After over a decade, Warframe continues to grow, evolve, and reinvent itself. The third-person shooter/RPG hybrid has thrived as a free-to-play game thanks to steady updates expanding the story, systems, and weapons. With the upcoming release of Warframe: 1999, Digital Extremes looks to conquer some completely unexpected things: Y2K, chat rooms, and boy bands.
As Rebecca Ford, creative director for Warframe, tells Digital Trends at this year’s Tennocon, “The Journey that Warframe has taken is unexpected.” Following the conclusion of the New War storyline, the team was looking for the next narrative direction to take, and Ford credits former art director Michael Brennan, better known as Mynki in the Warframe community, with the suggestion it would be cool to visit other times.
“I wrote the numbers 1999 on my whiteboard,” Ford says, “and they have sat there for the better part of 18 months.” That simple squiggle has now turned into Warframe‘s wildest chapter yet.
Party like it’s 1999
It’s New Year’s Eve 1999. It’s the era of boy bands, chat rooms, and the looming specter of Y2K. It’s Earth, but not our Earth, with signs of societal decay. “We have a sort of vaguely Eastern European impression of a 1999 that has roads, military CRT screens everywhere, and the sense of the sort of abandoned culture, malls, stadiums, and those types of hallmarks for the time,” Brennan says.
Arthur is the leader of the Hex, a group of six individuals in the process of transforming into early Warframes. While the frames are traditionally faceless and silent avatars for the player, Arthur and company are something different. As Ford puts it, “They’re guinea pigs. They’re part of some pursuit of power and protection, but they’re their characters. They’re people. You will meet them as a player. You will interact with them. You’ll learn what makes them tick and what they’re after.”
My demo starts simply enough: Arthur is looking for the keys to his motorcycle. He checks in with the other members of his group one at a time, and we get a sense of their personalities, like the speedy and chaotic Amir, or the stern, borderline confrontational Quincy. Eleanor, Arthur’s sister, has the keys and returns them to him. Before departing, however, Arthur makes a stop at a computer to send a quick Instant Message. These early internet chats will serve an important role in the new relationship system, where you build bonds with the rest of the team. Play your cards right, and you might even work your way up to romance — and a New Year’s kiss.
“Yes, we’re adding a romance system to this particular slice of Warframe, because it’s the ’90s,” Ford says. “You know, if you were in 1999 on your computer, you were probably in chat rooms on AOL, ICQ, messenger, all these things. So all of these people would have had accounts at the time to talk to each other.”
The internet wasn’t all smooches in 1999, however. Anyone around in the late ’90s on a computer probably had a run-in with viruses as well. Ford certainly did. She describes ruining a family computer by downloading a virus in Napster, and then another falling prey to the infamous I Love You virus. The idea of technological danger is something Warframe: 1999 explores, particularly the hysteria around Y2K.
For those who weren’t around at the time, the idea was that computers were largely built with two-digit years in mind. The systems that ran the world were going to go from 99 to 00, and there was a fear that it would make computers think it was 1900 again. Some thought this was going to bring about doom, with world financial systems crashing, airplanes falling out of the sky, and societies collapsing. Nothing much came of it on Earth, but Warframe is a little different.
“Warframe is a game with its own narrative and world-building, there’s a lot that relies on very specific things happening, like a failed void journey or an awakening for the player. So we thought we could actually pick a moment in contemporary time to trigger some major story beat for the world. We’re making it our own in the way that it relates to [scientist] Albrecht Entrati, specifically in the void.”
It really always comes down to, what haven’t we done yet?
The 1999 aesthetic wouldn’t be complete without music, whether it’s grunge, girl power groups, shoegazey electronica, or, perhaps most importantly, boy bands, who, according to Ford, are “critical to the plot and tone.” On-lyne is this version of Earth’s Backstreet Boys. Not only is their music going to be all over the place but they could directly become a foil, if you are irresponsible with computers and get a virus of your own.
“That’s actually the initial step in building your own boy band. So because it literally is a computer virus that goes out of control. You need a source point for that virus. So players will be able to find an infested computer out in the world, and they can choose to interact with it to start that process.”
This ties into the Lich system, in which a special boss exists in Waframe’s modern time to act as a nemesis for the player. An infection that starts in 1999 and is left to fester for several millennia can spiral out of control. The result: a concert arena floating in space, and a fight against a twisted version of a boy band.
ProtoExcalibur
Beyond the roughly three- to four-hour campaign in Waframe: 1999, we will see a number of elements that come back from the year 1999 to the modern era. Arthur’s motorcycle was initially conceived as a simple loading screen before growing into a fully functional mode of transportation, complete with jumps and aerial tricks. It will be fully playable in open areas like the Plains of Eidolon and Orb Vallis.
Arthur himself will be playable in the base game and will be the first of the all-new Gemini Skins. “The Gemini skins,” Ford explains, “are our first entry into what I consider the highest-tier skin ever. They’re fully voiced, they’re fully customizable, and they are two fashion frames in one.” The way it works is a simple emote will toggle between the base Excalibur skin and the Arthur Gemini skin, allowing you to switch back and forth at any time.
It’s not a purely aesthetic swap. The person represented in the Gemini skin is fully intact, meaning we will hear from Arthur, and get his reactions back in modern times to things, even react to your Operator. “So we had [Arthur voice actor] Ben Starr record a whole bunch of lines, just so we could prove it out. So he recorded, like, ‘reloading’ or ‘waypoint over there,’ and if you do transference, he’s like, ‘Oh, finally a break.’ So we have all of these little moments for you to play with. It just makes it feel super fresh and cool.”
Gemini Skins, like the time period aesthetic, and dating sim elements, is a new concept for Warframe. Together they form the backbone of the next big chapter in the long-running game. I asked Ford how they decide what comes next for Warframe. “For us,” she answers, “it really always comes down to, what haven’t we done yet? What did we do too much of, and what do we think would be fun?”
For Warframe: 1999 that answer involves boy bands, chat rooms, and a bit of smooching.
Warframe: 1999 arrives in winter 2024 for PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
