Arknights: Endfield, a brand new gacha action game released today, has temporarily stopped all PayPal transactions. This action was taken after many players reported being charged real money for in-game purchases that they did not authorize.

Players quickly went to online community hubs, such as the Arknights: Endfield Reddit page, to show payments that appeared on their PayPal accounts. These payments were not approved by the account owners. Some screenshots showed payments made in different global currencies. There were claims that other players’ PayPal accounts were being linked to fresh game accounts. The developer, Hyperglyph, has not yet confirmed the exact cause of this error.

One user, known as Impossible Clover 818, created a post on the Endfield Reddit. The title of the post was: “Did anyone get refunded for the PayPal nonsense yet? My whole balance got wiped.” This user claimed that £1,200 was “wiped” from their PayPal account. Less than an hour before the post, they had been asked to provide real-world identification to access their account. This request was due to “suspicious activity” on the account.

In a statement made on social media, Hyperglyph explained that they are aware of the problem. They stated that the issue affects “a small number of purchases” made

The statement also asserted that all refunds are expected to be resolved “within four hours.” Since the statement was posted recently, the issue should hopefully be fixed soon.

When contacted for comment before the social media post, a representative of Hyperglyph provided a statement to Eurogamer. The representative said:

We want to sincerely apologize to everyone affected by the PayPal payment issue that occurred shortly after launch. We understand how upsetting and concerning this kind of situation can be, especially when it involves purchases and personal payment details.

Here is what we want to clearly share with you:

• All affected PayPal purchases will be fully refunded. We have already begun processing refunds for impacted orders.
• We do not store players’ payment information. Payment details are handled directly by PayPal and are not saved in our systems.
• This issue only affected some players on certain platforms when using PayPal. As soon as we became aware of the problem, we disabled PayPal payments within roughly two hours of launch to prevent any further impact.

At the moment, PayPal payments will remain unavailable while we continue to investigate the root cause together with our partners. We will not re-enable the payment option until we are confident the issue has been fully resolved.

We are truly sorry for the stress and inconvenience this caused, and we are grateful for your patience while we work through this carefully. If you have additional questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to us directly.