Warframe For a long time, large mission updates have been the biggest highlight of Digital Extreme Space Ninja MMO. Mixing rampant sci-fi battles throughout the game with woven narrative clues often leads to explosive moments that attract the awe of the entire community.
with New war, This seems to be another moment of it. As a three-year update, promising the long-awaited conclusion between players and Lotus, we sat down with Rebecca Ford, director of field operations and community, to discuss what we can get from the latest chapter of the Warframe story.
iGamesNews: How did the idea of telling a new war story from the perspective of a character who is not Tenno (player character) come about?
Rebecca Ford: I think in that situation, it was Steve Sinclair (Video Game Director of Digital Extremes) who wrote all these thoughts. Let him start the war from the enemy’s point of view. I don’t want to project it into Steve’s mind. It makes the war feel like a war. In a game called Warframe, there is only so much you can do to make a war feel like a war, and everything you are already doing is like a war. You are kind of lost in the war sauce there! So besides playing it as an enemy, how can you tell people that the war has begun.
No one sees such thoughts and promises. Who the hell listened to Tennocon and thought “We are totally going to play Teshin in a new war!” I think this is a wonderful act of signaling war in a game where everything you do is fighting.
iGamesNews: With the addition of these new characters, many narrative clues have appeared in “New War”. All previous knowledge, new roles, and broader conflicts that are being explored are established in the mission. How do you balance telling a broader narrative with a more personal story about the player and Lotus?
Rebecca Ford: Well, I have to answer this question without breaking it. Our efforts to fully commit to this story in “New War” are exhaustive, and each of the story clues we have established between “The Second Dream” and “Harrow’s Chain” can be found in “New War”. Play a role in “War”. It can be said that the climax of all these years and missions is not to end Warframe. This is not the end. This brings us to a place where everything that happens after the new war has this unified experience, everyone knows what the stakes of the world will be, and the story will have very clear and precise chapters. There is no ambiguity.
iGamesNews: Would you consider resuming this method in a future update? Tell the story of Warframe from a broader perspective, not just Tenno?
Rebecca Ford: Honestly, we don’t know now. I obviously wouldn’t say no to this, because whenever I say no to something, we will eventually do it. It was not made for this purpose, but like everything in Warframe, that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. We are very adaptable.
iGamesNews: As far as I know, the new war reminds me of my second dream. When it came out in 2015, it established itself as an important community moment and a milestone with a real gameplay impact. Is there a goal to try to replicate the effect of the second dream here?
Rebecca Ford: Oh, it may be a sin to say that we try to recapture the second dream magic, we dare not try! No matter what happens there, the universe must be aligned before the second dream can happen like it. In order to be admired, it is even today. We will not try to touch it, but I will say that nothing can influence the new war more than the second dream.
Not because we tried to redo it, but because of why this task is so important to us as developers and as a community, we decided to provide a better source of inspiration for this chapter instead of starting with a chapter. I will swear that when people finish playing it, they will understand what I mean.
iGamesNews: I have to ask, can we look forward to similar “oh my god” moments in the new war, just like we got from the second dream?
Rebecca Ford: I agree! But for me, am I never able to distinguish between a fan and a professional? I don’t think so. So, get a grain of salt from someone who has 2500 hours in Warframe, but it can also work here.
iGamesNews: In the news presentation, the topic of alignment appeared. You said that the choices made by players will be respected, but no one’s content will be locked. You are firm on this point. Does this mean that based on the player choices we have made over the years, we can get some kind of reward from this system?
Rebecca Ford: Yes and no in my opinion, because I will say that you make one of the most important choices based on the system you already know. So as a player, you know that when you pass, you either aim neutrally at the moon or aim at the sun. As a player, you can deduce what this means to you, but we will not give you a vocabulary of what the sun means this and the moon means that. This is your story, and we will not leave you in a situation where your choice will lock you in the result.
However, I think our intention is that the heuristics you build by looking at all these options and being free to choose them are maintained in the new war, which will lead to an extremely important choice in the conclusion.
But that choice won’t… it’s not like the Witcher 3 or Mass Effect, do you know what I mean? This is why I am so sensitive to it, because I don’t want people to think they messed up, because as early as 2015 they chose a bad ending. That is not the message we want to send.
The message we want to convey is that we have introduced the alignment system as a way for players to tell stories, not necessarily a way for them to directly change the outcome of the world. This is your own character development tool, not the world’s system participation tool.
iGamesNews: Yes, so it looks like the initial choices you made in the mission are locked, and there is a banner on your account saying “Gee Connor, do you really have to choose each moon choice?” You will never be excluded In addition to options such as the paradigm/traitor dialogue prompt of Mass Effect.
Rebecca Ford: bingo! You nailed it. There is no situation where you cannot choose the sun because you only went to the moon.
iGamesNews: Will the alignment continue to exist after the new war as before?
Rebecca Ford: This is a good question that I cannot answer at the moment, because it all depends on the player’s reaction to the new war! We will not allow ourselves to continue or not, we will make the decision together with our players.
iGamesNews: Actually I have a choice for Steve! He told us a long time ago to keep Palasis, so I upgraded it and thought it was very important in the new war, but from the Q&A I believe that this is not the case!
Rebecca Ford: This is very important! But this is not mandatory.
iGamesNews: So what impact does it have on the story of the new war?
Rebecca Ford I can’t tell you! The important thing is that it is impossible to play the new war without seeing Palasis, but you don’t need to carry it with you. The reason we don’t force it is yuan, I think this is where you see how sausage is made. We waited too long to decide whether it should be mandatory, and the production cost of making it was too high to tell players that they needed it. Can you imagine if you launch a new war on the first day and find that you have to farm 1,000 gold coins?
iGamesNews: You mentioned in the Q&A that you added a content warning before the new content. I obviously won’t ask why because of the story spoilers, but can you tell me why the team thinks it’s a good idea to add something similar in this case?
Rebecca Ford: After I did some work on this task and worked with my team specifically for this, some people in my team said to me a “oh damn” moment or two, because we might be entering the trigger field .
So I put it as neutral as possible, because I don’t want anyone to have the wrong reason for the reason I put it, and mention that something objectively happened in the story, and we must warn people. There is no problem adding it, I would say that I added it myself on Friday night just to make sure it is sealed.
It is designed to provide accessibility options for those who might find it triggered by frightening scenes, violence or emotional abuse. We feel we need to warn people.
iGamesNews: If the player is uncomfortable, can they skip those scenes? Or is it just a reminder so that no one will be deceived?
Rebecca Ford: This is a broad rise. We have not done anything that I think can be counted as a strong portrayal, this is just a mature subject. This is not a clear description like you see in shows or other media. In our case, we were very frank with descriptions or hints. This may make people feel uncomfortable, but in some cases it is allegorical, in some cases it is not. Once we provide them with information that it will be there, people can navigate it.
iGamesNews: What is the future of Warframe’s narrative content? Since this seems to be both an important conclusion of the game narrative and the beginning of the future of the game, what can we expect?
Rebecca Ford: I don’t think there will be any ambiguity about what will happen next once the player completes the new war. I think there will be very clear signs of the state of the meta world. I say meta because people will watch our development stream, and we will provide them with direct information about these things there. The task itself has fairly straightforward conclusions, allowing the player to clearly understand what is about to happen.
The new war will be released on all platforms on December 15. If you want to learn more about the content of the update, we have recorded everything in the new war update here. If the three-year journey of “New War” is more in line with your requirements, we will once again accept an interview about the development of “New War” since its announcement and the passage of COVID.
