If there is one game that people love to cite whenever an argument comes up that "Free-to-play games can't be good" or "F2P's have to be monetized to hell and back in order to fund a good game." It would have to be Warframe. Launched all the way back in 2013, Warframe had sustained itself on the lofty model of "Ninjas play free." (You see the joke is that all the playable characters in the game are, in fact, Ninjas... I didn't find it funny either.) To this end, the MMO-slasher-hybrid game has undergone a great deal of renovations and retooling over the years with an important balance struck between what's best for the game and what's best for the community. Consequently, they are often held up there with the same regard as 'CD Projekt Red' when it comes to taking community feedback, and that is quite the storied company to have.
Now, personally I've never actually been a huge fan of Warframe, which isn't to say that I've never played the game. I have, in fact, given the robot-ninja-simulator a try all the way back when it first launched on Xbox One. (I had precious few game so a F2P seemed like a good pick.) Unfortunately, I didn't particularly like the player or enemy design, the first big villain was incredibly forgettable and all the environments felt very same-y to me. Regardless of all that, I kept up with the game all the way until I hit the kind of roadblock that knocks all the wind out of you, and thus discouraged me from continuing. For me it was a section in which I had to get a pet in order to progress the story, but in order to obtain said pet I had to grind away at a single mission on the off-chance that the quest rewards would give me an egg. I can't recall how many times I tried that mission over and over, but it was more than 3 days worth of effort. In the end I just couldn't stomach it anymore and turned the game off, never looking back.
Now whilst that may seem like a rather scathing story to relate to the title, it does end in some good news. For, you see, Digital Extremes are actually known for their community interaction, and it's a testament to their effectiveness that, not long after I stopped playing the game, they identified and resolved that specific issue to make the game's progression more seamless. Now, because of all the other things that I mentioned, this wasn't enough to bring me back to the game, I'm just not the right person for this experience, but it certainly was encouraging for others out there who were more invested. Too often you'll get games with much more glaring issues that simply never get fixed because the team in charge is either understaffed or too distracted to act and make a positive change. Take a look at titles like 'Mass Effect: Andromeda' which, to this day, has a gamebreaking bug on one of the worlds that can sporadically delete all your items, thus corrupting that save file. Or, for a closer comparison, take a look a 'Fallout 76' which is so abandoned by the community managers that the current meta, (Actully, the only meta since launch) literally relies on exploiting one 'ill-thought out' legendary item affix to boost damage outputs to such a ridiculous high that, consequently, one-shots everything. (No, that's not 'min-maxing'. That's just making the game unfun.)
Those that choose to invest their time and, should they choose, their money with Digital Extremes, often find that they feel respected and are offered surprising value for all that they partake in. Which makes it all the more impressive, and depressing for the rest of the industry, to remember the fact that Warframe is an entirely indie title. Through the merit of skill, morality and positive word-of-mouth, this title has managed to balloon into a large and healthy ecosystem that often nabs spots at trade shows right along all of those million-dollar microtransaction hellholes. Showcasing that no one has to sacrifice their morals in order to compete in today's gaming market. (If only the rest of the industry were comprised by the like who care for such lessons.)
Of course, as a 'Live-service' game, Warframe is a title that must be supported with regular content drops in order to keep the game alive; and that was exactly the reason for their surfacing at the VGAs last December. (And last year's E3.) For this year Warframe's huge expansion is titled 'Empyrean' and even I have to admit that I am incredibly impressed with that is has to offer. (Maybe even enough to give the game another chance before I delete it again in frustration because I don't really have the friends to take advantage of this new feature.)
As one can see from the trailer, Imperium's key new addition to the Warframe playstyle is the ability to design and fly huge spaceships in realtime and engage in combat and exploration in a vacuumous space. Now, all that is well and good on it's own, but where Warframe goes that extra step beyond is in the way that the player is not confined to their space ship during such exploration bouts. At the E3 walkthrough last year we all got to see exactly what that means in action. Essentially, teams of players could take part in adventures wherein one player commands the flying base of operations whilst the others can depart from the ship, mid flight, and go and scour at abandoned space stations or battle small threats on the ground. This kind of seamless connected-play has positively huge implication going forward on how it can expand, and I'm honestly amazed how Digital Extremes could even pull this off in a multiplayer environment.
This brings me back to the days of 'Assassin's Creed: Black Flag' whereupon one of the most impressive features of that game was the way in which dynamic boat battles could happen anywhere in the sea with the player fully able to disembark from the captains wheel at anytime and board the enemy. This proved to be a huge feat of engineering, requiring for the vertices and solid surfaces to be constantly maintained by the engine because these platforms were technically still in motion. And that doesn't even take into account the sheer number of calculation that the engine had to run in order to calculate the specific animation choices and variations to account for when the dumb-ass player decided to launch themselves from the 'Crow's Nest' onto the deck of a moving frigate. It's also impressive, when you consider that this sort of simultaneous space/ground exploration is the exact kind of thing that games like 'Star Citizen' have been teasing since year dot, and 'Cloud Imperium Games' still seem years away from realizing that particular aspect.
There are, of course, a bunch of story trailers that tease off the narrative with melodramatic visuals, but I don't really care about any of that. The takeaway here is that Warframe is pushing what people can do with this game forward in substantial ways, even seven years after launch. Digital Extremes are honestly an inspiration for the industry in the ways that they can keep reimagining their games without breaking the bank and bleeding their customers dry to cover the bill. (Seriously, how did Destiny cost 1 billion to make and have less to do in it than Warframe?) If you're like me and sometimes struggle from the cloud of pessimism that seems to distort the things that you love, just take a peek over to whatever these guys are doing and remember that someone out there still cares enough to try.
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