Jan 18, 2019

Warframe dev says cross-play is 'one of the highest-risk things we can do'

Warframe

Over the last year, cross-play has quickly become an exciting frontier for games. The ability to play with anyone—regardless of what platform they're on—is an obvious benefit to players, which is why it was so frustrating to see companies like Sony stand in the way for so long. But with Fortnite and Rocket League now offering unrestricted cross-play across various platforms, the big question is what other games will be next?

During a Warframe developer livestream on Twitch, one viewer asked whether Warframe, which recently launched on Switch and is consistently one of the biggest games on PC, would ever have cross-play. Considering Warframe's MMO-style of progression and community, being able to play on the go or with friends on other consoles is an obvious boon for PC players. But the reality, creative director Steve Sinclair explains, is very complicated.

"As a player I would love it," Sinclair said. "As a developer, it's one of the highest-risk things we can do. Because a lot of the games that are doing it—it's still very early days for this—A lot of those games came late to the platforms and had different negotiating environments to establish their contracts. On top of that, we are a game that is constantly changing. We change the game modes, we change the gameplay. We do huge, huge swings constantly, so, it is something that we're all interested in and we do discuss it."

Although we would like to do this, I don't think it is something that we can promise right now in January.
Steve Sinclair, creative director

Warframe's development is nearly constant. Patches and hotfixes are rolled out on an almost weekly basis, which is one of the reasons why PC and consoles operate on different timelines. For example, Fortuna, Warframe's big new open-world update, launched on PCs a full month earlier than consoles—and it's still not out on Switch yet. Doing cross-play would require unifying these three branches.

"Although we would like to do this, I don't think it is something that we can promise right now in January," Sinclair admitted.

There is hope, though. One of the biggest benefits to cross-play in Warframe would be the option to carry progress over between platforms. When the Switch version launched, players could temporarily choose to migrate their accounts from PC and other consoles to the Switch version, but that was a permanent move. If you want to play on both PC and Switch, you'd need two separate accounts—far from ideal in such a massive MMO-style game.

Sinclair says that while full cross-play might not be possible, the team is interested in finding ways to "share progress or share items" between platforms. So while you might not be able to play with your friends on PS4, you could jump seamlessly jump between platforms. "Those things are a lot more doable than getting everything in sync and doing complete cross-play," Sinclair says. "Maybe it's more of a gradual step for us than an overnight switch."

I wouldn't hold my breath, though. During that same livestream Digital Extremes laid out Warframe's entire 2019 roadmap and it's jam-packed with updates. I doubt cross-play will happen this year.

But there's still hope. What I wouldn't give to be able hop off my PC and play Warframe on my Switch in bed—just like god intended.

Jan 15, 2019

What to expect from Warframe in 2019

Warframe

Last year was a pivotal year for Warframe. While Digital Extremes kept the game going with a slew of mini-updates, it also launched its second open-world zone, Fortuna. Learning lessons from the previous open-world zone, Fortuna is one of the coolest and most exciting expansions ever made to Warframe. And that's just the beginning.

As we look to the year ahead, Warframe is going to get even bigger. Of course that means lots of new warframes to unlock and pilot, but Digital Extremes has already teased some mighty ambitious projects including a complete overhaul of its melee system. Here's what to look forward to in Warframe in 2019.

Railjack

The Railjack reveal floored viewers at TennoCon 2018. After an extended demo of the new open-world zone of Fortuna, Digital Extremes pulled a double-feature that saw a team of three piloting a ship, blasting fighters, and assaulting a Corpus battleship. The mode seamlessly blended on-board ship combat, ship-to-ship space fights, archwing piloting, and tactical systems that let you manage your vessel's power reserves. The demo even showed a player hacking into the Corpus systems to unlock doors and turn turrets against their masters.

As the two open world zones did previously, this demo opened up my expectations for what Warframe could become five or ten years down the line. Warframe is already a different animal from its early iterations in 2013, but few would have expected this level of spectacle and complex co-operation across multiple systems. It's almost unthinkable that Railjack will actually come out this year, but that's the plan. If it works (and let’s be honest, it might take a few patches to get it stable), Railjack could raise the bar for the sort of team activities we can look forward to in future updates.

Multiple new warframes

One thing players can reliably expect from 2019 is that Digital Extremes will roll out several new warframes over the course of the year—we just have no idea what they might be. In 2018, Digital Extremes released five entirely new warframes and four Prime variants of existing warframes (which have upgraded stats but are most easily obtainable through microtransactions). That gives us a pretty reliable estimate of how many new warframes should be arriving this year.

What those warframes will be is another question entirely, though. While Digital Extremes loves to tease new warframes well in advance, the latest addition to the roster, Baruuk, was just released on December 18. It's probably a little too early to expect any sneak peeks at what's next. That said, near the end of Devstream #115, art director Geoff Crookes let slip that an upcoming frame was called Wisp and had "an amazing design." Unfortunately, Crookes didn't say anything more specific.

In that same stream, design director Scott McGregor also said there were two other unannounced warframes in the works—making for a total of three confirmed warframes that should arrive for 2019. While we have no idea what they'll be, my guess is that at least one of them will evoke the themes of Fortuna in some way. The two most recent frames, Revenant and Baruuk, really captured the feeling of the Plains of Eidolon expansion, so it makes sense that new frames might do the same for the frozen wastes of Fortuna's Orb Vallis.

The New War cinematic quest

Warning: Story spoilers ahead. Jump to the next section to avoid these.

Aside from Railjack and some new warframes to play with, one update players can absolutely count on in 2019 is the next chapter of Warframe's story, called The New War. First teased at TennoCon 2018, The New War picks up directly where the last story quest, The Sacrifice, ended. The Lotus, who has been allied with the player since the beginning, revealed her true form to be the Sentient Natah and is returning home to her "Mother." The teaser shown at TennoCon shows Natah alongside an army of Sentients and implies that a new Sentient invasion of the solar system is about to begin, with Natah and her mother leading the charge.

That's about all we know without speculating and digging into Warframe's incredibly dense lore. But even if you're not a Warframe scholar, The New War is exciting if only because Warframe's cinematics are always super stylish and fun to watch. The Sacrifice also introduced Umbra Excalibur, a new type of warframe that players have been dying to own for years now. Hopefully The New War expands on that Umbra variant or comes with its own set of goodies for those who complete it.

More floofs

Can a Warframe player have too many animal plushies in their Orbiter? Some members of the Warframe community asked themselves that question last year, and found the answer to be ‘no’. The floof phenomenon is surely not over, but will Digital Extremes make the leap to creating real life versions of the most popular toys? The urge to collect them all has been infecting internet forums since the conservation activity was added in Fortuna, so surely it’s a matter of time before they start filling homes in meatspace. In the meantime, the least we can hope for is that Fortuna will continue getting updates that add even more species of critters to collect plushie versions of.

Melee 3.0

The long-awaited melee overhaul is still in development, but we’ve seen it motion in a couple of developer streams in 2018. The new system aims to make melee weapons that much more accessible and fun. With melee 3.0 , you can switch between guns and melee weapons almost instantly, letting you bullet jump, take a few pistol headshots, then draw a blade and ground-slam in one smooth motion—something that just can't be done with the current system. A heavy attack command replaces channeling, and combos will be standardized across different weapons so you don't have memorize dozens of different combos between all your go-to melee weapons.

Players originally thought melee 3.0 would arrive in 2018, but it’s apparently a big project that still needs an undetermined amount of time. Melee mods and stances have to be reworked and rebalanced across the board. If the new system works as intended combat should feel faster and more fluid, and allow for more spectacular space ninja acrobatics.

Dec 14, 2018

From Epic Pinball to Warframe: 25 years of Digital Extremes

Warframe

Today Digital Extremes is known for its big free-to-play hit shooter, Warframe, but the studio has been around since PC gaming's early days. For 25 years DE has worked on old school classics like Epic Pinball, as well as Unreal, and underrated shooters like The Darkness 2.

Founder James Schmalz started out learning coding tidbits from magazines before working alongside Epic luminaries Tim Sweeney and Mark Rein. DE's story is one of a studio that has fought hard for the opportunity to create its own property in an industry that's often tough on mid-sized independent developers trying to break out. I spoke to Schmalz earlier this week about the studio's story.

PC Gamer: How did you get started developing games?

James Schmalz: I’ve always been interested in games ever since I got an Apple II Plus computer, and during high school I’d make little games. I got into it professionally in university and I found out about shareware. I remember there were a few small games out at the time. I thought it sounded like a great way to get a small game some exposure without trying to get into the retail stores. My first real game was Solar Winds and it was distributed by Epic through the shareware model, and it did really well. A really interesting and good start.

In grade nine was my first exposure to computers, to Apple II Plus computers at the high school, and I was absolutely fascinated by the computers and by all the games of course, and everything you could do with it. It definitely was a passion from the very moment I got my hands on one.

How did you build on that first release?

I was working with Mark Rein and Tim Sweeney back when they were just starting up Epic. Solar Winds, it came out, and it was making pretty decent money, just enough money on a per month basis that I could survive off of that and work on the next game.

All the Epic games were incredibly helpful back then. They were learning how to do things and I was learning how to do things. There was a great sharing of information with the other developers they were working with. Massively educational. After Solar Winds I started work on Epic Pinball, and that turned out to be extraordinarily successful.

How did you choose what to make at the time?

Yeah back then it was really nice. Out of naivety, not understanding much, at that time I’m just thinking about what’s going to be fun to make, or what interests me. Solar Winds came out of me really liking the game Star Control and Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was a combination between those two things. It was something that captivated my mind.

You were hoping for financial success but you weren’t really thinking of that because you didn’t know anything about it. When you get ten years on in the industry you’re primarily thinking ‘what’s going to be successful, what’s going to be this or that', and you’re thinking about all these other factors rather than just doing what you want to do.

How has the industry changed over the last 25 years?

Yeah it’s vastly expanded of course. There’s so much information out there. Back then before the internet to find out any information on how to program or how this was programmed, that was programmed, 3D graphics, you’re basically starting from scratch on everything. You’ve got little snippets from magazines that you might have read.

Anyone that’s really old school might remember Nibble magazine for the Apple II Plus where they had little bits of code, tiny little games written across two pages of the magazine that you could type in and see how it works. It was really difficult to get information that you needed. Or the tools. There was no tools back in the day. For a developer starting out it’s such a different experience, there’s very little reference material.

What I like about these days is back then one person could do it all, or two people could do it all. I love the fact that we’ve definitely got to a point where you see one or two or three person indie teams doing amazing stuff. So it’s changed so much, yet in some ways there’s lots of elements that are the same as it was 25 years ago.

What did you move on to after Epic Pinball?

I did Solar Winds, then Epic Pinball, then we worked on Extreme Pinball. Then that was the time when I was getting into 3D programming. Then Epic and us, we collaborated for many years until that product became Unreal, then we all worked on Unreal Tournament together. That was about a six, seven year period when we did all that.

What was it like working on the transition to 3D games with Epic?

I went to university for mechanical engineering. We did a lot of complex math there. When I saw Wolfenstein 3D come out and Doom come out, I was so fascinated by 3D programming so I jumped into it myself. It was some really interesting stuff, basically starting from scratch on 3D programming, down to rasterising polygons on the screen.

I was absolutely fascinated by it and I learned a lot, but my skills in 3D programming—my skills in programming in general were never that great—it was such slow going for me. When Tim Sweeney started making his version of the Unreal Engine he would just blaze past me so fast. It was interesting considering how such an amazing programmer he was, he was my only point of reference really for a programmer to compare yourself to in those days.

I basically stopped programming because he blazed past me so quickly, then I focused on design and art. I got my taste of 3D programming myself but then I had the great experience to be able to work with him as he was pioneering all the stuff he pioneered back then.

Is there anything you miss about those days? Anything that has improved or changed in the following years?

It’s amazing to think of what we all accomplished back then with such small teams, but it was such high stress. There are so many plusses and minuses. At my age now it would be hard to go back and redo that kind of thing.

It was some fantastic memories with the team, working extremely long work weeks to get Unreal out, but then you suffer through all that and you accomplish something that’s really quite extraordinary. The results were amazing and I definitely wouldn’t go back and change anything, but it was tough. There’s definitely a lot of tough times in there.

It was all so focused and we all pushed each other. We all worked crazy hours, not because anyone said so, just because somebody else was, so now you feel like you should. We knew we were creating something pretty special. The majority of that team turned out to be so monumentally successful, and you have to consider that it’s at least in part by going through those experiences and realising what it takes to make an incredible game, and the sacrifices at times that you have to do to make that happen. No doubt that those experiences changed all our lives, and certainly changed who we are to a certain degree I would think.

Digital Extremes, 2002.

How did Digital Extremes move on after the Unreal era?

We were really looking to build our own IP. Back up in Canada right up after that, right after Unreal Championship came out, we were working on an idea called Dark Sector. It’s interesting because if you look at the original trailer for that it’s very much what Warframe is now. We had the seeds of kind of what Warframe is, way back then.

We wanted it to be an MMO-type online game, and we were shopping it around and we just weren’t getting any traction on it, so we ended up doing some work for hire stuff. Amazing stuff, some horrible stuff. We just did that for years to pay the bills and we got into this—not necessarily a rut—but a case where games are getting bigger and bigger and you do some work for hire work and you need a bigger team, the team needs to be twice as big, so over the years the staff at DE grew to one hundred and then two hundred, just because the games we were doing for work for hire required that.

It was a bit of a tricky problem because we still wanted to do Dark Sector and do our own products, and have this situation where we’re hopefully two teams where one is a work for hire and it’s the bread and butter, and we’re also trying to create our own IP. It was a very, very difficult position to be in for sure, because as an independent developer you can have a project cancelled at any time, and we certainly had that happen a few times. It was certainly devastating and at various times we were so close to bankruptcy, but we finally pulled it through and managed to move on.

How did Warframe eventually come about?

When we had the opportunity to do Warframe five years ago, almost six years ago, I told Steve and the team ‘just make whatever you want, whatever you’re most excited about’ and they narrowed in on the original ideas for what Dark Sector was, the original Dark Sector, iterated on that and adapted it for free-to-play, and adapted it for modern times right now. It was clearly the right decision for sure.

We had a short period of time to get Warframe out originally. It was so well received by the fans, and I know [the team] pays a lot of attention to what they feel about the game. They want to add multiple huge innovations to the game each year, and you can see that in some of the big announcements and updates we have, where they really try to push the game in a different direction to get the fans re-excited about the future, and keep the team really interested in it too. Working five years on a game that might not change at all is not exciting, but when they ahve these huge updates that really change the direction of where they game is going to go it excites the fans and the development team as well to keep things fresh in everyone’s mind. Everyone has to be passionate about it on an ongoing basis, not just the fans, but the development team. If they lose their passion then it’s going to show up in the updates not being as exciting and passionate.

Did the free-to-play launch feel like a big risk at the time?

It was a huge risk. Probably one of the biggest risks we’ve ever taken. At that time World of Tanks had come out and there were a few games that we heard were doing well. As an independent developer we’d do a retail game and it would come out and the money would stop. It would sell and within months it would be gone and you’d have to move onto something new.

One of the things as an independent developer that sounded amazing, if you could make it work, as risky as it is, is that with a free-to-play online game you’ve got revenue coming in potentially all the time. Even if it’s a small amount of revenue it’s still seven days a week, 365 days a year. As an independent developer, having that kind of cash flow is everything. It reduces the chance of those issues I was talking about in the past when you get a project cancelled or finished and you don’t have anything lined up. Then you have 300 people that you need to still employ. It’s horribly stressful and risky, and so we figured even if Warframe was small and did marginally well at least we’d have this ongoing product that could support a certain number of staff at the company.

Does it feel as though player attitudes to free-to-play have shifted over the years?

I hope so, I think so to a certain degree. Games like Fortnite have really helped and I think certainly Warframe has helped because it has got quite a large audience. The key has been to treat your players fairly and try to build a great community. We love the fact that we’re dealing directly with the customers, directly with the players. Everything is about making them happy, making it feel like it’s a fair proposition that we’re giving them. I think it’s slowly starting to change, the perception of free-to-play in our industry, but surprisingly for me not as fast as I thought it would. I thought a lot more people would be making free to play games at this point. It might accelerate now—Fortnite has had a huge impact on the perception of that and they’ve done it so well.

Is Warframe the studio's main focus at the moment?

Yeah, we love Warframe and it continues to do amazingly well. We’re growing our studio to support any number of staff that we might need to grow Warframe as quickly as possible. We just had the Switch version come out and it’s doing incredibly well, so the growth is still there.

Everything we do at DE pretty much goes back into supporting Warframe and growing Warframe as much as possible, really delivering to the community the content they want to see as quickly as they want to see it. It’s such a huge focus. We’ve looked externally at other players, we just launched Survived By. We had a fun bullet hell type game which everyone should check out. We’re doing that kind of thing, but within DE our focus is all on Warframe and making it as great as possible.

Dec 13, 2018

Discover Warframe's weird origins in 2008 shooter Dark Sector

Warframe

The concept for Warframe existed a decade or more before Warframe’s release in 2013. It’s common for studios to harbour ideas for new games that one day—budgets willing—they will have a chance to make. Rarely do entire chunks of those ideas turn up in entirely different games, however. Before Warframe, there was Dark Sector. As a Warframe player, revisiting this 2008 cover shooter has given me a very strange case of reverse déjà-vu.

Dark Sector is a game about a man called Hayden Tenno who throws a homing glaive at anonymous foes. Warframe players will have already flagged that surname: Tenno is the term for the order of mysterious ancient warriors that inhabit Warframes. That seems like an odd throwaway connection until you reach the end of the prologue and Hayden is attacked by a ninja called Nemesis who looks… familiar.

Later in the game Hayden finds a high-tech suit, and basically morphs into one of Warframe’s starter suits: Excalibur.

Once you've seen these fully-formed examples of Warframe's visual design, a lot of other details pop out. The hazmat-suited human enemies you fight don't look too far away from the Corpus you fight in Warframe. There's a strain of infected that rush to engage you in close combat. They are grey, shambling zombies, but not too dissimilar to Warframe's colourful infected.

It's too much of a stretch to suggest that Warframe shares a universe with Dark Sector—it would be a disappointment if the mythical Tenno were actually some leather-jacketed antiheroes from a late-2000s cover shooter. The Dark Sector Digital Extremes released in 2008 was very much of its time: a Gears of War-like with gory executions and a brooding main character. It comes from a vision that was heavily altered by market requirements.

Earlier this week I spoke to Digital Extremes founder James Schmalz about his 25 year career (more on that tomorrow) and Warframe’s long gestation period. “It’s interesting because if you look at the original trailer for [Dark Sector] it’s very much what Warframe is now, " he says. "We had the seeds of kind of what Warframe is, way back then.”

This is an early pitch video from Digital Extremes, and it shows a completely different vision for Dark Sector. The space station looks like one of Warframe's relays. The enemies are obviously the Grineer. Excalibur is there, and the yellow spider robot that shows up is Jackal, the final boss of Venus.

The concept goes all the way back to 2002. “After the Unreal games at Digital Extremes we were really looking to build our own IP," says Schmalz, "Back up in Canada right up after that, right after Unreal Championship came out, we were working on an idea called Dark Sector."

The 2008 game was released during a tough time for Digital Extremes. The studio worked hard to stay afloat doing a lot of work for hire jobs developing aspects of other companies’ games. “It was a bit of a tricky problem because we still wanted to do Dark Sector and do our own products, and have this situation where we’re hopefully two teams where one is a work for hire and it’s the bread and butter, and we’re also trying to create our own IP.

"It was a very, very difficult position to be in for sure because as an independent developer you can have a project cancelled at any time.”

At that time Digital Extremes also developed Pariah, Warpath, the PS3 port of BioShock, BioShock 2's unusual multiplayer mode and Homefront's multiplayer mode. It wasn't until Warframe's 2013 release that the skintight Tenno suits made a comeback in an online free-to-play game. Today Warframe consistently ranks in Steam's top ten most played games.

That old Warframe concept video hasn't been forgotten. Warframe's Lex gun looks a lot like Hayden Tenno's default pistol. Warframe's glaive can trigger one of Hayden's close combat finishers, and you can equip the Glaive Proto skin to make it look exactly like the Dark Sector weapon. On the Warframe forums user Cyborg Rox spotted a holographic projection that looks exactly like the spaceship from that early Dark Sector footage.

The spirit of Hayden Tenno lives on.

Nov 28, 2018

Warframe's robo-spider boss battles will be like 'Ocean's 11 with more action'

Warframe

Earlier this month, Warframe launched its second open-world expansion that included a gorgeous frozen wasteland for players to explore. It is, without a doubt, Warframe's biggest expansion ever—adding all new features like being able to track and capture animals for conservation, customizable secondary weapons, and radical hoverboards to ride around on. But, as live operations and community director Rebecca Ford tells me, this is just the beginning. Before the end of the year, the Fortuna expansion is going to get a lot bigger—and a lot more deadly.

Vox Solaris

When Fortuna first launched on November 8, Ford tells me that update only contained about "80 percent" of the total planned expansion. As players first ventured out into Orb Vallis, a frozen hellscape patrolled by legions of Corpus soldiers and the indomitable Godzilla-sized robot spiders called Orb Mothers, they befriended the enslaved Solaris people. Forced into a vicious cycle of crippling debt, the Solaris live in an underground colony called Fortuna and spend their days laboring over the terraforming machines turning this slice of Venus into a winter wonderland. But they're not a passive people. A resistance group called Solaris United is working to overthrow their dictator, Nef Anyo, and restore freedom to the people.

What we're shooting for is Ocean's Eleven with more action.
Rebecca Ford

But Nef Anyo won't go down without a fight, and that's the headlining feature of what Ford refers to as "Fortuna part two"—the second update due before the new year that will complete Fortuna as an expansion. Scattered across the mountains of Orb Vallis are three Orb Mothers (often just called Orbs), and these massive robo-spiders are the backbone of Nef Anyo's military power. "The biggest threat to the Solaris livelihood, other than the meta-threat of debt, is that Nef Anyo has Orb Vallis on lockdown because those Orbs can obliterate anything," Ford tells me. "The threat they pose is one of control, they're massive, they're engineered to destroy and protect wealth. And, ultimately, that's something [players] want to put an end to."

Right now, any player can go pick a fight with one but that effort would be futile. No one knows how to actually damage the damn things. That's what main characters like Eudico, The Business, and Little Duck are currently trying to figure out tucked away in Solaris United's secret headquarters.

It's a setup that mirrors Warframe's previous expansion, The Plains of Eidolon, which also featured war machines called Eidolons that roamed the landscape at night. Players had to form groups of four and work closely and skillfully to bring one down. But Ford is quick to clarify that the way players challenge the Eidolons and the way they'll attack the Orb Mothers couldn't be more different.

"The current design approach to this is going to involve more than engage, shoot, kill," Ford says. "What we're shooting for is Ocean's 11 with more action. I don't know what that ends up looking like on release, but that's what inspired it." As Ford explains, the idea is that taking down one of these three Orb Mothers should be a complex challenge with an emphasis on planning and strategy. That's why they're called "Heists"—though we don't know what exactly we're stealing yet, but I hope it involves taking control of the Orb Mothers themselves.

At the same time, Digital Extremes is paying careful attention to what the community wants to see in these upcoming boss battles and incorporating those ideas as well. "It's still in a bit of flux right now, and players have given us feedback on what they want the encounters to be," Ford says. "So even though we have our design, we also want to try to incorporate what they want." But if there's one thing that Ford is certain about, it's that these battles will be "very different from the Eidolon fights."

"Having a giant threat is great, but engaging it in the exact same way is, in our minds, not so great," Ford says. "Warframe is a lot of shooting minions, and when we have the opportunity to give you something different, we really want to focus on the different."

While Ford wasn't able to reveal specifics on how these battles will work, she did say that each Orb Mother has their own abilities, so the three fights won't necessarily be exactly the same. It's also unclear whether the three Orb Mothers will all become available to fight simultaneously or if each fight will be locked behind some kind of progress gate.

When Fortuna first launched, several players encountered a weird bug where an Orb Mother spawned inside of Fortuna, which is normally a safe zone for players. It made for some awesome videos, but was assumed to be little more than a bizarre glitch. However, Ford teased that a giant robot spider invading Fortuna could be a reality: "Maybe you'll see that for real one day is all I'll say," she laughs. "Maybe not in [Fortuna] part two, but maybe that particular theme—that idea—is something that we want to do."

Most of the characters will have a new story players can discover to learn more about who they are.
Rebecca Ford

These Orb boss battles will also represent the next chapter of Fortuna's storyline, which took a weird turn weeks ago when players reached the maximum possible rank with the Solaris United faction and discovered a bizarre plot twist that baffled the community and raised a lot of questions about the nature of the Solaris people. Ford says that Fortuna's next update will help answer some of them, but players will have to search for them. "With The Plains of Eidolon, we included fragments [an in-game collectible] that players could find that told a story," Ford explains. "We didn't include those in part one of Fortuna, but they will be in part two. Most of the characters will have a new story players can discover to learn more about who they are, how they got to where they are, and what their goals are, what their past is, and what is their outlook on life."

Save the animals

Aside from the endgame Orb Mother battles, Ford says this second update will also expand just about every other feature added in Fortuna. Creature conservation, for example, will be getting three new species for players to track down and capture—which also means three new in-game floofs (cosmetic plushies you can showcase on your ship) to fawn over as well. "We're going to add a couple of flying creatures, so you can take your conservation hunt to the sky so instead of always looking at the ground you might have to analyze flight patterns so you can tranq birds, for example," Ford says.

The animal conservation minigame, which involves first finding animal poop, following a set of tracks, calling the animal using a special lure, and then tranquilizing it, is one of the most original features added in Fortuna. But, as many players have noted, it's also one of the least accessible for people with various vision impairments like color blindness. Ford says it's something that they're working on fixing soon. "We're running a couple of tools to make sure that we're getting every case of accessibility for that mechanic," she explains. "And we're still playing with the brightness, because that's what will let people see the tracks whether they have low visibility or color blindness, so that'll be something for a future release."

Players have gone a little overboard collecting in-game plushies.

K-Drives, the cool hoverboards players get after completing Fortuna's intro quest, will also be getting more cosmetic options and mods so players can further customize them to their liking. And those of you who prefer using them over the faster, flying Archwings can rest easy knowing that even more tricks are on the way too. And, just as exciting, Kit Guns will be expanded eventually to allow you to customize your own primary weapon instead of just a secondary one.

It's a lot to look forward to in what is already a stellar expansion to Warframe. Plains of Eidolon was Digital Extremes first attempt at building open-world zones and, as I wrote at the time of its release, there were a lot of issues that players had to overcome if they wanted to have fun with it. But Fortuna is different. It's more accessible, more diverse, and far less buggy. Similar to the way Warframe's concurrent player numbers on Steam continue to climb, Fortuna represents Warframe getting even bigger and better than it already is.

Nov 19, 2018

Warframe players are completely baffled by its latest plot twist

Warframe

Warning: This article contains massive spoilers for Fortuna, Warfame's newest update.

Despite having cute animals to capture and rad hoverboards to ride around on, Warframe's Fortuna expansion is a bleak and somber one. The frozen, open-world wasteland of Orb Vallis is an inhospitable place full of giant mecha-spiders and evil Corpus soldiers while, below the surface, the Solaris people of the Fortuna colony are trapped in a vicious cycle of debt from which there is no escape. Though Developer Digital Extremes teased that there was more to this story, this weekend a few players uncovered an unsettling revelation that has everyone on the Warframe subreddit feeling a little rattled. Turns out, the Solaris people have something to hide.

Finding the right head space

When Fortuna launched on November 8, many players were already well acquainted with the plight of the Solaris people thanks to an ARG being played on a special Discord server. There, a mysterious figure named The Business was communicating with players, asking them to complete certain missions both in and out of the game and dispensing coded documents that, when decrypted, detailed the lore and backstory of Fortuna and the Solaris.

It's a bizarre, sobering sight when you first drop into Fortuna and see these half-human, half-robot slaves working away.

Interned on Venus, these once-human folk were driven into absolute poverty by Nef Anyo, an aristocrat of a merchant cult of plutocrats called the Corpus. Each and every member of Solaris owes Nef Anyo a debt they can never hope to repay, so instead they're forced to work in the dangerous terraforming constructs scattered around Orb Vallis. This isn't just normal labor, though, and the job requires special robotic 'rigs' that replace the Solaris' human body parts. In fact, most every member of Solaris has a few robotic limbs and a robotic head to match. It's a bizarre, sobering sight when you first drop into Fortuna and see these half-human, half-robot slaves working away.

Of course, the robotic augments the Solaris need to work also come at a price, and if they cause trouble or cannot do their jobs, these rigs are forcefully repossessed. This process is tragically captured in the Vox Solaris quest players complete when first arriving in Fortuna. During this quest, players meet Thursby, a colonist who is drowning in debt he inherited from his parents after they died. Thursby has the player steal Corpus resource caches to help him pay off that debt, but makes a fatal judgement call when he threatens the Corpus through an unsecured communication signal. Wanting revenge, Nef Anyo sends his repo squads to exact punishment. In the end, Thursby has his legs and arms repossessed by the Corpus.

The Solaris often look just like this guy.

But losing a leg or an arm isn't actually the worst that can happen. Clever players managed to decode documents during the Fortuna ARG that referenced "brain shelving." Though you can guess what this means, The Business gives a pretty bleak idea in one dialogue snippet: "Your brain will stay there until your friends or family can clear away your initial debt. Then the Taxmen will graciously release what’s left of you. And when—and only when—your loved ones can afford to buy a new rig to house your brain, you’ll return to a functional, conscious life."

As players explore Fortuna and increase their standing with its various factions, they're exposed to several more stories just like this one. It paints a bleak picture of a people who have been forced to trade their humanity away just to continue existing in a system built to keep them enslaved. It's disheartening, so naturally players want to do whatever they can to help.

Warning: Okay, seriously, major Fortuna spoilers start here.

But it also seemed like there was something the Solaris were hiding, too. Players are quickly indoctrinated into their underground resistance movement, Solaris United, but they have to first earn the trust of its leaders before they can advance through the ranks. By performing daily quests and turning in materials, players can slowly increase their standing with the Solaris United. It's a process that took the most hardcore players until now just to reach the maximum possible rank and be considered an inner circle member.

A Redditor by the username of '6ArtemisFowl9' was one of the first to max out their reputation with Solaris United, and what they discovered caught the community by complete surprise. Upon reaching the rank of Old Mate, it seems the denizens of Fortuna were willing to show 6ArtemisFowl9 their true face—and, yes, I mean that literally.

You can see what happens when you reach the rank of Old Mate in the video below.

When talking with any of the main characters on Fortuna it's easy to see their mechanical-looking torsos as nothing more than another robotic augment, but each one is actually a cavity that protects a very real and very human head. When 6ArtemisFowl9 unlocked the Old Mate rank, everyone in Fortuna decided they trusted him enough to open up their chest cavities. Yup, each Solaris is literally walking around with their actual head tucked inside of their chest.

"Yeah so quick question, WHAT THE FUCK," wrote 'jdawg0507' over on the Warframe subreddit where Artemis shared their findings. It's a sentiment echoed by many in that thread. Since this revelation was uncovered two days ago, the community has been struggling to understand why the Solaris keep their human heads encased within their own bodies. But there just isn't a lot of concrete information to go on until Digital Extremes releases an update that continues the story.

But more than anything, most people are just reacting with disgust—and it makes sense. While I'm still weeks away from reaching Old Mate rank with my character, seeing the videos of other Old Mate ranked players reaching that rank is a little disturbing. It's just so unexpected and bizarre.

I never realized that lyrics like "hide the heart of who we are" were meant to be taken this literally.

What is clear is that players misunderstood how the Solaris were augmenting their bodies. It was initially assumed that the Solaris owned part of their body, but this plot twist suggests that the only thing a Solaris owns is their head. Everything else can be repossessed by the Corpus, which would further explain the existential horror of being brain shelved—having your head stored in some closet for all eternity like some Futurama character.

What's even more amusing, though, is that players have realized clues to this disturbing plot twist were sitting in plain sight this whole time. As redditor 'Pilot_Solaris' points out, to hide her identity as the leader of Solaris United Eudico uses an alter ego called Vox Solaris to mock Nef Anyo. When Vox Solaris speaks, the dialogue pop-up shows a view of his face, which is clearly surrounded by the Eudico's chest rig. Still, that just raises even more questions since Eudico's actual face is that of a woman's. How does she change the appearance the head in her chest?

For weeks, I've been humming Fortuna's incredibly catchy theme song, but I never realized that lyrics like "hide the heart of who we are" were meant to be taken this literally. Fortuna is only two weeks old, but it looks like Digital Extremes has some pretty weird tricks up its sleeve.