Over the weekend, Digital Extremes hosted Tennocon, its annual convention dedicated to all things Warframeand revealed the first detailed look at the upcoming shooter 1999 expansion. The free update, which is set to arrive this winter, almost feels like an entirely different game, and will therefore feature entirely new features like a romance system. Warframe assholes just keep winning, I guess.
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During a lengthy presentation at the show, Digital Extremes finally gave an honest look at Arthur, Warframe 1999s protagonist – voiced by the new golden boy of video games, Final Fantasy XVI‘s Ben Starr—as well as his support team, the Hexes. The Hexes are what Warframe called a union, but what we might call a faction. 1999Arthur’s “syndicate” consists of Amir Beckett, Aoi Morohoshi, Quincy Isaacs, Leticia Garcia, and Eleanor Nightingale, who appears to be Arthur’s sister.
On stage, the developers announced that they wanted players to be able to “get a little closer” to this union than the others that have been added to the game. As a result, Warframe 1999 contains a full romance system, and any member of the Hex, including Arthur, can be romanced. Yes, you read that right, you can romance Ben Starr in this game, and maybe even get a New Year’s kiss from the person you’re going all out with.
True to its 1999 setting (specifically New Year’s Eve 1999, leading up to the year 2000/2000), the expansion will channel this romance system via instant messaging. Before the action section of the demo, Arthur hops onto a PC in the abandoned mall that the Hex calls a base and launches a chat client called KIM, which is followed by a horribly accurate dialing sound.
Unsurprisingly, KIM bears a striking resemblance to AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) in its early days, featuring not only pop-up chat windows but also usernames and notes that could just as easily be bios and statuses. When the demo player opened one of Hex’s profiles, a gift icon could also be seen, indicating that the relationship system could be inspired by games like The Valley of the Starswhere gifts can help you endear yourself to other characters. Otherwise, KIM feels like a carbon copy of old-school messaging programs, and I swear to God if I hear the sound of a door closing as someone logs out, I’m going to sue for emotional damages.
After years of AAA game developers and publishers joke about adapting their established franchises in visual novels and dating sims, often around April Fools’ Day, it’s refreshing to see a game as big as Warframe take it seriously enough to add it as a feature in an expansion. While it’s unclear how far the system will go, the cheers from the crowd at Tennocon seem to suggest that fans of the game, especially the most ardent ones, really want a system like this. Digital Extremes could have thrown a few Warframe money to outsource a (bad) dating simulatorbut it is not, and I think that deserves to be commended.
The delightfully retro extension of Warframe But it doesn’t stop there. Throughout the 22-minute demo, there are flashes of a boy band called On-lyne. The demo literally opens with an On-lyne commercial, and ads for them appear around town as Arthur rides a motorcycle. 1999new environment of . A banner for On-lyne even makes a brief appearance at the bottom of the KIM client. It turns out that Digital Extremes I borrowed a page from Riot Games and I thought it was good to make a real A 90s boy band and put them in the game. There’s even a single out right now called “PARTY OF YOUR LIFETIME” and you can stream it. No bullshit guys, listen to this stuff and tell me it doesn’t sound like “Larger than Life” by the Backstreet Boys, or a cut from No strings attached.
Even though you won’t see them at their peak in 1999On-lyne seems to be making a bigger appearance in the current Warframe timeline. Once the demo cuts to a more present-day Tenno in their ship, they pick up a signal from a concert that appears to be taking place in the middle of space. Once the player reaches the stadium, a multitude of capsules suspended above release a handful of bodies onto the stage, revealing that the boy band has become Infested, one of the WarframeThe enemy factions.
Unfortunately the action stops just before the actual encounter, but I’ve seen enough. I’ve never played Warframe before, and I absolutely do not I don’t need service games anymore, but I want to seduce sexy cyborgs, ride around town on a crazy motorcycle and dance with the cute boys to catchy anthems. Deep down, you know you want that too.
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