Warframe! In 2025!
by mooseymcman
In the summer of 2024, I dedicated myself to catching up on the story of Warframe, as the next big update, “1999,” was coming in “winter.” This update had been teased for quite a while, and with the early inklings of Destiny 2's post Final Shape descent taking...shape, it felt like the right time to make a big push to get over the hurdles before me, and catch up on Warframe. The next big story quest for me was The New War, but I had another hurdle I'd been stuck on for a few years.
Namely, building my own Necramech. What's a Necramech, those who don't play Warframe (or haven't gotten far enough) might ask? Warframe is already, in a very broad sense, kind of a mech game, once you know what's going on with the nature of the Warframes themselves. But...what if it became a much more literal mech game? No, the Warframes don't actually climb into a mech to pilot it, you Transfar into it like you do with the Warframes. But unlike the (usually) sleek and agile Warframes, Necramechs are big, hulking, and appropriately beefy in both the firepower and armor department. They're not huge huge, but big enough to feel very different from the Warframes.
The Necramechs, funnily enough, were added at the same time as another Warframe White Whale of mine, Xaku. I believe they were all part of the big Deimos update, which along with all that, included a new open world area to explore. A very...fleshy, sticky version of one of Mars' moons. Deimos was the first big update after I really got into Warframe, back in early 2020.
Except, that's not where, or when my Warframe journey started. For that, even though this is really a technicality, we have to go alllll the way back to 2013, at the PS4 launch. People may forget, Warframe was a launch title! I think the earliest publicly available version on PC was out in 2012. That's a longer time ago now than I want to think about! I was still in college in 2012!
Anyway, as is easy to guess, the game didn't exactly stick with me the first time around. But, out of curiosity, I went deep into the “archives” to find what, if anything I had written about Warframe back then. In doing so, I found this gem of a sentence: “I shouldn't have expected to like it, given that I'm pretty sure this was made by the people that made Dark Sector.” This is especially baffling because I remember liking Dark Sector. Unfortunately, that game is old enough that I wouldn't have written about it, so there's no way for me to prove or disprove my feelings at the time. But I would say trust me, when I say that while it was far from great, I enjoyed Dark Sector when I played it.
Things get hazy from here, and the “archives” don't really clear up much of that haze, but the next step on my Warframe journey, however fleeting of a step it may have been, was 2018. My memory of that time is playing a lot of it while listening to All Systems Goku, that DBZ podcast Jeff and Dan did together. That memory is so strong that there are still times now, when playing on certain tile-sets, I get flashbacks to that podcast. I can hear the two of them laughing about Nappa hating the media, I shiver when I remember how they mispronounced Frieza, and I snicker about how much Jeff obsessed over the “ass-eating samurai.”
Again, my memory is this was the first time I stuck with the game, but evidence in both the “archives” and my Trophies for the PS4 version (which I had to dig for; all the ones I got originally re-popped the second I played the PS5 version, with a new time stamp) suggest otherwise. Another gem I wrote in early 2019, about Anthem was, “it's like Warframe but good.” I'll let that quote stand on its own, and readers and can interpret how I feel about that, and Anthem now however they please.
But looking through the old Trophies, I didn't get the one for playing more than ten hours until 2020. So, suffice it to say, as strong an association as I have between Warframe and that podcast, I didn't really spend much time with the game back then. Now, granted, for all I know it could have been nine hours and fifty nine minutes I played! Which is longer than a lot of whole games, but not nearly long enough to really get a feel for Warframe, it turns out.
The next, and most helpful piece from the “archives” is one I wrote in early 2020, about how I was using both Warframe and The Division 2 to fill the Destiny shaped hole in my heart. I quit the game for a whole year after Shadowkeep, and really wanted something else to replace it. Just funny to think about how cyclical these things are. Destiny 2 falters, I start playing and enjoying Warframe, then Destiny 2 recovers and I go on a Warframe hiatus. Destiny 2 falters again, I start playing and enjoying Warframe again, and...
Remains to be seen if Bungie can recover this time, but this isn't about Destiny. I've written and re-written the first few pages of this piece multiple times now, both because there's so much in Warframe that it's hard to focus on any one thing, but also because it's hard to not just make it about Destiny. But I don't want to do that, for all their similarities, I don't want to just write about why I'm enjoying Warframe more than Destiny. I want to write about Warframe. What makes it special, and unique.
And, the best answer I came to was to at least start with my journey with the game over the years, as stop and go as it admittedly has been. But that still doesn't answer the question of what makes Warframe special. Doesn't even answer the question of what Warframe even is, and I struggle to define that myself! Sure, on some level it's a “shlooter,” but also not really. It's not a game where enemies drop random guns and you hope they have a good, or at least funny roll like Borderlands. Sure, it's a game where you spend a lot of time shooting guns and other ranged weapons, and a game where you spend a lot of time swinging around swords and other melee weapons. Except it's not just a shooter, or hack and slash game.
So...what is Warframe?
Warframe is...weird. Dense, at times feels like it's trying to do way too much, but most importantly it's weird. Yes, I said weird twice. It's a game about traumatized child soldiers fighting against space oligarchs as much as it's a game about playing dress up with your bio-mechanical death machines. “Fashion Frame is the true end game,” as a friend of mine likes to say. It's a game where your ship has a quirky AI (named Ordis) installed that alternates between dumb puns and snapping into murder mode. But he only does that because he's a digitized version of someone who killed a lot in life, yet had most of his memories erased.
You can have a space dog or space cat, and you can grind rails with a hoverboard on the planet Venus. You get that hoverboard from a bunch of kids living in vents under the thumb of ultra-capitalism on an inhospitable world. The name of this group of kids living in the vents? The Vent-Kids.
I've been told repeatedly that somewhere, buried deep in this game is a barebones fighting game, added one year as a goofy little joke. But I don't think I've ever managed to find, or actually play it. Some of the quests deal with things like the traumas of [SPOILERS]
Missions frequently require killing dozens, if not hundreds of enemies. So of course you can collect plushies (called Floofs) and install fish tanks to decorate your ship. Everyone needs somewhere nice to return to, and relax between all the death and destruction. The 1999 update includes a big multi-level backroom apartment as a new base of operations, which is pretty cool. EXCEPT, it doesn't have my quirky AI buddy Ordis! So I go back and forth on which I prefer, the nice new apartment, or my cozy ship. Anyway, as one might assume, if there's fish tanks, there's a fishing minigame to get fish! Sadly no traditional rod, it's just spear-fishing, but I'll take it. They added a motorcycle (equipped with missile launchers) in 1999, and let you summon it basically anywhere because of an oversight that the devs thought was too fun to correct.
More than anything else, that's maybe the thing that makes Warframe compelling. The studio behind it, Digital Extremes, understands what their game is, why people like it, and they lean into that. Warframe is far from perfect, and has some fairly glaring issues, but it has heart, and an awful lot of it. It's a weird game set in a weird multiverse that feels like it was made by a bunch of weirdos in Canada, and the more I think and write about it, the more I realize how much I do kinda love this game.
And yes, it feels like it was made in Canada, you can hear it in some of the voice acting, especially the older stuff. Listen, I like Rebecca Ford (Warframe's current creative director and the voice of the Lotus) as much as anyone, but while she's gotten better over the years, you can tell she isn't a voice actor first and foremost. But still, I think it's really charming they just had some random employee voice the character who guides you through the early parts of the game, and kept having her do it as the years went on, even as Rebecca got promoted up through the company. I'm pretty sure she was just an intern way back in the day, and look at her now! She's a great creative director too, based on the current state of the game.
Also, to be clear, no disrespect to Canada. Or at least to the Canadians out there. I just think it's funny when games made in Canada have characters who aren't Canadian but definitely sound like they are. It's charming! Especially when they live in space, like Warframe, or that Guardians of the Galaxy game. Like how I love “Space Australian” characters so much too (hello, Farscape)!
But that's getting a little far afield of the topic, so time to refocus. As much as I do really like Warframe, and in recent months have come to feel that at least structurally, it's probably the best of the “shlooters” out there, it's certainly not without problems. Some of the problems are kind of inherent to the free to play model they've chosen, and some of them, now that I've gotten deeper into understanding Warframe's systems... I wouldn't quite say those problems have turned out to be some of the game's “strengths,” but they are at least interesting and help add to its depth.
First though, since this is kind of the only thing I think there's not really any positive to, there is kind of one large “but” to the game's free to play-ness. Yes, you can play the totality of the missions, and story quests in Warframe without spending a dime. Yes, you can craft any weapon, and any Warframe without spending any money. Everything in this game can be accessed without spending, you just need to actually play the game to get the blueprints and resources to do so. Which takes time, but ideally if you're doing that you enjoy Warframe, so playing it is kind of the point.
The issue, and it's something I wrote about back in 2020, is the inventory limits. Warframes, weapons, even your little buddies (space pets or Phantasy Star Online style floating MAG companions), all take up slots in their respective inventories. For me at least, that's really only been a concern for weapons, and especially Warframes. And the long and short of it is that if you want more inventory slots, you need to buy them with Platinum, the game's paid currency.
In the time since I wrote in 2020, they've increased the default number of slots (I think this change came with 1999), so that does help. Especially when, as of my writing in 2020, the default number of Warframe slots was two. Not two in addition to your starter, two total. I'm not sure how many they added, but any is helpful. You can also get a couple free weapon slots and a free Warframe slot during each Nightwave (the game's battle pass equivalent (entirely free)), but the Nightwaves last so long they only have about two a year, as far as I can tell.
Otherwise, you can get them along with free Warframes/weapons in Twitch drops, but again, they only do that two or three times a year. While it's easy to link your Warframe account up to Twitch, it still requires doing something outside the game itself. And I say this as someone who literally only uses Twitch for drops, I genuinely don't watch any live streams there just for fun!
Of course, there's also the option of grinding for blueprints, then selling them to other players for Plat using the in game trading. But at that point, that starts to feel less like playing the game, and more like working the game, even if you'd also be getting resources and other things to make actual progress in the game.
Anyway, point being, it's annoying that in a game that is otherwise heavily built on the idea of being able to play and see everything for free, that you still need to pay to actually access more than a tiny sliver of the Warframes and weapons at once. Yes, you could play through the whole story with just a few Warframes and however many weapons. I'm sure you'd still have a pretty good time, too.
I still think the Warframes are often so unique that experiencing them is a big part of the draw, and appeal. The game is literally named after them! The time and effort needed to get the blueprints, and resources to craft them is one thing. That's playing the game, and the reward for that work is a whole new character that might play radically differently from anything else. Just frustrating when, on top of all that, you then need to spend real money to buy fake money to increase the inventory.
There's other little annoyances, like the equipment menus going straight into all the stuff you could buy when you hit the end of what you own, or the timers on crafting. I don't mind waiting for something to craft, even if three days for a Warframe feels like a bit much. But when you can pay Plat to “rush” and get it done instantly, it starts to feel a little grimy. Though, to be honest, I'd guess most of the people willing to pay to bypass that wait would just buy the stuff outright, or get the bundles.
Now, for me personally, between the aforementioned Twitch drops, and all the PS+ packs I've gotten over the years (they just added a new one!), I've accrued more than enough slots and Plat to buy more slots than I would realistically need. Never mind that each weapon in the PS+ packs also comes with an inventory slot, and it's a lot easier to justify getting rid of junk weapons than Warframes to clear up space.
Yet, here's the thing, I've still spent money on this game. Recently!
Heck, you could even say I “paid to win!” Last year, I bought a couple bundles on Black Friday sales that included a Warframe and a couple weapons, along with some accoutrement (and Plat, of course). I got Dante (not to be confused with the legendary devil hunter), who when equipped properly, is very powerful! A very strong defensive/support Warframe too. His ability to give everyone in the squad tens of thousands of over-guard (effectively a second shield, that also prevents getting knocked down) is great! That bundle was only about six bucks on sale, and the Aeolak rifle (with a fully upgraded Serration mod (which is good!)) was only two bucks, so with all that stuff, I was practically losing money otherwise!
In all seriousness though, Warframe is good enough, and I enjoy the time I spend in it enough that I don't just “don't mind” spending money on the game, I feel good about it. At least so long as I'm being responsible with my money, of course. I don't have the means to start spending over a hundred dollars on the most expensive bundles, but ten bucks every now and then? I feel better about that than the money I somehow keep spending on Fortnite, despite telling myself I shouldn't. But what am I supposed to do when Miku is on the Festival Pass, and I get enough rewards points from various things to cover their stupid subscription that gets all the passes at once? She's got a new hat!
Not that Digital Extremes needs the money, they seem to be doing quite well! That in itself is saying something in these turbulent times, and I'm happy for them. Anyway, I also don't feel the need to support any and every game I've ever played. For example, as good as Marvel Rivals is, everyone I know is playing with other people, I don't want to play with just randos, so I'm not really playing it much and...why would I ever spend money on something I'll probably only play on rare occasions? But there's something about the way DE handles Warframe, and quibbles over inventory aside, the monetization side is...fine, at least by modern standards. It's hard for me to call it “good” when I look at the prices and see the most expensive one is a hundred and fifty dollars to get some Plat and three rare mods. That's more than the cost of two full priced games! The most expensive bundle with Warframes in it is about a hundred and forty dollars too. The options are certainly there to spend a LOT of money on Warframe, even if I don't think the game in any way is pushing you to spend that much.
On the flip side, I spent ten bucks on a bundle of two skins and some Plat. It wasn't even on sale! It was worth it to get a Nova skin I like, since she's one of my favorites but I don't like her default look. Yes, I could have bought just that skin for Plat, but what's done is done.
And now I have that Plat if I want to splurge on something else, like the 90s fashion bundle I got when 1999 released. Or buying Lunar New Year themed Floofs to decorate my ship. That's a case where I literally went, “ooh, bunny” and bought it before I even thought about it. Yes, it's Year of the Snake coming up. Don't worry, I bought the snake too. And a tiger. Maybe the Floofs are where I have a problem, haha! At least one of them that I bought last year went toward their “buy stuff and we'll donate to breast cancer research” thing.
Anyway, that's more than I wanted to write about the free to play side of the game, but it's part of the game, after all. When so many games are using some variant of this model, it's worth taking the time to think about it. It's not like they're going away, if anything I feel like everything other than the most single player of single player games may be headed down this road eventually. Even single player games are getting into it, that's what games like Honkai Star Rail and Infinity Nikki are, right? Except those are gachas (loot box/entirely random chance unlocks), which is a line I refuse to cross in terms of spending money. Anyway, some multiplayer focused games like Monster Hunter Wilds will do just fine at full price, but look at Concord last year. A relatively budget $40, and it flopped so hard PlayStation wiped the game from the face of the Earth, are canceling other live service games they had in the works, and worst of all, killed the studio that made it. I'm sure leaving a whole lot of people without jobs.
Technically you don't need to play Warframe in multiplayer, and a lot of the story quests (if not all of them?) are solo only. But it helps, like in a lot of games, to do it with others. Whether with just randos, or more so with friends. Especially when those friends know what they're doing a lot better than you, and have attained enough stuff over the years that they don't mind just gifting you the blueprints for a Warframe, or weapon. I know I'm lucky to have good friends like that, but I'm sure for anyone outgoing enough, if they can get into a friendly clan there will be people there willing to help when needed. And who knows, maybe those former newcomers will become experienced enough they can help out another newer player on their journey, and so on.
Before I got off on that very long tangent, I mentioned something that was previously a problem for me, but has turned out to a source of the game's depth. Warframe has so many systems, and systems built on top of systems that trying to penetrate them can be overwhelming. One of the most overwhelming, yet ultimately necessary to progress in the late game especially, is the mods. Are the mods? Is the mods system? English!
Anyway, Warframes, weapons, and all the other buddies and doodads you can equip also have mod slots. These can be anything from basic stuff like increasing a Warframe's max health, shields, or energy pool, to way more specific and bespoke. Adding basic elemental types to weapons (which can then combine to create complex elemental types!), increasing the rate of fire or reload speed, or even Warframe specific mods that can fundamentally change how that Warframe feels to play.
One simple example with one of my favorite Warframes, is Nova. One of her abilities summons these little particle thingies that float around her, and while doing so she takes less damage. When you get near an enemy, they fly off to “prime” said enemy, so they explode when killed, which damages other enemies who ideally also explode, and so on. That's kind of her whole thing. By default, once they fly off, they're gone, and you need to recast the ability to get more. With the right mod, they just come back to her, so you can keep the high damage resistance while still priming enemies. Simple, but a fun one to use. On lower level missions, I can literally run past most enemies and they just explode in Nova's wake!
I've only scratched the surface with what the mods can do, believe me when I say there is an oceanic level of depth here. Thankfully the game does have an option to auto-equip mods, which is great early on, but the deeper and deeper I've gotten into the game the less and less reliable it is to just generate builds actually good for things like Steel Path (effectively New Game Plus/Hard Mode) missions.
Naturally, you need to get the mods, and being a video game, if you want the most out of them, they need to be upgraded too. But upgrading increases each mod's cost, and everything only has so many points to allot (though there are ways to increase capacity too!). So, it's a balance, and the depth is absolutely there for those that want it.
For me... I appreciate systems like this, and I think the game is better overall for it, I just don't have much interest in “build crafting” or whatever you want to call it. When it comes to things like this, it just doesn't feel like it's worth my time to try to figure out what the best combination of things is when I know someone else already has. Any time we have games with this level of customization and I try to do that, what I end up with is nowhere near what's most effective. So I end up not wanting to even bother trying, even if most of it isn't difficult enough to require creating the one hundred percent most efficient and optimal build.
I don't mind playing the game for mod drops, or to “grind” for the resources to upgrade them. That's playing the game, which is something I enjoy, especially with friends. I'd just rather look up a build and work toward that than try to figure it out myself...which at a point almost makes me wish the game would just provide the info for the best builds, or something to that effect. There is a “tips” section for each Warframe under their abilities menu, but those are hit or miss for how helpful I've found them.
One definite good thing about the mods is that a single mod can be applied to multiple things at once. For example, that fully upgraded Serration mod (which is just an increase to damage) I “paid to win” for can be equipped on literally every primary weapon I have at once. That would be way too much of a hassle if mods were single use! That, or I would simply only use one weapon of each type (primary, secondary, and melee).
Oh, and that's not even getting into Arcanes, which are a separate sort of upgrade to be equipped onto things...
I know these were a couple really long tangents, but they are relevant to my time coming back to Warframe, and sticking with it longer than I ever have before. I'm just not particularly interested in trial and erroring my way into figuring out the best combination of mods for each of the thirty six different Warframes I have. Thirty seven if I count Excalibur and Excalibur Umbra separately, all my other “dupes” I've subsumed (yet another system, don't worry about it). I'm too sentimental to get rid of my starter, is the thing. I've had that Excalibur since 2013!! Anyway, the process of getting and upgrading them to further improve my stuff has given me something else to work toward. And to be fair, there's a lot of crossover in terms of what Warframes want, like most benefit from pumping up ability strength, so I'm exaggerating the effort needed.
More than anything else, treating Warframe as a series of goals to work toward has made me stick with it much longer than I ever have before, and engage with its systems on a deeper level too. Whether it was short term goals like building the Necramech so I could continue the story, or longer term goals like crafting Xaku, consistently having things to work toward kept me motivated. It sounds silly and simple when I write it out like this, but Warframe is so broad and just has so much that it really helps to focus in a bit.
Let's look at Xaku, for example. Their parts require a lot of odd materials, from various things strewn about the Solar System. Thematically, since Xaku is kind of a mishmash of different Warframes combined together, that makes sense. The biggest hurdle was acquiring Gyromag Systems. This took a lot of work, but the short version is I had to rank up with a couple factions on Venus by doing a lot of bounties and other activities. In doing so, I also gathered a lot of other resources, and eventually this led into unlocking a repeatable boss fight against a giant spider-orb thing that's a good way to get Credits (the non-paid currency).
It's one of those things, there were definitely easier and faster paths to getting Xaku. I could have just bought them from the in game Market with all that Plat I've gotten from PS+ over the years, or traded to get the materials. By last year, Xaku Prime was newly released, and for some reason the materials to craft the Prime version are a lot easier to get than the regular (I suppose the trade off is it's harder to get the blueprints since they're from Relics, which is a whole other system). So I could have abandoned my quest for regular Xaku, and just focused on their Prime. The Primes always have better stats, so I'd want their Prime eventually too.
Whether it was out of stubbornness, or maybe some unconscious part of me thought it was some key to getting a better understanding of the game, I wanted to stick with it and unlock Xaku the proper way. Believe me when I say it took a lot of work, and a lot of time. It was a longer term goal for a reason, and I completed a bunch of other shorter term ones before I got there. That Necramech, The New War, all the smaller quests between it and 1999, and even 1999 itself. I'm sure I could have crafted them sooner if I focused solely on that goal, or didn't play other games alongside Warframe, but that's a recipe for burning out.
The funniest part, out of all of this, is that I managed to get all of Xaku Prime's blueprints and the necessary materials before I finished Xaku. They were in the foundry, being crafted, but only just barely. I kept joking about how I was going to get Xaku Prime done before their original incarnation, and it almost happened! Yes, it was a lot of work for a Warframe that I essentially just used to rank up for the Mastery before being replaced with their upgraded version, but you know what they say about the journey.
At least Xaku (Prime) is good enough that they've become one of my faves, so it was all worth it in the end. That would have been a real bummer if I went through all this trouble to get “the first nonbinary Warframe” and it turned out they sucked! They can steal guns from enemies and go into “ghost skeleton mode,” like all nonbinary people can.
Warframe is a very big game, and it's easy to overlook a lot of it until you're face to face with a roadblock requiring you go do something you didn't even know existed. Sometimes that stuff can be baffling. As great as the Necramech is, and as much as I think every Warframe player should get one once they're able to, requiring it for New War is still bizarre. You only use it for about five minutes, they could have very easily designed that section differently. Either not make it in a Necramech, or just give players a temp one for that short section. The Railjack (pilot-able ship) requirement makes more sense, that has a larger role in New War.
But other times, as much as Xaku felt impossible to get back when I first tried in 2020, it does, eventually, lead to a better understanding of the game, and what's in it. There's a bunch of stuff on Venus I might never have seen, or played through if I hadn't had Xaku as motivation to work toward. And there's probably other stuff in the game I haven't gotten to yet, and maybe some other Warframe or odd thing will push me toward experiencing.
For the moment, I've actually achieved the longer term goals I had set for myself last year. Right now, I do kind of want to get Mastery Rank 20, but that only requires leveling up more Warframes and weapons. Other than that, it's kind of just get better equipped for Steel Path level missions, and that's getting better mods and Arcanes.
Part of me, and this is a very long term goal, but part of me would like to have access to every Warframe. Not both their regular version and prime, but one of each. There's a whole lot left, and of course they're going to keep adding more as long as the game is still making money, but I think it's a feasible goal. I am over halfway there... My friend Jay has done it, for both the regular and prime versions! She's also hit Mastery Rank 30 (the highest before it goes into like, ultra prestige mode and it's a different thing), so she has spent a...LOT of time in Warframe. But she brags about having crafted every Warframe in the game, and not bought any of them (and did so in the same breath she told me to just buy Dante last year, haha!).
Though in the wake of 1999, after which I've been playing multiple hours a day, just about every day, maybe it's time to ease back a bit. It'll be a while before the next big update, and as much as I do enjoy the “seasonal” missions in the new Höllvania area every week, I don't think I need to keep repeating them until I completely burn out on the game. I say, as I keep doing them to get the rewards...
Realizing now, I haven't really even written anything about any of these story quests I worked so hard to catch up on! Since I have friends newly getting into the game, I don't want to spoil too much, is the thing. What I will say, is the more structured and focused New War really, really motivated me to want to spend more time playing Warframe, and more time in this universe. It's not perfect by any stretch, it has forced stealth sequences that were kinda frustrating, but the rest of it was so good that again, it left me excited and energized. I get why more of Warframe isn't like that, it's because these are all free updates and they're not going to make a full game's worth of a single player campaign as a free update. That's just not feasible, no matter how much money Warframe brings in.
And 1999 as a whole is really good too. I particularly really like Höllvania, the new area added. An old city set in an alternate universe England equivalent, it feels so different from the rest of the game, and looks beautiful too. Especially in the summer, as its look genuinely changes from season to season (each season lasts a real world week). And making the new public area a dilapidated mall is an especially brilliant and charming touch. I'm hoping they add an “open exploration zone” version of the city, to mosey around at my leisure without the pressure of needing to complete missions.
The main quest, however, was a little...underwhelming at first. Particularly because of Warframe's habit of giving like, not even half of the context needed to actually understand what's going on, or who is who. There's one instance of something I completely misinterpreted until talking about it with a friend, for example. It's also not super long, and “ends” on a weird cliffhanger...because the main quest isn't the real end of 1999.
The bulk of the storytelling and character development actually comes in the form of text messages through off brand AIM. I can't even call it a visual novel, because it's just text on an in game CRT! But it's really good! Genuinely it gave me a much better understanding of not only the characters I was interacting with, but the multiverse of Warframe, and especially my character. Like, yes, it's disappointing this is in the form of plain text when I think all the actors cast as the new characters in 1999 are quite good, and I would have liked to see and hear more from them. But again, I get it, it was a lot cheaper to do it in text, than to need to record and edit spoken lines on top of it, let alone animate cutscenes and whatever other steps I'm not even thinking of.
Still, it's given me a deeper appreciation for the lore than I had previously. And of course I won't give away what happens (not that there's any big twist or anything), but the proper ending for the 1999 story is better than that cliffhanger, and has left me looking forward to whatever may be coming next.
I might just need to read up on some lore refreshers when it gets closer because this game is a lot to keep straight!
Another great thing about Warframe, is that unlike a lot of other live service/forever games, it has way less of an emphasis on FOMO style design. Nightwaves eventually end, and there's smaller time limited missions that cycle in and out, but I mean in terms of big events. So I know that if, or more likely when I take my next break from the game, I won't be missing out on anything major that I'll never be able to experience again. It'll be waiting for me the next time I come back.
And let's be realistic here, I know how cyclical these things are. I've poured a ton, a TON of time into Warframe over the last half a year, and gotten to a point where I can honestly say I love the game. But I know it won't last, sooner or later I'll take that break because I either won't have any smaller goals to work toward, or because something else is taking up that time. Monster Hunter Wilds is only a month away, and that's another crafting and multiplayer focused game. I'm sure Warframe will go on the back burner while that takes the spotlight.
In the past, my feelings when I left Warframe behind were either, “well, maybe next time it'll click,” or, “maybe next time I can get over this hurdle.” Now, I'm at a point where the game has far more than clicked, and the hurdles don't feel like hurdles any more, but stepping stones. So, when I take that next break, and eventually come back again, the feeling won't be a “maybe next time,” it'll be excitement. I'll be happy to be back to one of, if not the best game in its genre. Whatever weird mess of a genre it may be.
And you know, reaching the end of this, I've realized I still haven't answered the question of what makes Warframe so special. What is it that kept me coming back, willing to try it again and again, across years before it finally clicked? I could say it's a “sum of the parts is greater than any one thing” situation, and there's no one specific thing, that makes it special. But... I think I know what the real reason is, the thing that makes Warframe so special.
It's just weird! I like weird things!
I like how bizarre the enemies look, and how fleshy and strange the Warframes are. It's the fleshiest, most bio-mechanical sci-fi thing I've really gotten into since Farscape, and it has a lot of the same weirdo appeal as that cult classic. Speaking of Farscape, while I don't think Warframe is as horny as some of my friends do (nor nearly as much as Farscape!), I'm mature enough to admit there's some good sex appeal in the Warframes. I can appreciate a quality posterior when I see one! And for whatever reason, a big butt in a video game is more palatable to me when it's part of a bio-mechanical death machine than when it's just jiggling cheeks on a character with tight pants, or seeing up a skirt when a character just has a thong on underneath (Yoko Taro will forever be on thin ice to me). But the point is, by being weird it makes a Warframe like Wisp with her big butt floating right in front of the camera feel better to me than the back of 2B's skirt flapping up every time she runs.
I might not fully understand all the lore, but part of me loves the game's dedication to keeping its almost dreamlike nonsense vibe going by never giving you quite enough context. I love how just about any sort of nonsense you could jokingly say should be added to Warframe probably already is in the game. And if it isn't, it will be eventually. The next update being teased is going to add evil clones of an in universe boy band that will invade 1999 missions, and fighting them is somehow the key to unlocking new variants of existing weapons.
It's weird, and I love it!
Thank you for reading, and I hope you all have a great day. Especially any other Tenno reading this. <3