not too much. ========= References and research: Green & Brock (2000), “The Role of Transportation in the Persuasiveness of Public Narratives” Melanie C. Green & Timothy C. Brock, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(5), 701–721. Green & Appel (2024), “Narrative transportation: How stories shape how we see ourselves and the world.” MacLeod (2020), “Zeigarnik and von Restorff: The memory effects and the stories behind them” Colin M. MacLeod, Memory & Cognition, 48, 1073–1088. ========= #NTE #NevernessToEverness #Arknights #GachaGames #Gaming