Friday night. My phone is warm in my hands. I am sitting in the lobby of Stronghold Protocol, waiting for three strangers to press “ready”.
Arknights is mostly a single-player game. For years I played it alone. I put my operators on the map, they stop the enemies, and nobody talks to me. Stronghold Protocol is different. It works like auto chess, the same idea as Teamfight Tactics: the operators fight by themselves in rounds, and between rounds I spend my funds on new operators and items. It is also the first mode in this game where I can play with real people.
In the co-op mode, four players defend their own maps at the same time. You can invite friends with a code, or you can let the game find strangers for you. I usually pick strangers. A stranger has no history with me. They do not know I am the quiet one. To them I am only a defence line that works, or does not work.
Here is the strange part. You cannot really talk. There is no voice chat, only small emotes: a heart, a thumbs up, a crying face. Between rounds you get about seventy seconds to make decisions, and then the next wave starts. Seventy seconds is also a comfortable length for me. It is too short to say something stupid. Nobody asks “how was your day”. Nobody asks anything.
A friend told me this mode is like Teamfight Tactics. She is right about the shape: the auto battles, the recruiting, the little decisions with a timer. But in TFT everyone fights everyone, and only one person wins. Here we are on the same side. That one difference changes the whole feeling.
Between some rounds, six bonuses appear and the four players take turns to choose one. I watch what the others pick. It shows me how they think. That is a kind of talking too.
If I finish my wave perfectly, which means not one enemy gets through, my defence line can catch the enemies that leak from a teammate’s map. And in the last boss round, all four players share one health bar. If a stranger plays badly, it becomes my problem. If I play well, it becomes their luck.
Offline, things are different. In Business we talk about transaction costs: the price you pay just to make an exchange happen. Talking to people has a high transaction cost for me. I have to look at a face, find the right words, choose the right second to speak, and then worry about it for ten minutes after. In the game the cost is almost zero. One emote is a whole sentence. Helping is even cheaper. I do not have to say “I will help you”. I just have to not lose.
Sometimes a friend joins my team, and sometimes it is only strangers. Both feel fine. I used to think I do not like people. Now I think that is wrong. When a stranger sends me a heart after I cover their leak, I send one back. Two emotes, zero words, and it feels like we had a real conversation. Maybe I never disliked people. Maybe I only disliked the price of being with them.
The boss round starts. Four health bars become one. Mine is inside it.