Warframe is a game that is so big that it is almost a franchise in itself. It offers everything from Tony Hawk-like hoverboard challenges to a music-composing battle mini-game. The latest expansion, Empyrean, is based on Warframe, but in and of itself is almost a whole new game.
When a player steps in for the first time, there is no tutorial. You will be thrown into the deep end of the pool. My first trips on the Railjack spacecraft were quick and devastating.
Work out the story
Warframe players can join Empyrean within a few hours of starting a new character once they have completed their Archwing
Unlike other gameplay additions, such as the recently added Nemesis or the mini-games for making music, Empyrean will be a key building block and engine for Warframe’s future. The story added in parts about Warframe’s seven-year lifespan has developed into a high-stakes galactic showdown. The new Railjack will take us forward to find some conclusions – and new puzzles.
“It’s a big part of the next story,” said Sheldon Carter, chief operating officer at Digital Extremes.
The next cinematic story isn’t here yet, but Empyrean is laying the foundation for it. Rebecca Ford, the game’s live operations and community director, plays the double role of being the voice of the enigmatic Lotus, one of the main characters in the game’s history. “I recorded a lot of voice-over and it won’t be a waste of time,” she says.
Digital extremes
Power and progress
However, intensive knowledge of the tradition is not required to enjoy the gameplay. If you want to jump right into the action, you should familiarize yourself with four “intrinsic” trees: tactical, piloting, gunnery and engineering. Raising these trees offers the player powerful bonuses. Ideally, a group has a dedicated player for each role. If players line up at a random railjack, you can have four pilots or four gunners.
Players are encouraged to take on different roles on the ship and there is a free Respec option. “It depends on your social cohesion, so to speak,” says Ford. “We want to give you the opportunity to respect your intrinsic [role] because you say,” Hmm, I wish I had specialized in now that I know what the content offers. “
“When starting, the system is started without [one of the options, command]. It shows that you are getting Empyrean and everything you expected from us in the past year. “
These additions, including the two-party team feature, Squad Link, are ongoing. “[They] will be published in the time it takes us to develop them. What we want to do is the core experience, the regions, the gameplay . basically the foundation is there, ”says Ford.
“We’re going back to our roots,” says Carter, referring to Warframe’s early days – publishing, iterating, expanding, retooling, repeating. “This is a version of Empyrean that you can play and understand with, but we have big plans to put things on it,” Carter says. This includes the next main chapter in history, The New War, and romping around in older systems.
A fifth tree is in the works: Command. Command is inspired by Faster Than Light, the villainous spaceship from top to bottom. Players can command a small group of NPC players to use their ship. The command tree is under development. There is no announced timeline of when it will be added to Warframe, but it is the solution for solo players who want to play Empyrean alone.
Image: Digital extremes
Bring back the biggest hits
The Grineer are one of the first enemies you fight against in the original Warframe campaign. By the time a player loads Empyrean, they have killed hundreds or thousands of the big meaty enemies. Now the Grineer have a fleet in space.
“Our conceptual artists were able to adopt the colors and shapes of the Grineer machines and build meaningful ships,” says Dave Kudirka, Senior Producer. “You have a braided tail look that suits your queens, and it’s all bulbous, greasy technology.”
In the future, other factions like the Corpus will get their own interstellar ships. But first we have to get the grineer out. This includes the Grineer commanders of their space fleets who were first seen. But sometimes we also see our Kuva Lich nemesis on board a ship that is ready to hit us.
We may even see the return of some characters like Tyl Regor, the fans favorite Grineer commander, who is notorious for being an absolute dad. I asked Digital Extremes about the return of pre-Empyrian characters.
“We always want to bring these characters and their personalities back because they add weight to the universe. It’s about finding where the fight takes place, but if you bring the vertical plane of the fight into orbit, you have many options to reintroduce these characters just because of the space in which they have to act now is much larger. “
Empyrean is currently live on the PC. Rising Tide, the previous update that allows players to construct their own Railjack, is available on consoles, but Empyrean’s arrival on other platforms remains to be determined.
