It’s the highlight of the Warframe calendar, packed with epic reveals about forthcoming game content, loads of fan service, and events throughout the day that make some of us a little over-giddy. Warframe’s community consists of not only ardent gamers, but engaged cosplayers, fan fiction writers, poets, artists, and there’s even a whole substrata of Hentai featuring the game’s heroes getting it on. Suffice it to say, the community that Digital Extremes has served over the years is engaged and effusive.
That’s quite tough to replicate online, especially when thousands look forward to the physical event as a way to share and commune with their fellow space ninjas. So I had no idea what was about to happen…
I sign in to the stream as my wife, looking over my shoulder, says, ‘this looks good’. Now, my wife isn’t a ‘Framer’ – she’s not even a gamer, yet she often endures my monologues about my adventures as a space ninja, or my lengthy treatises about how the front-facing representation at Digital Extremes is a key factor in why its community is so welcoming and open. She long ago learned how to shift her focus to a to-do list, or internally ponder a piece of Tudor history, as I talk over her glazed expression.
This time, Warframe has her attention, and we sit and watch the day unfold with art showcases, sound workshops with the designers, and even a quiz. Delightful. We then get to TennoconLIVE 2020, and to bring people to the yard, the devs offer lots of free goodies which you can only acquire by going to the Tennocon relay in-game.
For those not familiar with the space opera that is Warframe, it’s a free-to-play loot shooter that released over a year before Destiny thrust the genre into gaming’s mainstream. You’re a ninja in space, taking on thousands of hours of content within an entirely unique mythology formed by smooshing together everything from feudal Japan and classic sci-fi horror movies to moral tales on slavery and a genuinely sensitive representation of Autism in one of its finest quests.
So I log in. A 50% voucher on premium currency greets me, but I won’t be using it – the only times I spend real-world money in Warframe is to support the developers after getting hundreds of hours of joy for nuppence.
I bust some emotes with my fellow Tenno in the relay as the stream unfolds and after the meme-ending Hydroid Prime trailer, the updates flow. We’ve got some new Warframes to enjoy and thanks to Rebecca (live operations and community director at Digital Extremes) highlighting one of the most important changes, we discovered that we now have the ability to customise our Warframes in a kind of evolved ‘legacy’ system, in which we’ll feed old frames to the Helminth that has been lurking in the bowels of our ships. By this point I’m already unnecessarily over-excited, thinking about the ability fusions and new builds coming down the line.
It’s time for the Heart of Deimos gameplay reveal, and game director Steve Sinclair explains that we’re about to see actual in-game footage that will be playable on August 25, going as far as saying: ‘We’ve focused on making things we are more confident in shipping’.
That’s a nod to the previous major update, Empyrean, which was an ambitious vision that unfortunately didn’t entirely come off. Bugs ran throughout the updates, half-formed systems were implemented and tested by a community that, by the time the bugs were fixed, were largely sick of seeing another Kuva Lich careen through space in the Railjack we’d farmed out. It was a rare moment in community history where fans’ positivity and support turned vitriolic, and a tough time, no doubt on a personal level, for the developers.
La revelación comienza y los sitios de lanzamiento familiares de la nave y las partes internas dan paso a un mundo abierto totalmente nuevo. Esto se ve increíble y complejo: está inflamado con la cantidad justa de tentáculos y monstruosidades mutantes, toneladas de acción y personajes que te hacen decir «¿Qué?» » Estoy extremadamente feliz de ver a Warframe volver a sus fuerzas históricas de mundos completos de cosas para ver y hacer, todo envuelto en locos, tradiciones.
Y luego las otras personas en mi juego comienzan a desaparecer.
Mi pantalla se vacía y cuando regresa, estoy en una habitación con otros jugadores y uno de los personajes de la transmisión de revelaciones que acabamos de conocer, un Claptrap «definitivamente no». Secuestré en el juego.
Mi cerebro vibra, casi en la canción con el hilo de la discusión, con dosis equivalentes de confusión y emoción. Reaparecí en el relevo, la pandilla Digital Extremes merodeando en mi computadora portátil, y con una maravillosa revelación de Deimos y su historia, estamos «encantados» en otras habitaciones, presentando los horrores de Eldritch que nos esperan en agosto.
Es increíble, una experiencia completamente inmersiva. A pesar de que podemos conducir nuestros propios mechs no muertos, que es casi digno de su propia actualización, y hay una mujer terrible que ha sido devorada por un gusano, lo que plantea todo tipo de preguntas, lo deseamos o no, el suplemento El kilómetro recorrido a través de Digital Extremes para hacer que Tennocon 2020 sea tan ‘en vivo’ como se pueda imaginar merece ser felicitado.
Estoy por delante del 25 de agosto. Digital Extremes ha sido ambicioso antes y no ha sido del todo exitoso, sin embargo, resulta que la mayoría del contenido nuevo utiliza los activos que el estudio ha estado cultivando durante casi una década, y con la seguridad de que lo que hemos notado es en condiciones de enviar? Bueno, me pregunto cuánto tiempo me queda en este cupón …