Cost of Hope I is one of the early regional side missions in Arknights: Endfield. It sits in Valley IV, inside the Valley Pass area, alongside quests like “Where Are Thou My Love,” “OD Project: Refugee Camp I,” and “Produce Industrial Explosives.” It arrives at the point where the main story has opened up the first large exploration region and started pushing you toward supporting local settlements and outposts.
Where Cost of Hope I sits in the quest list
Endfield splits progression into three broad tracks: Main Missions, Side Missions, and Exploration Missions. The core story beats live in the Prologue and chaptered “Process” steps (“Break the Siege,” “Valley Reboot,” “Westward into the Vale,” and so on). Side missions like Cost of Hope I are anchored to specific hubs and sub‑regions and unlock as you push the mainline forward.
Within that structure, Cost of Hope I is categorized as:
| Category | Region | Local area | Quest name |
|---|---|---|---|
| Side / regional mission | Valley IV | Valley Pass | Cost of Hope I |
Valley Pass is one of several named sub‑zones in Valley IV, alongside locations like Aburrey Quarry, Power Plateau, Origin Lodespring, and Originium Science Park. You reach Valley IV during Chapter 1: The Broken Lands, after clearing early story stages such as “Break the Siege,” “Rally and Unite,” “Secure Sanctuary,” and “Building an Outpost.” Once Valley IV is open, Valley Pass becomes one of the first side‑content clusters you can work through.
How to unlock Cost of Hope I
The game does not surface Cost of Hope I from the very beginning; it appears naturally as you progress through the first chapter and begin to stabilize the region around your initial outpost.
Step 1: Play through the Prologue main missions “Process: Cold Start” and “Process: Awakening,” then continue into Chapter 1 – Process 1. Clearing early missions like “Break the Siege” and “Valley Reboot” opens access to Valley IV and the broader “Broken Lands” region.
Step 2: Continue Chapter 1 until you have completed “Building an Outpost.” At this point, you have your first functioning outpost and basic base systems online, which the game uses as a trigger to start feeding you localized requests from nearby settlements.
Step 3: Travel to Valley Pass in Valley IV. Side missions for this sub‑region – “Where Are Thou My Love,” “OD Project: Refugee Camp I,” “Produce Industrial Explosives,” and “Cost of Hope I” – are associated with this map. Cost of Hope I appears in your mission list once you have set foot in Valley Pass and advanced the chapter far enough to start receiving civilian requests there.
There is no separate menu toggle required; it behaves like other early Valley IV side missions and simply drops into your log once the story and exploration flags are met.
What Cost of Hope I expects you to do
Cost of Hope I is a narrative‑driven side request framed around supporting people in the Valley Pass area. It is not a base‑building puzzle in the AIC, and it is not part of the outpost order chains; it plays more like a compact field segment tied into the broader Valley IV storyline.
Typical objectives in this tier of Valley Pass missions include:
- Moving to a specific landmark or lab space in the zone, often on the fringes of the area’s main path.
- Interacting with terminals, equipment, or local NPCs that are dealing with lingering fallout from earlier conflicts.
- Clearing a short combat encounter to secure the objective or extract whoever or whatever you came for.
Cost of Hope I follows that pattern. The structure is straightforward: reach the marked location in Valley Pass, resolve the interaction or battle there, then return or confirm completion through the mission tracker. There are no alternate branches or failure paths beyond simply being defeated in combat.
General approach to the Cost of Hope I objectives
Because Cost of Hope I sits in the same Valley Pass block as “Produce Industrial Explosives” and the first refugee‑camp task, it is tuned for squads that have only just started to round out from launch rewards and early banner pulls. You do not need elaborate gear chains from the base or high‑tier outpost production to clear it.
Step 1: Before you accept or track the mission, check that your core team roughly matches the level curve of the Chapter 1 story fights you have just cleared. If you handled “Secure Sanctuary” and “Building an Outpost” without issues, you are in a good place for Cost of Hope I.
Step 2: Enter Valley Pass and follow the mission marker. The game typically routes you along existing fast‑travel points and obvious paths rather than hidden detours. Treat the waypoint as your primary guide and only break off to explore if you want extra chests or materials.
Step 3: When the objective shifts to interaction – a console, a lab device, or a character event – complete the prompt immediately. Many of these early Valley missions gate the next step behind a simple dialogue or inspect action, not a puzzle.
Step 4: If the mission escalates into a fight, treat it like the other small‑scale encounters in Valley IV. Anchor your formation with a sturdy frontliner, bring at least one ranged damage dealer to handle enemies that path around terrain, and keep a support or healer in reserve for the last wave. Enemy compositions in this band are designed to stress basic positioning and timing, not advanced synergies.
Step 5: Once the fight or interaction completes, wait for the on‑screen confirmation that the current objective updated. Cost of Hope I wraps cleanly; there are no base‑side follow‑ups to perform immediately after finishing the on‑field portion.
How Cost of Hope I ties into the wider Valley IV progression
Valley IV is structured so that story, side missions, exploration tasks, and base work all reinforce each other. Even though Cost of Hope I is a self‑contained mission in Valley Pass rather than a base project, completing it contributes to that larger pacing.
Some of the ways it fits into the early game loop:
- It gives you more reasons to traverse Valley Pass, which helps uncover teleport points, mining sites, and plant locations that later feed into AIC production.
- It sits next to “OD Project: Refugee Camp I,” so you naturally bounce between combat‑focused and support‑focused requests in the same geographical slice of the map.
- It runs in parallel to your first serious outpost and base‑building steps, arriving just after missions like “Building an Outpost” and before the more complex Origin Lodespring and Originium Science Park side content unlocks.
Clearing it alongside the other early Valley Pass quests keeps your mission log balanced: you advance the chapter, help stabilize local settlements, and expand your exploration footprint without getting stuck grinding a single mission type.
Once Cost of Hope I is out of the way, Valley Pass is largely caught up with the rest of your Chapter 1 progress, and you can pivot to the next cluster of regional tasks in Aburrey Quarry, Power Plateau, or Origin Lodespring as your squad and base are ready.
