Barrage Fortress

This article is about the April Fools mini-game. For the soundtrack, see Barrage Fortress! Soldiers Assemble.

“

Dispatch Rhodes Island's mighty soldiers to fend off the onslaught of enemies. All the ammo in the world is at your disposal. Unleash! Rampage! Our goal is to defeat as many enemies as possible within the time we have! Careful, Conviction is the key to our operation. Do not let them strike Conviction down!

”

Soldiers Assemble: Barrage Fortress or simply Barrage Fortress (BF) is a mini-game in Arknights that is available during April Fools from 2022 (CN)/2023 (Global). In-universe, it is a Terran indie video game developed by Conviction and Closure, who had various Rhodes Island personnel playtest the game with mixed to negative reviews, prominently citing the game's difficulty and lack of innovation.

Overview

In a break from Arknights' usual tower defense gameplay, BF's gameplay is similar to various shoot 'em up games, most notably Azur Lane and Touhou Project.

On each BF stage, the player controls Conviction (actually a deployable unit) riding a hovercraft and continuously release fist-shaped projectiles ahead of them. The hovercraft is controlled by dragging anywhere on the screen towards the desired direction.

An Operator from a pre-determined lineup that varies on each stage can be deployed in front of Conviction to assist them, who have maxed out stats with some even wearing certain outfits even if the player does not have them but few have their skill disabled; ranged Operators can attack enemies so long as they stay within range. Only one Operator can be deployed at a time; the player must retreat the old one or let them be knocked out to deploy a new one, so choose the Operator wisely.

Unlike in regular operations however, DP regenerates very slowly in BF stages (1 DP every 10 seconds), but having Conviction pick up The Boons of Art! will generate a lot of DP.

Enemies constantly spawn throughout the BF stage, which fires either red or white bullets; red bullets can be destroyed but white ones cannot. If Conviction and/or the assisting Operator (not the hovercraft, contrary to popular belief) comes into contact with an enemy, they will take damage, so players would do well to avoid them.

Normally Conviction releases one projectile at a time and the assisting Operator suffers from a heavy ASPD penalty, but picking up The Clutchness of Art! will fully charge up Conviction's skill Conviction Mode!, where they now release three projectiles in a vertical pattern simultaneously and removes the Operator's ASPD penalty.

To clear a BF stage, the player must destroy the boss which will appear later in the stage. The player will fail the stage if Conviction is defeated or the boss escapes if the player takes too long to defeat them.

The player's final score, which affects their ranking on the stage's leaderboard, is determined by the amount of destroyed enemies and the stage's timer, and will be recorded on the scoreboard displayed at the end of the stage if the player clears it. The scoreboard shows the best 20 score made by players including various Arknights characters (see Trivia), which can be more of the player's own top scores.

Intro

Main article: Barrage Fortress/Intro

Trivia

The EN server's teaser image for Barrage Fortress

• The Barrage Fortress' teaser show a website titled "Clostore" with an identical layout to Steam.
  • The site also shows the following Terran video games which are a nod to those in Earth:
    • Perfume Craft (Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator)
    • It Needs Three (It Takes Two)
    • Leithanien Ring (Elden Ring)
• The nicknames of players in BF's scoreboard corresponds to the following Arknights characters:
  • "LeaderOne" is obviously referring to Closure herself which is the same as her Obsgram account in Heart of Surging Flame.
  • "IZUMIKun~" is obviously Mizuki with his name being reverted from "Mizuki-kun (a Japanese casual title)." The name is also his Seaborn title as "Izu-mik."
  • "PlayerConviction" is obviously Conviction.
  • "sogoL" is Logos wit his codename reverted.
  • "Higan Soulcannon" likely refers to Sesa with higan meaning the Buddhist afterlife in Japanese and his chūnibyō-like naming style.
  • “Kirara strat burner" is obviously Kirara. The numbers behind are her alternative accounts.
  • "Pinus Slyverstris, Assemble!" is a shared account among the Pinus Sylvestris members.
  • "BFSACT.txt" could be Ptilopsis with BFSACT standing for "Breadth-first search action" in computer programming (or just an acronym for BF's full name adding the CT as "closed test") and .txt meaning "text file."
  • "AOSTA" is obviously Aosta.
  • "Bena was here" is obviously Bena, although the one typing this name could actually be her marionette Annie.
  • "2AppleπOrNot2π" is Exusiai which is based on her iconic in-game dialogue and her love for apple pie, with 2 meaning "to" and π standing for "pie."
  • "AAA#" is SilverAsh because the name is the hexadecimal code for medium light shade of gray in RGB format.
  • "JingleBells" is Pramanix which refers to her sacred bell.
  • "Supercoolteammate" is Kroos which is based on her iconic in-game dialogue. This is even obvious in the CN name as "CoolCoolTeammate (CN: 酷酷队员)" and the JP one as simply "KKDY."
  • "Zima_Incoming" is Zima with the account name referencing the first episode of Game of Thrones.
  • "Purgatory" refers to Lava, specifically her mature form.
  • "Grypherburg Nights" most likely would be Istina given she has the tendency of playing games alongside Zima. The name is taken from the Russian song "Moscow Nights."
  • "Hold it right there aosta" is likely Chiave due to his eagerness to defeat Aosta in the game. The associated profile picture also features Wrath of Siracusans, a chocolate sauce pasta dish Chiave expresses interest in in his Monthly Squad log.
  • "Invisible" could likely be Ethan given his love for games. It is based on his in-game role as an Ambusher Specialist.
  • "Kjarr's first time playing" is obviously Kjera, referring to her mortal name as Kjarr the maiden.
  • "Nagashisoumen" could be Saga since the name refers to a kind of Japanese noodle, fitting her love for food.
  • "EX-Knight-23" could likely be Eunectes with the name being a combination of the robots' names: THRM-EX, Justice Knight, Lancet-2, and Castle-3, fitting her love for robots.
  • In the teaser, there are two other accounts: "LENA" which obviously refers to Perfumer (as her real name) and "Clocking Out Punctually” as Earthspirit which is named after her in-game base skill.