Warframe TennoCon 2024 Q&A – ‘Raids Are Our White Whale; We Have Our Ideas to Bring Them Back’

At TennoCon 2024 in London, Ontario, Canada, Digital Extremes showed off Warframe: 1999 and Soulframe, both launching within the year. Following the presentations, we were able to chat with Megan Everett (Community Director on Warframe) and Rebecca Ford (Creative Director on Warframe) to have a deep and thorough discussion about the future of the 10-year-plus free-to-play action shooter game.

First up, what is the next old system getting a rework?

Megan Everett: Companions Part 2, technically. We did the official launch of 2. 0 last year, and then there were things that we just couldn't get to, so we said we'll do a Part 2, so that's gonna be getting some love this year.

Rebecca Ford: And then the other one is, it's not really a system as much as it is a core Warframe interaction, which is we're adding favoring items to the UI. So, the way you manage your arsenal favorites is going to exist.

Megan: And then, of course, Caliban is getting a rework. I don't know if that applies to the scenario. He's a system of joy.

Is there going to be more Railjack on the horizon?

Rebecca: Yes, you can look forward to a sort of micro-infested Railjack launch with the boss fight for Infested Liches.

Wonderful. How about old tileset reworks like you guys did with Jupiter? 

Rebecca: You are not. We are thinking of doing a lighting rework. It was supposed to actually launch with Jade Shadows when that whole thing went down, but we ended up having to split it out because it was too close to TennoCon. We plan on doing a lighting rework more than anything, not a core asset rework because we think the lighting makes it look like a new asset.

Absolutely. How about reworking the ice caves?

Megan: Oh, those are old school.

Rebecca: It would probably be lighting more than anything.

Megan: GI lighting can solve a lot of things.

Are there any plans to bring CC back into the spotlight?

Rebecca: Yes and no. Pablo Alonso (Design Director) and I had a conversation about CC yesterday that really comes down to, okay, if we were to touch CC, what we think is long CC is pretty much the problem, like short CC is great, Ember with her fire procs, Volt with his electricity procs. Short CC is good, and long CC is bad, and I say that in a reductive way, but we do know that. We just don't know how we're gonna approach the systemic problem of it.

Will Digital Extremes support the migration of the Fandom Wiki and set up an official one?

Megan: Oh, that's a good question. We've been having conversations about moving it, keeping it and it really just came down to the bandwidth of the team and being able to do that. It's a lot more difficult than I think one might think it is.

We're good where we are now, but we are having discussions about potentially moving it. The dream is to host our own, but that is obviously a much bigger conversation with our web team and everyone like that. So, we're good where we are but we are having conversations if we do feel like it.

Rebecca: Shout out to the people who actually run the wiki. They're all volunteers. We wish we had a good answer for you if you have issues with the way it's hosted, but it's outside our control.

Megan: But we've been talking to the volunteers as well, and like, what do you guys want? Because you guys are the ones putting in the work, we send you the assets and everything, but what is it that you guys want? So, more to come.

As far as weapons go, some fans don't really have the best opinions of Wise Razor. They're wondering if maybe a new two handed Nikana stance might be in the process.

Rebecca: There is not a new one in the process, but on my little post-it note of things to address when we have time, I wrote about actually changing the initial attack of Wise Razor. Our animation team, that was their first two-handed Nikana animation stance. I know that there's feedback on it, so there's no reason for us not to budget time to kind of tweak Wise Razor rather than do a new one, because I know people don't like that initial responsiveness. Again, we just gotta improve. It was our first one. We will do that. It's on the list.

With the year 1999 established, what is the current year for Warframe?

Rebecca: Oh, we'll never answer that.

Alright! Are there any plans to add operator loadouts and a way to link them to your Warframe loadouts?

Rebecca: I think we're adding focus school swapping to the star chart-based loadout picker. But in terms of operator loadout, so like say you want to swap your amp to a loadout... Honestly, Pablo would be a better person to answer that, and I know that we haven't talked about it in a way that makes it seem like we will do it anytime soon. Sorry about that.

Are there any plans to update the trading system in Warframe, evolving it from just the trade chat?

Megan: I don't think in that capacity. Something we are gonna talk about is updating our players on save cross-platform. We are having deep discussions about cross-platform trading, what that looks like, and how that's going to function. That's our next step in trading. No conversations right now about taking it outside of chat. We're just looking at the cross-platform functionality of it.

Rebecca: Shout out to the third party people that make Warframe Market. We're not associated. It's a fan thing; use it at your own risk, but they do a great thing, so we support it as players.

You mentioned that Tau is not in the plan for the foreseeable future, but are there plans to have an alternate star chart like Empyrean?

Rebecca: No, but with Warframe: 1999, we are going to give you a way to sort of choose where you want to start the game, so to speak. Like, do you want to boot up in 1999 or the Origin system? That is coming.

Okay. A couple of questions on weapons. Folks in the community know there's the Ghoulsaw out there, but they're wondering if you can get an actual proper chainsaw.

Rebecca: So we have the Pantera, which is like a sawblade, we have the Miter, which is a blade launcher, and we have the Ghoulsaw. I mean, we are in the '90s now, so A '90s saw weapon actually goes hard, so maybe.

Another one was: I know there are spears out there, but what about spear and shield combinations?

Rebecca: Styanax, he's the only guy. Well, Soulframe made one, so we can steal their code and tech.

Will dedicated augment slots on frames ever be a possibility?

Rebecca: Probably not. Sorry.

When are Warframe players getting stamina back?

Rebecca: Never. A lot of stamina. I'll never say never, but never.

Will the Derelict Void notes ever get fissures as well?

Rebecca: We'd have to take a look at the tile. I mean, that's probably more an oversight than anything.

Megan: When we added the Omni fissures to the tile sets that we were missing, we had a Derelict and everything.

Rebecca: Well, I guess they have the corrupted bolts. That actually could be super cool for people.

Megan: It might also be a reason of, like, if you're going there to crack relics, but there's some guy with a key.

Rebecca: Yeah, it could be dope. We'll have to see. Our bad, sorry about that. We'll look into it.

Back to weapons again. Are you going to get more stances to actually change the stance of the weapons, like the Nikana Blind Justice?

Rebecca: We haven't really done a concerted internal melee stance conversation. When we did Tennokai, that was all about heavy attacks, but we really haven't done a stance system. So, status quo is pretty likely, with the exception of Wise Razor for the near future.

Are there plans to bring back raids or some form of larger group content?

Megan: Oh, trials. Oh, what a time. We have, I think on your whiteboard, there has been an idea for trials for quite some time. But it's all about balancing what we want to do. Obviously, the story. Warframe:1999 was huge. So, it has a place, it has a time. We just gotta see when it fits in. But we do have ideas for it, and we want to bring it back. We want it to feel like what Warframe represents now and not go back to what it was. So, yeah, it's a big project.

Rebecca: The thing we miss most about them is having to coordinate with the team. That's our white whale right now. It's a coordination-based mission.

Looking at Warframe: 1999, you mentioned the Gemini system for some of the cosmetics. How expansive will that system be?

Megan: It will be the Gemini skins themselves. Any Protoframe that we may be doing in the future will also have the Gemini skin. They'll all be on the same level, fully voiced. Fully optional, you can customize your Protoframe and use that emote however you want to. It'll be a consistent theme as we continue to do Echoes of 1999 and beyond that.

Rebecca: We had a lot of fun coming up with them because we knew when the Protoframes came together, we wanted them to be a new tier of skin. But what we ended up doing is just super rewarding for people who really want two fashion frames in one mission, which is also optional, so, yeah.

With Warframe: 1999, will Arthur be the only playable character for that?

Rebecca: Actually, yes, and only for the mission you saw. You, as a player, take over after that point. I want players to really try and analyze that last frame of the demo when Arthur is versus Excalibur. Perhaps imagine that at that point, the camera perspective shifts for the rest of 1999.

One thing I wanted to ask about Soulframe is how will the development team balance both projects?

Rebecca: The same way a circus clown balances a hundred plates, and that's just figuring out who needs what, when, and what the team and the community need and what they expect. We're figuring it out still.

Megan: Yeah, it's definitely a day-by-day, you know, long-term planning, short-term planning, what do we want to do, but also, even though we have a dedicated Soulframe team, they also help out with Warframe. We share some tech and stuff, so it's really an all-group effort, and we want to see, obviously, Soulframe get off the ground as much as anyone else does. Their development is, I think, very similar to Warframe, right? They don't want to put it out there, and it'd be unbaked, so to speak.

Are there plans for a unified account system where your Platinum can be used for both titles?

Rebecca: Oh my gosh. Honestly, I don't know. I have asked a million times what we're going to do. We want to do the right thing, and we don't know what that is yet. Sometimes, it takes time to come to the right decision.

Can you talk a little bit more about your Umbra Warframes?

Rebecca: I can. For the foreseeable future, there's only one Umbra, and that's Excalibur. There's an Umbra series of content that came with The Sacrifice, and I don't see us going back to it.

Would you ever consider reducing build times on your items, like your Forma or your Fieldron

Rebecca: We would consider it, but we've talked about it before in a way that basically says we have to do some serious validation of any plan because, as we've been transparent with the community, Forma kind of keeps the Warframe boat going, like it is our fossil fuel, so we need it as much as it needs to be used as a Build Modifier, but also for us, it's one of our more reliable microtransactions for how we run our game. In the absence of Gacha and RNG packs, you have Forma.

Will Warframe expand into transmedia, such as a card game, tabletop, or anime?

Rebecca: We do have an animated short coming. We're collaborating with THE LINE, and they are awesome. You'll see the full thing with the 1999 launch. We do have our eye on a couple of other things. We are hoping to do a webcomic again, and if we're lucky, we'll see what happens next year.

Very cool. Will there be more Lotus story on the horizon?

Rebecca: There will. Look forward to the Lotus Eaters.

Wonderful. Are there plans for more change-of-plan scenarios? For example, if you fail to defend the last target at mobile defense, the scenario changes.

Rebecca: I actually think it's cool. And if we could do more of it, I feel like 1999 is the place to talk to Pablo about it though, but I actually super dig it. One thing we are going to do with 1999, which we'll probably have to talk about on a future dev stream, is like an endless style variant, which kind of is just a whole bunch of change of plans. Hopefully, you can look forward to that.

How many of the arcade games in Warframe: 1999 will be playable?

Rebecca: Definitely one. There is a huge one that's its own fully ready-to-go minigame. It's Calibur Chicks. It's our Contra-esque game. But we're hoping to get at least two. The second one is currently being worked on by one of our awesome devs.

With Lotus Eaters, is there one specific mechanic or new feature you are most excited about?

Megan: For Lotus Eaters, that one's not really our quality of life update. That's more of the unannounced full one. Sevagoth Prime does come, but yeah. It's really more about setting the scene for 1999 and kind of do a little bit more of explaining. So, that's kind of what Lotus Eaters is, but then our unannounced one will have the quality-of-life stuff in it.

Rebecca: I'm excited for Caliban. Unannounced update: you're gonna be the best!

I will finish off for the players who are excited about Warframe 1999 but may not have returned in a couple of years. How far will they have to progress in order to access that content?

Megan: That's a great question. It continues off of Whispers in the Walls and then Lotus Eaters Quest, so you will have to have completely caught up with the story. But lately, and really recently this year, we've been trying to streamline that process. If you are a new player and you see this 1999 demo, and you're like, I want to play that when it comes out.

We've really tried to make it so the game would tell you exactly the path to get there instead of, you know, yes, there's 20 different quests you can do, but there's only four required ones I need to do to get there.

We're trying to make those junction changes, star chart changes to really help those players get to where they want to be, because we understand that when we put out this awesome update demo and all this, you know, marketing people want to play it. We get it and we want to get them there.

We don't want people to be confused. That's a huge thing. We experimented with Duviri being at the beginning of the game and it didn't pan out for us, so we changed gears on that. We want to make sure that they understand the story and are caught up, but we're doing our best to get them there in the quickest way possible.

Rebecca: We need to do our Tenno training tool to get people through the Tenno tool tips. We do have a campaign in our game, and some people still don't know that. Our goal would be to get the campaign awareness to a point where people just continue playing it instead of being interrupted by a lack of information.

The very last one: are there plans for a native Mac client for Warframe?

Rebecca: Well, when we launched on the iOS platform, we were like, oh, we're now kind of in the Apple ecosystem. And I think it kind of can work. We just don't know if we're going to focus on it before we launch and sort of perfect the issues with the iOS we have right now. So it's kind of like iOS, fix, fix, fix, fix, fix, and then we'll see about Android. I think it runs on the M1 processor and stuff because of the depth of the environment. So, we'll see.

Well, thank you two very much for your time.