Warframe: The New WarPREVIEW“The New Warhas been the grand vision
for years,”Rebecca Ford, liveoperations
and communitydirector,tells me. A
Warframestalwart, Rebecca has
been withDigital Extremes for nine
years, helping to build and steer its
storyalongside managing its
community. She’seven thevoice of
Lotus, the player’s guide and mentor. “I
don’t think there’s been atime since it
was announcedin 2018that someone
wasn’t thinking about how to start
making it awesome, start testing it, start
building assets, the concepts, everything
has beenpartof that.”PRIME TIME
For anyone who’s been playing Warframe,
they’ll be nostranger to its flair forstory
driven content butThe New Warmoves
the focus back to the centre. “Last year we
dropped that open world,Heartof
Deimos, it had a storyquest,it moved the
storyalong... story-seeking playerswerequite happy,but that’sa different flavour
from whatThe New Waris. It’s full-on,
cinematic, about your relationship tothe
main characters in the game.”It’sthe kind
of content DigitalExtremesgets excited to
share. “For us, because this is the most
personal content we make, we consider it
our bannertypes of content. We putso
much intoit. It’s really a singleplayer
campaign, right? Youcan see how devs
react when players reach a certain point in
God of Waror those verynarrative
[focused] experiences. This is that, for us.”
It’salso thebiggest campaign they’ve
done todate. “It’sdefinitelylonger than
any quest we’ve ever done.” But players
should brace themselves. “The New War
will takeseveral hours – prepare
accordingly, because your normal
Warframeactivities will not be available.”
The New Waralso has a grander scope
than everbefore. As new big bads the
Sentients arrive in the solar system,
players will be stepping outside their
Tenno shoesand taking control of
characters in the factions that have
previously served as your foe.MAGNUM CORPUS
Seeing theuniverse through the eyes
of what has been,for the player,
cannon fodder should giveit a new
sense ofscale. With properties like
Dune ascendant, Warframefeels poised
to capitalise onan audience eager for
dense, political world building andstrange
science fiction concepts. However, even
though this is a dark, dramatic beat in the
story, Warframeisn’t afraid tohave fun.
The cloned foot soldier in the Grineer
army youcontrol is bossed aroundby a
comically over the top drill sergeant type
officer, while the weak, robot commanding
lad in thehypercapitalist Corpus faction is
following the instructions of a flippant, self
centred corporate overlord,whose
disregard is too much to beanything other
than laughable. It’s this degreeof
personality that helps Warframestay
away from becoming some self serious
sci-figame, too obsessed with its own
lore. Even as The New Warescalates
things, it makes plentyof time for the
sillier, characterful elements that have
made the game such a delight.
Though don’t expect to spend all of
The New Warin these shoes.“YouwillIt feels like only yesterday Warframe was
just that odd little free to play game with
the space ninjas. Now it’s a sprawling
sci-fi epic that contains everything from
open world mech battles to ship-to-ship space
combat. Warframe’s next update, The New War,
isn’t simply a burst of more content, intended to
pad out a service game treadmill with new chores
to grind. It’s a huge story campaign: the latest
chapter in a lavish saga about the solar system
protecting Tenno and the return of an old enemy.
One that’s been a long time coming.
The latest update is an epic years
in the making
WARFRAME:
THE NEW WAR
POISED TO CAPITALISE ON AN
AUDIENCE EAGER FOR DENSE,
POLITICAL WORLD BUILDING
RELEASE
December
DEVELOPER
Digital ExtremesPUBLISHER
In-houseLINK
warframe.comNEED TO KNOW
NEW
INFO