Log in member
We caught up with Steve Sinclair and Rebecca Ford to learn more about the upcoming next expansion set to arrive this winter.
"We're at Gamescom 2024 in Germany and I'm here standing at the Level Infinite booth with the Warframe slash Soulframe guys. I'm learning a little bit more about what you guys are introducing now and it's so human and it's so relatable to me because it's 1999, it feels like The Matrix and you guys got faces. You have your own faces but also the game after so many years so first of all tell us about the human touch. Yeah we really wanted to tell a story that focused on the Warframes as characters which we've never done before which meant we had to have a story reason to turn a Warframe that you've known for 12 years into a human character presence which the story versions of this is is built into trauma, why this has happened to them and you the player go back and meet these human Warframes to learn about who did this to them and why they're turning into these kind of like superpowered monsters for lack of a better word and what you're gonna do to help them because they're kind of in a tough spot. The world, it's 1999, things have gone to shit and it is Y2K is approaching so what are you gonna do? The virus is coming. Exactly and there are lots of references we could mention here. The Matrix of course, Trinity and the motorcycle. Sort of there's a very stylized retrospective with the 90s that I love about like the way technology was just so kind of was so much more bulky of course but also everything was high-tech was hot so you know motorcycles sure you could have a chopper which is great but we wanted that like really the Ninja Kawasaki style bikes the bikes that were just all for street racing high-tech sort of alt history computers motorcycles go fast go hard and make it a little sci-fi. And Acura as well and why do you think it's this this trend I mean Call of Duty is also coming out with the 90s as the as the main topic now and why do you think 2024 is the year for the 90s how do you feel about that? It's because everyone who grew up in the 90s are now in charge of games. It's all we know. Well actually I was nine years old in 1999."
"Yeah, but you remember the Napster era. He started at DE in 1999. That's how old I am, yep.
You can leave the interview now. We're gonna talk. Do you guys need back medicine or what's up?
We're gonna talk about our old things from for old people. My ICQ account was just under the million mark it was like nine hundred something thousand. I used MSN messenger I remember those days yeah and the analog things and that that's a really nice thought so tell us about the moves you can perform with a motorcycle I've said Trinity but also Acura. Oh yes so for us Warframe is like a space ninja game which it's all about movement anyway so when we added a motorcycle as playable we wanted to make sure that it could jump it could spin it could sprint and it can kind of have very accurate movement so you can really squeeze through little little narrow nooks and crannies on this motorcycle because it's using Warframe's movement system just faster and on an engine powered by like crazy sci-fi energy so ultimately if you love Warframe's movement the motorcycle is just the movement but like packaged on this super fast vehicle. And you can do the Acura burnouts."
"Yeah burnouts. It's crucial. Crucial slides power-ups bullet jumps in the air very important. You summon it you actually summon the motorcycle. Yeah yeah it'll just you press a button and it just yeah. For those who don't know or perhaps haven't jumped into Warframe as of yet it's of course a free-to-play game and all the 1999 content is gonna be free I mean the base content you can you can play the motorcycle you can you can have your face for free which is it's good but then of course you have some cosmetics that you can also for example a monster motorcycle is something you can pay for right? Yeah we are gonna be able us so because in Warframe we you know it's a free-to-play game we really are interested in fair monetization you can customize your motorcycle for free with colors and different experiments but if you want like a weird monster bike skin that'll be yours for an in-game currency and that'll help us pay for development of the game. Monster bikes. All right let me ask you about your other project here which is Soulframe which is like very opposite to this is more fantasy grounded and it's it's got its tears and it's and it's Disney touch to it so yeah."
"Yeah we are trying to get to a two game studio so I worked on Warframe for 12 years basically and now we're kind of starting a new sister project we're calling a Soulframe and we kind of just like drew a line and like put Warframe here and wrote everything that was Warframe you know it's futuristic it's gritty it's apocalyptic it's fast there's crazy ninjas type movement in it and then we just said okay well what would be the opposite what's a good reason for Soulframe to exist okay cozy fantasy slower gameplay you know embrace our love of Princess Mononoke and a little put a little Disney princess vibe in there as well so it's not dark fantasy we were really not smart when we called it Soulframe because it implies the soul genre but that really is about your soul and your connection to the animals and to your ancestors that you discover when you play the game so yeah that's kind of it we're early we are inviting 2,000 players every week to come test the kind of pre pre pre alpha build we're calling it preludes yeah and we'd love our community to kind of grow and for them to be involved in making the game with us because that's how we made Warframe one thing that they have in common other than the new CEO is that they yeah is that they have like this sort of procedural dungeons to them that's right yeah so Warframe early when we made Warframe we had a very small staff we had a very very small budget but we were funding it ourselves and basically the company had like two months of runway left when we were we were out of jobs so one of the ways that we could make things more replayable is using procedural dungeons a bit like Diablo for example so Warframe has always had those procedural dungeons and that's something that we're taking inspiration from for Soulframe so we have a big overworld you know like it's sort of open world you explore it you find things you find ancestors but then there's the dungeons and these doorways that lead into places that change and shift every time you play through them so it's a great way of keeping things fresh you know if you memorize the level then it takes a whole bunch of intrigue out of playing it and so yeah we hope that those underworld locations are kind of more replayable. Okay before we wrap up let me go back to Warframe for a little while because I didn't I didn't learn more about this new character who's called Sight 99. Oh Sight 09. 09. He's a sniper. He is he is our first like really focused on a lot of guns and arsenals Warframe he's a playable character that's coming in 1999 he is going to have one of the first attempts we're doing at an exalted sniper rifle so we're working through his kit on our design team Pablo and the team are really doing cool things with a 90s themed gun arsenal marksman so we're very excited. In terms of content it's like the main new thing players didn't know about until Gamescom. Well they don't know he had an exalted sniper so you know we're working with an exalted weapons kit weapon kit for him so yeah so if you're watching at Gamescom we hope you are looking forward to your first look at his model in-game with his one of his weapons so this was like a first look at his like a new picture so yeah. I think that's fair enough thank you so much for your time I really enjoyed the new content because I kind of relate to it so that's that's fantastic and you're very gonna have a face yeah you're very funny so this is good. Thank you. It's been a pleasure."
