W
arframe’s latest
chapter in its
strange sci-fi
saga packed a lot
of revelations
and twists into
its running time,
and dived into some of the story’s
oldest questions. Be warned, the
article ahead contains spoilers for
the whole story to date.
Rebecca Ford, live operations and
community director for Digital
Extremes, spoke with me about the
quest and their pride in delivering it
at long last. “It may not have been
what players expected overall, but it
was such a true testament to the
story we wanted to tell, and I’m just
happy that people cared enough to
come back and try it.”
Perhaps the biggest surprise for
players who had been teased for so
long was that The New War wasn’t
really about the war itself. The
system-spanning battle against the
invading Sentients takes up only a
single act of the story, and the battle
ends in total defeat. The Lotus and
Tenno are thrown into the void,
while villain Ballas positions himself
as leader of an empire made in his
own image. The Narmer Empire. By
the end of act one the solar system is
completely in their hands, and to
cement this break away from the
expected story, players are thrust
back to the login screen, as if our
defeat was so ultimate we can’t even
stay in the game. Warframe has
always been clever at using little
meta-moments to elevate its
important story beats, and The New
War was no exception.
When players return to the world
of Warframe, not all hope is lost.
They’re put in control of a
mysterious, masked stranger... one
who’s shockingly mortal, and must
rely on stealth as they wage a war
against the new Narmer Empire. The
reveal that they’re an older looking
version of our Tenno player
character, the Operator, now referred
to as the Drifter, won’t catch anyone
by surprise. But that turns out to be
another clever bit of misdirection.VOID TRANSACTION
One of the new quest’s most delicious
additions was the flashbacks to the
Operator’s childhood aboard the
Zariman Ten Zero, the infamous ship
which carried the children who’d
become Tenno through the void, and
brought them back with exceptional
but uncontrollable power. We learn
the curriculum the children were
being taught centred around causality
and parallel universes. What happens
afterwards, once they enter the void,
has been recounted by the Operator
before: the adults were driven mad,
leaving the children to fend for
themselves until rescued.
The big shock is an appearance by
an unexpected visitor: The Man In
The Wall. Here we find out not only
was this enigmatic entity aboard theWarframe
FEATURE