If you didn’t know already, Warframe recently released a fantastic update. Called Jade Shadows, it contains a new quest, a new frame, three new weapons, and a new quest type. It’s packed with fantastic content – but even now, its quests, and its narrative twists, are underwhelming to me. It’s generated a lot of debate in the community, and is filled with speculation and emotion.
I wanted to take a deeper look at the Jade Shadows quest, so I sat down with Warframe Creative Director Rebecca Ford to talk about the origins of the quest, the inspiration for the storyline, some of the key features, and some interesting twists along the way. It goes without saying that from now on, please consider this a spoiler warning for Jade Shadows.
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iGamesNews: Rogue is a traditional character in the game, and as part of this update, the team reshaped him and gave him a lot of character traits. How did you accomplish this task?
Ford: “We knew we wanted to do a S.T.A.L.D. mission because The New War was over, but there was some unfinished business. S.T.A.L.D. was the turning point in The New War, in our opinion. He’s there when you’re fighting the Archons, he gives you Nataruk, and he really makes a difference. So we’re really establishing S.T.A.L.D.’s perspective on what happened in The New War and where he’s going to go next.”
“So, we conceptualized it, we went back and forth, and then Michael Skyers, our lead character artist, started pitching it. He had done the concept and sent over the mood board, and he said he really wanted her to have an old-school astrology globe in her belly, and I thought we should try that. Two trains collided, oh my god, of course. This suit was key to the future narrative of Stalker. From that point on, everything moved so fast, and once these two tracks collided, there was an unstoppable force to do this, and it took a year and a half, almost two years.”
iGamesNews: This is a powerful story twist that adds a new layer to his character’s motivations. How did you achieve this?
Ford: “When we saw the framework, we saw that the art approach was going to be very Warframe-like, using light and glass, and we said okay, we can be abstract on the Warframe level and very human on the story level. Warframe would be jade and glass and light and choirs and cool. But S.T.A.L.K.E.R.’s perspective on it would be very grounded, with a character supporting this life form that was the result of the mission. In short, we were able to take two very different approaches: abstract and literal.”
iGamesNews: There is a general consensus in the community that this is a very sad mission. What is the most important goal for the team to achieve this?
Ford: “The first piece of art we saw when we were conceptualizing the character was Stalker tenderly holding a baby! We were like, OK. That makes sense, as a character, for him to have that. There was also a sense of loss in that picture when we said that because she wasn’t in that concept. It wasn’t a question of direction, it was just the first thing that could be put into the sketch, and him standing alone with the baby would be tragic. The Orokin would definitely make sure of that. We realized on a lot of levels that of course Barus would experiment on pregnant women, turn them into Warframes, and not care about the consequences of doing so. Of course, Stalker would see the true evil of the Orokin Empire through this lens.”
“So we set up a tragedy at the beginning, and then we iterated on that storyline over and over again. We tried a lot of different directions, and people fell in love with those different directions, but in my opinion, when we saw the first picture and that power, it showed us how the Stalker would no longer consider anything other than the Orokin to be evil. It needed to be like that.”
“It’s tragic, it’s sad. But we had a lot to say, and while I’m not a huge movie buff, I would say our favorite movie is Children of Men. When I first saw it 10-15 years ago, it just stayed with me. I was 16, 17, at the height of my taste development. It destroyed me. When I knew we could do a tribute to Children of Men and fit into the weird Warframe universe… I turned into a wild dog. The same thing with the team, we were a pack of wild dogs. How could we do this? What would the music be? What would the cinematic moment be like? Everyone put so much effort into that last scene.”
iGamesNews: It’s a lot like Children of Men, especially the last 10 minutes.
Ford: “I thought, this must be true! What on earth is going on in this world that knows only war? Of course, you would want to know what kind of world this child was born into.”
iGamesNews: The characterization of the Corpus in that scene is also really interesting! The Corpus faction has evolved a lot in recent years with the addition of Parvos, and other major characters have come into the picture. Talk about how you were able to portray them in an interesting way.
Ford: “Her (Captain Xeto’s) character does get resolved. When you’re riding up in the elevator, she says, ‘The Sisterhood won’t give you a second chance,’ so you know in that moment she’s given up her career to let this thing go. Maybe we’ll talk about that in a future update. But you know in that moment she chose the enemy and its chance over her own career.”
iGamesNews: You mentioned other directions in the development process. Can you elaborate on them?
Ford: “Yes! Jed wasn’t in some of the first drafts. So after the quest, Stalker goes on this kind of side adventure, but when Jed shows up, it’s clear that Stalker needs to be a father. That’s the first line. But then questions start to arise, like, does he really have a family? What role does Jed play in the player’s family? We talked at length about where we could go, and it was really a choice between a father moment and a family moment, and ultimately we went with the more adventurous option. Some people may agree with that, some may not, but it’s up to the players to let us know what they think!”
iGamesNews: At the end of the mission, you get to choose your baby’s name! I noticed it’s an interesting departure from Warframe’s classic black and white options, with Stalker and Jade being red and green. When did this come about?
Ford: “Oh, okay! This might sound a little crazy, but I can give you a timeline when we were developing this mission. I saw Steve (Steve Sinclair, now CEO of Digital Extremes) when I was driving to work, and I think it was a week before the mission launched. That was June 6th – the last thing added to the mission was the baby’s name. The only thing missing from the mission was the Stalker making the choice. On June 12th, I made the worst model ever with random names that I thought would work – the narrative team sifted through those names to find some that would work.”
“When I got into this situation, I asked Steve if it was appropriate for the team to do something at this time. Steve just looked at me and said, you have to do this. You have to let them name the child. And it was done in one day. So, everyone rallied together and was like, yeah, okay, we get it, we know what’s missing from this mission. I was very happy, so so So glad we added it. We had to contact Gianni, the voice actor, because it would have been more effective if he said the baby’s name.”
iGamesNews: Which names are the most popular right now? Are you tracking them?
Ford: “We’re tracking it. It’s not 50/50! In the New War mission, people were choosing between Drift and Operator, and shockingly, it was 50/50. For this one, it’s about 65/35 right now. I don’t want to say which is which because I don’t want anyone to feel like they’re wrong.”
iGamesNews: Let’s talk about some interesting questions. About a year ago, someone asked on a dev stream if Warframe was pregnant. Someone pointed that out recently and your reaction was pretty shocked. Was that because of the nature of the question or…?
Ford: “Steve knew! Jade was already in development! Steve knew exactly what he was doing and he did it to get me to react. I knew that and I believe the whole team was on board and determined not to let the art of marketing ruin that. Steve read the question and looked at me and he knew. I nearly screamed and I was not supposed to keep a straight face so I went crazy!”
iGamesNews: Hunhow is alone!
Ford: “I know!”
iGamesNews: His family is gone, and his stalker is gone. Is he just stuck there now?
Ford: “I can’t tell. Time will tell. But he’s a grandfather now!”
iGamesNews: Can we expect stalkers to be a little nicer in emails from now on?
Ford: “No, no. Never! Never. Unfortunately, he had the auto-reply turned on. He’s so old he doesn’t even know how to do that. He never updated his out-of-office information.”
