Warframe

Warframe's Empyrean expansion got a new trailer at The Game Awards tonight, and it also delivered a nice surprise for PC gamers—the expansion is live on PC, right now. 

In Empyrean, you can customize and pilot your Sigma Series Railjack battleship in four-player co-op. We first heard about the ambitious Empyrean expansion at Tennocon last year, and learned more this summer

You can play Empyrean solo, too, but it's really designed for a full four-player crew, though 2020 will bring updates more suited for solo players. There's also a free flight mode where you can practice piloting your Railjack without having to do battle.

Warframe

The Warframe Rising Tide quest is now playable, and it lets you craft and pilot your own Railjacks with real-life buds. You can't fly these immense battleshipa yet, but you can find the parts and build it before you start ship-to-ship fisticuffs and bossing your crew around. 

Before starting the mission you need to have built a Dry Dock and have researched the Railjack Cephalon. Dry Docks are part of a Clan Dojo so you will need to have joined a Clan if you have not already done so. Once your dock is complete you will have access to two consoles—one of those consoles allows you to start researching Cephalon Cy, a no-nonsense AI for your ship. Completing these two objectives, plus The Second Dream quest, lets you begin the Warframe Rising Tide quest on the bottom right of your Codex.

Cephalon Cy tells you where the Railjack parts you need are and what components you need to repair them. There are six in total: the Fuselage, Propulsion System, Port Nacelle, Starboard Nacelle, Tail Section, and the Engine Cowling. Want to find out the quickest ways to construct them? Then scroll on ahead, dear Tenno.

How to complete the Warframe Rising Tide quest

Your first stop is Mars: that's where you can find the the Fuselage. The mission—in which you defend the part as you scan it—will be marked on your navigation screen when you click on the red planet. You need to make sure that no enemies get near the Fuselage and that you kill the two Sentient Drones that attempt to intervene. 

When you're done, go to the extraction point and return to your dry dock. Here Cephalon Cy will tell you the resources you need to repair the Fuselage:

  • 1,000,000 Credits
  • 100 Cubic Diodes
  • 3000 Plastids
  • 15,000 Rubedo
  • 30 Neural Sensors

If you're having trouble finding Cubic Diodes, check out our guide on how to farm Warframe Cubic Diodes. Fixing the Fuselage takes 12 hours and can't be sped up with premium currency. We also have some tips to help you farm farm Warframe Plastids if you're stuck on that. 

The mission to get the Propulsion System is very similar to the Fuselage part. The propulsion system is found on Earth. You know the drill: find the marked mission on one of the nodes, defend against enemy waves while you scan, and take out Sentient Drones. Then back to your dry dock you go. Here's what you need to repair it:

  • 1,000,000 Credits
  • 60 Carbides
  • 1000 Cryotic
  • 30 Orokin Cells
  • 20,000 Nano Spores

Like Cubic Diodes, Carbides are also new to Warframe in the Rising Tide update. They drop when you kill Eximus on the Shipyard tileset on Ceres. The propulsion system takes twelve hours to repair. 

The Port Nacelle can be found on Lua, and the mission plays out just like they did for the Fuselage and Propulsion System parts. This difference is that some Battalysts show up, so bring some heavy artillery with you and aim for their weak spot. That's their heads, by the way: your ammunition merely passes through their chest. 

When the scan is done, extract and return to the Dojo. Install it and a list will display what you'll need to repair the Port Nacelle. 

  • 1,000,000 Credits
  • 60 Carbides
  • 5,000 Circuits
  • 27,000 Alloy Plate
  • 200 Control Module

Now Cephelon Cy sends you to Venus for another scanning mission. Follow the marker on your navigator and keep the area clear of enemies. Note: the missions missions escalate enemy numbers, so watch out for Drones and Battalysts. Finish the scan and make your way back to the dry dock. You'll need the following to repair it:

  • 1,000,000 Credits
  • 100 Pustrels
  • 500 Fieldron Samples
  • 50 Morphics
  • 35 Neurodes

Pustrels are another new resource that arrived with the Warframe  Rising Tide update. and can be mined on the Plains of Eidolon and only drop while farming Red Veins Ore. The repair of the Starboard Nacelle, again, takes twelve hours.

Next, the tail section is found on Sedna, and it's the same mission process as the other parts. Find. Scan. Defend. Go back to your dry dock and install the tail section to see what you'll need to repair this section of the ship:

  • 1,000,000 Credits
  • 80 Copernics
  • 10,000 Ferrite
  • 4500 Polymer Bundle
  • 15 Argon Crystals 

Copernic is another new resource in Rising Tide and can be mined on Orb Vallis, but it only drops while farming Red Veins Ore. Argon Crystals are a tricky source because they can decay, meaning the total number you have in your inventory will halve every 24 hours so farm them and use them straight away. They can be found in missions in the Void

Your six-planet tour ends here, with Europa being your last stop. It's the final destination of resource gathering, so prepare for a frantic fight. It's the same structure as before but there will be more brutal enemies—read: more Battalysts. When you've slain them all, head back to your Dry Dock to see the list for the Engine Cowling: 

  • 1,000,000 Credits
  • 40 Copernics
  • 500 Detonite Ampule
  • 10,000 Ferrite
  • 10,000 Salvage

After all that running around you should have everything you need to build your Railjack. Using them in battle won't be available until the Empyrean expansion, err, lands, but you've put all the work in you can to get a head start when ship-to-ship scraps finally arrive in Warframe. 

Warframe

Warframe Cubic Diodes are a new resource added to the game as part of the recent Rising Tide update. In the new update, players now have the opportunity to build their own spaceships, otherwise knows as Railjacks. In these player-built beasts you can take part in ship-to-ship battles with a real-life crew.

But, before you reach for your ship captain hat, you need to build it first—which you can do by progressing the Warframe Rising Tide quest—and unfortunately for you, you need to find the parts. That's where collecting Warframe Cubic Diodes come in. First, you'll need to build a dry dock, but once that's constructed, you can start searching for materials. So, without further ado, here's how to get one of the most precious new Warframe Railjack resources, and fast.

How to farm Cubic Diodes in Warframe

100 Cubic Diodes are needed to construct your Railjack's fuselage. They drop after you kill Eximus units on the Ice Planet tileset on Europa. They drop around five to ten Cubic Diodes on death. 

The most efficient way to farm for Cubic Diodes is by playing endless missions: more enemies means more items to pick up. The best type of mission to farm Cubic Diodes the fastest is the Dark Sector Defense on the Larzec node but Kuva Lich and Arbitrations missions also spawn Eximus units allowing you to farm.

Once you have all the Cubic Diodes your heart (and your future fuselage) desires, that's one resource you can check off your shopping list. You still need to get 1,000,000 Credits, 3000 Warframe Plastids, 15,000 Rubedo, and 30 Neural Sensors. 

The fuselage then take 12 hours to build, but there's no way of hastening the process. After you have finally collected all the right ship parts your Railjack will be completed. Ship battles won't be available until the Empyrean expansion, but at least your battleship is prepped and ready to go.  

Warframe

Update: The update is live now, so start finding those ship parts! 

Original story: Warframe, once a game about cyber-ninjas dashing through corridors, will soon let you build your own spaceship. Players can already travel between worlds in their landing craft and fight space battles in their Archwing, but the Railjack battleship will let them get into ship-to-ship scraps alongside a crew. Ship battles won't be available until the Empyrean expansion, but before that you'll have to hunt down parts and prepare a home for it in the upcoming Rising Tides update, coming to PC soon. 

You'll need to build a dry dock to house the ship, which you can build alone or with the help of your pals. Once that's constructed, you'll need to start searching for the parts required to build your battleship with assistance from an AI buddy. When Empyrean launches, you'll be able to keep building, customising your ship with weapons, parts and mods. 

Along with your new ship, the Liset landing craft is also getting some love. Basically it's going to look prettier. A moonroof is being installed! Very fancy. Expect enhanced lighting and updated machines, too. New weapons, armour and cosmetics will also be added with the update. 

You'll have to hit up the marketplace for the new items, but the dry dock and ship will be available to everyone with the time to find the resources. While Digital Extremes says it's possible to do solo, I expect the resource requirement will be pretty high, so it might be time for you lone wolves to consider a clan. 

There's no date for the Rising Tide update yet, but it should appear soon. 

Warframe

One of the great video game tragedies is the death of the rhythm genre, as we hit a cultural (and closet) saturation point on plainly ridiculous plastic guitars. Strangely, Digital Extremes—the maker of Warframe—has decided to fill that void with the Shawzin, a neon future-lute that allows your psychedelic Warframe character to, basically, play Guitar Hero.

Don't believe me? Tune into DNexus' YouTube channel, where he picks up his keyboard like a Fender Stratocaster, and burns through an entirely recognizable cover of Foster The People's "Pumped Up Kicks."

Or Buff00n, who synced an electric keyboard to his PC so he could bust out a shockingly fully realized version of Ocarina of Time's "Gerudo Valley" theme. (Complete with overdubs!) His poise is incredible. This would 100 percent be a five-star classic in Rock Band.

But my favorite, by far, are the various interpretations of Dragonforce's "Through The Fire and Flames"—which has become something like the "Freebird" of rhythm games ever since its inclusion in Guitar Hero 2. I like to think that even in the far-flung future, on distant alien worlds, there will still be dudes with long hair, cargo shorts, and big ugly power metal t-shirts shredding it to this song.

The Shawzin can be purchased for 40 platinum at Warframe's in-game market, and was released at the end of August. The genesis of the instrument comes from a different music mini-game, the Mandachord, which hit the servers back in 2017. The Mandachord resembles something more like a synthesizer, or a drum machine, rather than the rockstar viscerality of a guitar. Musically, DNexus told me that the Shawzin works as a piano, with multiple scales and 12 different keys. That's what he said he liked about it, when I reached him over email.

"The piano key system [for the Shawzin] is a very smart, and because of that, the Shawzin is a relatively easy instrument [to] compare to real life string instruments," he said. "Also, Digital Extremes is very smart to separate tones into different scales, otherwise Shawzin will be very hard for ppl who doesn't have music basics to play with."

DNexus added that the Shawzin can be purchased with in-game currency, and is built like a platform—something for players to add to and innovate with over time. In that sense, he said it's built just like the rest of Warframe, as a persistent tool that can take you as far as your creativity allows. 

Buff00n took things a step further. He told me he was never great at Guitar Hero, but as a hobbyist musician himself, he's finally found a rhythm game that works for him. Instead of staring down an endless chart of color-coded tablature, he can experience his own space-opera pop fantasy all his own, with music he's created.

Almost all the content is player-generated, there is no progression, and there are no stakes other than bragging rights. A determined and talented group can gather in game and jam, but most of the fun so far has come from making something and sharing it, he told me.

"What makes the Shawzin special, compared to both Guitar Hero and rhythm games in general, is that it's a real musical instrument. The only limit is the player's own talent and imagination.  It's a creative tool, similar in a lot of ways to Warframe's Captura feature, which allows players to produce images and short videos using in-game locales and their player characters, and which also has no bearing whatsoever on the core gameplay. In that respect Warframe's Shawzin is nothing like Guitar Hero."

Here's hoping Digital Extremes keeps adding more instruments to Warframe. I'd like to see a space saxophone next.

For how to play some of these songs, check out our guide to the best Warframe Shawzin songs.

Warframe

What are the best Warframe Shawzin songs? It didn't take Digital Extremes' legion of space ninjas long before the usual suspects were adapted to their new three-stringed instrument. Naturally the Shawzin song for Megalovania from Undertale was quickly committed to the sci-fi shredder, but there's already a treasure trove of other tracks to discover.

Warframe's Shawzin arrived in the game as part of the Saint of Altra update that also saw the release of the rapid new Gauss Frame. But, after you've had your fill of zooming around, you can now take a break with your new axe, now no longer just a decorative item. So, here, we're going to get you started with how to get Shawzin in Warframe and collected a few of our favourites to get your songwriting juices flowing.

Warframe: How to get Shawzin

Now that Shawzin is no longer just a decoration but a playable emote, too, you're going to want to know how you can get your hands on it. There are a few different variations available on the Market: Dawn, Dax, Mimica, and Nelumbo. Mimica can change colour based on the appearance of the Frame playing it and Nelumbo offers a unique sound.

To play the instrument you need to activate the Shawzin emote in your gear wheel. You'll know this has worked as your character will kneel down and hold the instrument, with the musical interface appearing.

When it comes to how to use Shawzin in Warframe, this Warframe wiki guide offers a useful primer on PC controls, scales, and transcription. It also offers sample songs such as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Happy Birthday; pulling out the standard, real-life acoustic just won't cut it at parties anymore.

Shawzin songs in Warframe are transcribed as numbers, letters, and symbols. Each song can be manually recorded for up to four minutes with 100 notes. With practice the following song codes will make more sense but, put simply, the first number corresponds with the scale on which the song is played and every note consists of three characters, which are case-sensitive.

Megalovania - Undertale

4BAABADkAHiAMhAVUAbSAhRAnSAqUAtCAxCAzkA3iA9hBHUBPSBURBbSBdUBgEBlEBnkBsiByhB7UCCSCIRCOSCRUCUBCZBCckChiCnhCwUC2SC8RDCSDFUDI

Sandstorm - Darude

5RAARADRAFRAHRAKRAPRAVRAXRAaRAdRAghAlhAqhAthAvhAyhA1hA6UA/UBCUBFUBHUBKMBQRBVRBXRBaRBdRBgRBlRBrRBtRBwRBzRB1hB6RB/RCDRCFRCJRCLRCRRCXRCaRCcRCfRCihCo

Through the Fire and Flames - Dragonforce

1CAACACBAECAGCAIBAKCAMBAOCAQCASBATCAVCAYBAaCAbBAdJAfJAhCAjJAlJAnCAqJAsCAtJAvJAyCAzJA1JA3CA5JA7KA9EA/EBCBBDEBFEBIBBKEBMBBNEBPEBSBBUEBWEBYBBaEBcBBdCBfCBiBBjCBlCBnBBqCBsBBuCBvBBxCBzJB2KB3JB5KB7MB+

Happy Birthday

5KAAKAFMAJKARSAZRAhKAwKA1MA5KBAUBISBQKBgKBlkBohBwSB4RCAMCIiCZiCehChSCpUCxSC5

Main Theme - Crash Bandicoot

4BAABAHCALEAPRATMAbKAjCArEAvKAzEA3KA7BA/BBHCBLEBPRBTMBbKBjCBrEBuKByEB2KB6BB/BCG

Warframe

Warframe's latest update⁠—Saint Of Altra⁠—is all about contrast. On one hand, you've got Gauss, the latest playable Frame. He's basically The Flash, but with more rocket launchers. He zooms around so quickly that enemies just drop dead in his wake, and crashing into walls causes the wall (and nearby enemies) to explode instead of him. And the icing on the cake? His signature weapons are a plasma-rocket rifle and a pair of homing missile pistols that reload faster when he's sprinting. A fun addition for the twitchiest of space ninjas.

But if all that running around is just too much, you can sit down and play some music. Previously available as a purely decorative item, the Shawzin (inspired by the Japanese Shamisen) is a three-stringed instrument that can now be played through a new emote. You can record songs (of up to 100 notes) for playback later, or even challenge yourself by playing the note chart, Guitar Hero style.

Playing the Shawzin appears initially simple, but if you want to play anything complex on it, there's a lot of work to be done learning its three-string, three-fret controls, especially as you have to quickly change scale to hit the full range of notes. 

The official Warframe wiki has a guide on what notes map to which inputs, and unsurprisingly players are already learning how to play whatever they can on it. Here, YouTuber "DNexus" strums along to Boney M's classic disco hit, Rasputin.

It's strange to see how far Warframe has come. From a threadbare shooter with only a handful of enemy types to a weird universe where space ninjas jam to old Earth disco tracks.

Also included in the Saint Of Altra update is a greatly expanded Disruption game-type. Players can now take Disruption missions in a far wider range of environments, and Grineer Ghouls (previously only unearthed for events near Cetus) are available as a standard enemy type there. There's also some new rewards to earn there, including the components to assemble Gauss and his weaponry.

There's also a new fashion-sharing system, a new skin for Harrow, and some new Infested dojo decorations. You can see the the full list of what the update adds here. Warframe is free-to-play, and you can grab it via Steam or its official page here.

Jul 18, 2019
Warframe

The 40th frame added to Warframe comes with an interesting set of skills that will let Tenno excel in support, crowd control, and even DPS-oriented builds. Wisp brings an elusive, ephemeral air to the game, and it shows in her abilities as well. You can use a light touch, or let loose the power of the sun on unwitting foes. With Wisp, the only limit is your creativity. Her four abilities and passive will help you aid your teammates, set opponents up for team-based combos, and reposition yourself to get out of—or into—harm’s way.

How to get Wisp

Wisp’s construction isn’t necessarily easy, but luckily you’ll get all her blueprints from the Remastered Corpus Gas City on its own Assassination node on Jupiter. You’ll have to face down the Flying Eidolon Ropaloyst around 8-9 times to expectedly receive all blueprints. Once you’ve got the plans for each part, you’ll luckily have a healthy set of credits and Hexenon from Jupiter. You’ll also need commonly-used frame construction materials like Plastids, Rubedo, Polymer Bundles, and Alloy Plates. Elsewhere, make sure you find an Argon Crystal from the Orokin Void or from Assassination missions and use it on the Chassis before it decays, lest you need to hunt for another one. You’ll likely already have some Tellurium to spare from daily login bonuses, which leaves Nitain Extract as the last material to farm. Put in the time on some Nightwave missions and you’ll be able to buy 2 units required to construct’s Wisp’s systems. If you just keep up with the right objectives, you’ll be soaring through the air with Wisp in no time.

Wisp's Abilities

The backbone of Wisp’s kit are her Reservoirs. These extra-dimensional pods come in three flavors—Vitality, Haste, and Shock—and they all fulfill specific roles. Once summoned, the pod will provide an AOE buff itself as well as sending out motes that extend the buff for up to 30 seconds while outside the range of the Reservoir. Vitality increases base health and adds passive regen, Haste increases movement, attack speed, and fire rate, and Shock provides a passive DOT in a short radius that also stuns in an arc. Since Wisp can have up to 6 pods up at one time, players can feel free to proactively set down support as their team needs it. The pods duration is indefinite, so set up them in strategic situations and you and your teammates can corral enemies near them for effective engagements.

Wil-O-Wisp is Wisp’s second ability, and there’s a reason it’s her namesake. Activating the ability will have the frame cloak and summon an ethereal projection of herself that will continue in a target direction to distract enemies as it travels. At any time during the skill’s duration, players can hit the key again to instantly teleport to the projection’s location and gain temporary invulnerability. You can also hold the button down to conjure a faster projection that will still allow for teleportation as soon as you let go of the ability key. The uses of this skill are myriad. Tenno can summon this spectral clone as a "fire and forget" distraction ability, use it to jump into an engagement from afar with enemies off-guard, or as you gain mastery over the skill, a combination of both! Wisp can even use this ability to open Friendship Doors alone as well as teleport past Spy laser barriers undetected. As we’ll see with her next abilities, Wil-O-Wisp only becomes more powerful in conjunction with her full kit.

Wisp’s third ability is called Breach Surge, and it greatly extends her influence over the battlefield. In a target area, Wisp sunders the dimensions to produce an energy burst that blinds enemies. While blinded, enemies become susceptible to releasing secondary sparks on hit that will travel to nearby enemies and have a chance to blind them as well. What takes this ability to the next level is that if players cast it on a Reservoir, Wisp will teleport to that pod and the ability’s range will be doubled. She can also use Breach Surge during Wil-O-Wisp to have the projection explode forth with a second AOE around it. Using this ability’s different versions will let players dance around enemies and control space as she sees fit.

In her ultimate, Wisp turns her enigmatic abilities towards the radioactive power of the sun, tearing open a portal and channeling this Sol Gate into a giant plasma deathray. Players can reposition and aim the beam at will. Wil-O-Wisp can be used during Sol Gate to quickly hit from a different angle. When you’ve got the enemy just where you want them, holding the fire button will slow Wisp’s movement down but double the effective DPS, incinerating enemies with new vigor. Any motes from active Reservoirs will move to orbit Wisp during Sol Gate, letting you spread buffs and debuffs alike while dishing it out. Breach Surge secondary sparks also have an 100% chance of triggering from each hit of the solar assault. And though the skill continually drains 12 energy from this spritely frame, players can end it early by pressing the ability key again.

With all of Wisp’s abilities combined, you can dance around enemies while providing key support to teammates in need. You have the power to approach situations in a way that best suits you thanks to all of her movement abilities, and this is only aided by her passive, Phased. Whenever she takes to the air, Wisp wreathes herself in a dimensional shroud which renders her invisible to enemies until she lands or fires a weapon. Experienced Tenno will be able to surgically apply her buffs and fake out enemies at a moment’s notice. If you’d like to move like the wind, the ethereal Wisp is the frame for you.

Wisp builds

Wisp is such a nice frame for a range of players because no matter what build you go with her, you’ve still got an excellent kit of abilities that will test your skill and creativity. For a balanced approach, upping Ability Strength should be a priority to ensure Reservoir and Sol Gate have greater effects for both you and your team. You can never go wrong with more efficiency from Streamline, as this will let you shape the battlefield easily with more opportunities for targeted buffs and debuffs. For players looking to lean into the debuff side of things, they should definitely look into adding Overextended to their setup, as increasing the range of your abilities goes further in that it’ll mean more potential victims for Breach Surge’s secondary sparks and the stuns from Shock motes.

Definitely check out the Warframe-School for more in-depth Wisp builds and try your hand at crafting the perfect setup for your own elusive summoner at Warframe Builder. Putting time into mastering Wisp will let you dance on the wind and control the battlefield.

Warframe

Math is hard, but Space Math is even harder. If you can imagine all the complex physics calculations that go into moving a videogame character around a 3D space, think about how much harder it would be if that level was also moving around a 3D space. That's the conundrum Digital Extremes was facing when it first conceived of ship-to-ship space combat almost ten years ago—a problem it finally managed to solve in Warframe's upcoming Empyrean update.

If you missed out on all the big Warframe news from its annual Tennocon convention last weekend, the gist is that Warframe is getting an expansion where you can build spaceships and fly them with three of your friends. At any time, you can leave your ship to board enemy ships or explore ruins floating in space. It all looks really ambitious and exciting.

But the physics calculations necessary to have ships that players can walk around in that are also pitching and yawing through 3D space are extremely complex and demanding. That's why, as detailed in our extensive interview with game director Steve Sinclair, Digital Extremes originally abandoned the idea when it was first prototyping Warframe over a decade ago. But as Sinclair explains, that fantasy of space ninjas piloting spaceships stuck with him and he was eventually able to solve the problem using some clever tricks.

You should watch the Empyrean demo above so you have a reference for what I'm about to explain. As you can see in the demo, the player takes control of the ship and flies around space and it all looks just like it does in any other space game like Star Citizen or No Man's Sky. But here's the trick: The ship isn't actually moving.

Instead, Digital Extremes is using an ancient rendering technique called 'portal rendering' which works almost exactly like it does in the puzzle game Portal. Essentially, you create a portal or a window that is attached to somewhere else in 3D space, and when you look through it you see from a different perspective. The cockpit of Warframe's spaceship is actually one big portal into an entirely separate map.

"You just connect the player controls to where that portal is," Sinclair said in our interview. "For Empyrean, there's a big 32 kilometer-squared space where all the space combat is happening and you're pitching around and it feels like you might vomit, but [off to the side] there's a little level and that's your actual spaceship. You have a solid, reliable physics system driving what appears to be this six degrees of freedom experience over here [in an entirely separate area]."

The trick is apparently so clever, even some of Digital Extremes' own programmers were confused by it. "The idea was so sound that last week—last friggin' week—one of the graphics engineers, who is a way better programmer than me, said 'I think this is a problem because the level is rotating too fast.'" Sinclair told me. "And I'm like, whoa, pump the brakes. The level doesn't move. It's fixed in space and we're just moving the backdrop perspective."

If players leave the ship, they're then teleported into that real section of virtual space where they see a model of the spaceship their friends are piloting—but it's not the actual spaceship with full rendered interiors.

Whereas games like Star Citizen strive to simulate spaceflight more directly, that comes at an enormous burden to both the game engine, the computer playing the game, and the developers who have to stitch it altogether. "I'm going to fake it because I can make it faster," Sinclair laughed.

Thanks to lots of nuanced lighting and spatial effects, the trick works. From the demo, it's impossible to tell that you're not actually flying in 3D space.

That's just one of the cool tidbits that came from my time at Digital Extremes offices last weekend. Read the full interview to get a more in-depth look at the challenges Digital Extremes faced when making Empyrean, and check out my overview of all its cool features for more on why it's so exciting.

Warframe

When Digital Extremes first revealed Warframe's Empyrean update last year, it was a transformative moment for the free-to-play game and its community. At the end of a live tour of its second open world area, the on-stage team of developers surprised everyone with a second demo of the then-unannounced update that would let players build spaceships, explore, and fight in space.

I don't think I can fully convey the wave of confusion and excitement that gripped the live audience in that moment. For six years, players had been stuck exploring procedurally generated corridors and a few open world zones, but then a squad of Tenno boarded a Railjack spaceship, flew to low orbit above Venus, and battled a Corpus capital ship. It was an audacious spectacle that had the audience screaming and cheering.

But for the developers at Digital Extremes like game director Steve Sinclair, the quest to create Empyrean goes back decades. It's a story woven into Digital Extremes' own brushes with financial disaster and Sinclair's obsession with realizing a cool fantasy wrapped up in a challenging game design conundrum.

"I just can't let it go," Sinclair laughs. "I have a problem."

Clipped wings 

It would be cool if we could go into space, but we have no time. Execute on what we know we can execute on.

Steve Sinclair, game director

At Tennocon 2019 last weekend, Digital Extremes gave players their second taste of space combat in Empyrean with a 30-minute live demo. In lieu of a shocking twist like with its initial reveal, Sinclair and his team opted to give players a granular look at how piloting the ship works while still surprising them with fun features like the ability to steal enemy ships or call in a second squad from somewhere else in the solar system for ground support.

You can read about Empyrean in my preview, but the gist is that it's Warframe meets indie roguelike FTL. With four friends, you pilot a spaceship through stretches of open space, manning battlestations and dividing your limited energy pool between different offensive and defensive modules as the situation demands. But the comparison ends there because players can also disembark from the Railjack in their Archwing flightsuits and zip around, invading enemy ships or exploring derelict ruins floating in space. 

It's a mode that Sinclair doesn't like to call an expansion, since it doesn't expand so much as it glues all of Warframe's disparate features together into one cohesive whole. It also brings Warframe closer than ever to the original game idea that nearly ruined Digital Extremes in the early 2000s.

Before Warframe was released, Digital Extremes had made a name for itself developing Unreal Tournament. That success inspired its team to make a game of their own, an ambitious sci-fi MMO called Dark Sector—a vastly different game than the Dark Sector that Digital Extremes released back in 2008. 

"It's probably common knowledge [at this point] that the original version of Dark Sector was hardcore sci-fi, anime, glowing tentacles coming out of your head kind of game," Sinclair laughs. "But I had made the mistake of convincing the studio that we would also write our own game engine at the same time, which is a great way to sink a company."

It's a story beautifully told in NoClip's Warframe documentary, but this gist is that no publisher wanted to fund Digital Extremes' weird sci-fi MMO, and so the studio was forced to do contract work to make ends meet while eventually scrapping many of its ideas or adapting them to make the Dark Sector third-person shooter that eventually released in 2008.

Though the modest success of Dark Sector and the development of games like The Darkness 2 carried Digital Extremes for a few years, but in 2012 the studio needed a new game—and it was abundantly clear that no publisher wanted to fund its original Dark Sector idea. To survive, Digital Extremes was going to have to adapt.

"We had this crisis," Sinclair says. "What are we doing? What are we doing next? Are we going on the road? What's our pitch for our next game? At one point I had written a thing—I'm not taking credit for this—but I had written up this bullet point design document called Tenno. It's was like space-ninjas-slash-space-pirates, and the idea was that we'd make an Xbox Live Arcade game—remember that genre of game?—and I thought, the budget is small enough, the expectations are small enough, the price point is small enough. We could do that and self-publish it."

"That pitch was basically what Empyrean is," Sinclair adds. "You're on a spaceship, you fly over, you board the other guy, you kill the guys, get some loot, repeat, repeat, level up."

Digital Extremes only had enough money to last about a year. While the studio tried to drum up more contract work, Sinclair and a team started building a small free-to-play game out of this pitch. But with limited resources and looming bankruptcy, Sinclair says it wasn't the time to start taking risks.

To help offset the burden on the design team, this new game would use procedurally generated levels and old art assets and features stripped from the ill-fated original concept for Dark Sector. "It was really a function of needing to use all parts of the buffalo," Sinclair explains. "Trying to create a product out of the scraps of the things that you had. And that's what we did."

Of everything detailed in that original pitch that would eventually become Warframe, one feature was left on the cutting room floor: Spaceflight. "The first version of Warframe that shipped as closed beta was only nine months of work from ten people," Sinclair says. "We said, well, it would be cool if we could go into space, but we have no time. Execute on what we know we can execute on, and at that time was procedural levels with Left 4 Dead-style gameplay. We knew how to make shooters so it was like, we have the code, we know how to do this kind of thing, go, go, go."

Though spaceflight was a key part of that original design for Warframe, Sinclair says it created major design challenges that Digital Extremes wasn't equipped to solve at the time.

"You have this problem with physics," Sinclair explains. Unlike most space combat games, Sinclair wanted to create spaceships that players can fight and explore while simultaneously flying through space. To illustrate his point, Sinclair grabs the table we are sitting at and jostles it so the cups of water resting on it almost spill. To get the movement physics of each in-game character to work correctly, the game engine would have to constantly offset the math to stay relative to the movement and velocity of the ship so that the metaphorical glasses of water (in this case, the players) didn't spill as it was moving around. It's a problem that gets exponentially more complicated when you add dozens of enemies and multiple spaceships players can invade and explore all fighting in one shared universe.

Without a practical solution that didn't involve designing a game engine with the mathematical chops to keep up, the feature was quickly abandoned and Warframe became exclusively focused on fighting through procedurally-generated levels. But that dream of flying and boarding spaceships stuck with Sinclair and a few members of the development team, eating away at them until they could find a way to make it work.

Portals solve everything 

Even without space combat, Warframe slowly became a smash hit thanks, in part, to its release on Steam. In 2014, the Archwing update let players to suit up in Gundam-style flight suits that allowed for six degrees of freedom while flying through linear sections of space that still closely resembled the design of Warframe's procedural corridors. But Sinclair couldn't give up on that original idea of letting players fly ships in open space.

The level doesn't move. It's fixed in space and we're just moving the backdrop perspective.

Steve Sinclair, game director

In 2017, over a year before Empyrean was unveiled at Tennocon, Sinclair was streaming on his personal Twitch account when he decided to share the problem—and his proposed solution—with his viewers who were unaware that this feature would one day be a part of Warframe itself.

In this stream, Sinclair explained that the Unreal Engine had a trick called 'portal rendering' that was the key to making Empyrean work. If you remember the puzzle game Portal, portal rendering is exactly what it sounds like: You create a "window" to a different area of space that you can see into. "It's a simple fucking trick," Sinclair laughs. "It's the simplest thing."

When you watch that Empyrean demo and you see the player flying the ship, everything you see is an illusion. There's a large portal stretched across the cockpit of the Railjack, and the ship itself isn't moving at all. 

"You just connect the player controls to where that portal is," Sinclair says. "For Empyrean, there's a big 32 kilometer-squared space where all the space combat is happening and you're pitching around and it feels like you might vomit, but [off to the side] there's a little level and that's your actual spaceship. You have a solid, reliable physics system driving what appears to be this six degrees of freedom experience over here [in an entirely separate area]."

"The idea was so sound that last week—last friggin' week—one of the graphics engineers, who is a way better programmer than me, said 'I think this is a problem because the level is rotating too fast.'" Sinclair adds. "And I'm like, whoa, pump the brakes. The level doesn't move. It's fixed in space and we're just moving the backdrop perspective."

But players aren't stuck inside the Railjack. They can also leave via their Archwings and fly around in space. Again, Sinclair and his team devised clever illusions to make that transition feel seamless. "If you pay very close attention to the demo, there are moments of crossfades," Sinclair says. "You're flying in the ship, you're about to jump into the little pneumatic tube that spits you into space, and we play an animation. As you animate, it goes black, and we pop you over here, into the actual 3D space."

While in the Archwing, you're actually flying in space, but because the scale of Warframe's character combat and space combat are wildly different, you're actually shrunk down to the "size of a fairy" to maintain the illusion that the Railjack is larger than your character. Keep in mind, though, that the Railjack you see flying around in space while in your Archwing isn't the same Railjack that your teammates might still be inside of, it's just a model with no real interior.

Using that solution, Digital Extremes is able to create an approximation of space combat without having to tackle the same complications that games like Star Citizen have spent years solving. But at the end of the day, does it matter which approach you take if the end result is the same? "I'm going to fake it because I can make it faster," Sinclair laughs.

Final frontiers 

Though Sinclair discovered the solution to this puzzle years ago, Digital Extremes' brush with bankruptcy meant that the studio had to be extremely careful about where they invested their time. But that's quickly changing. Warframe is a game defined by its audacity—this is a game with a warframe whose weapon is a programmable synthesizer, after all.

Empyrean is different, though. It feels like an update that could see Warframe undergo even more significant evolutions in the future. Sinclair says the team isn't making Empyrean another "island" to grind on (like some of Warframe's compartmentalized expansions), but a way to connect everything—from racing through procedural levels to Archwing combat to spear fishing on Fortuna.

I have this fear that it's not enough for our audience. I don't want to let them down that's the biggest thing.

Steve Sinclair, game director

As our time together comes to a close so that Sinclair can prepare to take the Tennocon stage and show Empyrean off to an audience of thousands (not to mention the 400,000 viewers that will watch on Twitch), I ask him how it feels to finally realize a fantasy he's been chasing for so long. His answer catches me by surprise.

"You would have to ask me that tomorrow," he says. "Right now, I'm right on the edge. I have this fear that it's not enough for our audience. I don't want to let them down—that's the biggest thing. I don't want to have a technical flaw that torpedoes the whole thing and let's them down. I feel this enormous responsibility to these people."

But that responsibility was borne from the freedom that allowed Sinclair to experiment in the first place. Sinclair remembers a frigid January after Warframe launched and was successful enough that he didn't have to fear that he'd lose his job and Digital Extremes would go bankrupt. 

"I remember that January I felt like, what do I do now?" Sinclair says. "My whole career leading up to that was the hustle: the milestones, the publishers, the grind, the pitching, the milestone approval—not approved, they're going to cancel it, it's cancelled, start again. I felt lost when I didn't have to be a junkyard dog [fighting for scraps]. That was a really bad feeling. It's one of those weird paradoxes. It lasted a month, just feeling like there was no reason to keep doing this. But Sheldon [Carter, chief operating officer at Digital Extremes] was like, yeah there is, you love this. Geoff [Crookes, art director] would say to me, what do you want to do? Just put it in Warframe. Whatever the hell you want to do, let's just do it. Suddenly it was like, oh, there's creative freedom here, and that is amazing."

...

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