Fans of London-made video game Warframe descend on downtown

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Thousands of video game enthusiasts from across the globe are set to take over downtown’s RBC Place convention centre for an annual extravaganza honouring a beloved made-in-London game.

TennoCon, hosted by London-based Digital Extremes, is geared toward fans of the company’s flagship video game, Warframe. Participants started arriving as early as Tuesday, coming from as far away as Ireland.

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“One of the things that we’re so proud of with TennoCon is that we bring people from all around the world to London,” Digital Extremes president Sheldon Carter said.

Focal points of this year’s event will be a Y2K-themed expansion to Warframe and the debut of the developer’s next game, Soulframe, he said.

The annual event started in response to an overwhelming demand from Warframe fans at industry trade shows, where developers come together to promote upcoming releases, Carter said. He says trade show organizers couldn’t handle the number of Warframe fans, so Digital Extremes decided to host their own convention.

The popularity of the event reflects the popularity of the game itself: As of 2021, it reportedly had 70 million registered users, with as many as 60,00 people playing it at any given time.

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At TennoCon, fans can dress up as their favourite characters, attend panels with voice actors and game developers and explore sets built to emulate what they’d see it the game. The 2024 edition will include an extra day, a move Carter says was in response to high demand from fans at last year’s event.

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“(One day) just wasn’t enough time for people to do all the things and see all the people that they wanted to,” he said.

On Thursday morning, Digital Extreme’s event lead, Beth Bryson, was overseeing set-up at RBC Place, which included lining up more than 2,000 chairs in the venue’s ballroom.

The event has taken over RBC Place and its parking lot, where a 1,250-square-metre (13,400-square-foot) tent has been erected to accommodate an anticipated jump in attendance over last year.

While last year’s convention sold out within seven days, this year’s sold out in just three, she said.

Preparations for the event have been underway since last year, according to Bryson, who said the convention is a “linchpin” for Digital Extremes.

“It’s become the thing that we work toward all year round,” Bryson said. “It’s our Super Bowl in a lot of ways.”

Warframe has been described as an action role-playing third-person multiplayer online game. According to Wikipedia, players control members of a race of ancient warriors, the Tenno, who’ve awoken from centuries of suspended animation and find themselves at war. Its first edition was created in 2013.

The convention is set for Friday and Saturday at RBC Place London. The keynote event, a live-stream with game developers, will take place Saturday.

nbrennan@postmedia.com

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