Warframe, Boom or Bust?

Everyone who has heard of Warframe has an opinion on it. It's either a grindy, pay to win looter-shooter, or a an artistic and management masterpiece, depending on who you ask. So the question is, which is it? I will be grading Warframe on four main categories: core mechanics, progression, management.

First off, the basics. Warframe is a third person looter shooter, where you play as a series of mechanized suits with special powers as you try to tear down three races. These races are a group of decaying clones, a group of mercenaries, and an infested zombie virus. In addition, there are other races (or factions) in the game, but these three will make up the bulk of your gameplay.

First off, core mechanics. Core mechanics can make a terrible game good, or a potentially amazing game terrible (The Division, I'm looking at you.) Warframe's mechanics fall into three categories: weapons, abilities, and movement. Gunplay in Warframe is relatively solid and well polished. It only rarely feels clunky or flawed, but rather good. Not amazing, just good. Next is abilities, and this is one of Warframe's huge strong suits. Let's face it: at some point in our lives, most gamers have wanted to be a ninja. Well, Warframe does that. If you want to be a ninja, choose Ash. Want to burn everything to the ground? Choose Ember. Want to shoot everything to pieces, old western style? Mesa. Abilities in Warframe are amazing, and give the player a huge amount of power. It feels like you're a superhero. The final core mechanic is movement, and here is where Warframe breaks the mold. Describing movement in Warframe to someone who has never played is near impossible, but I'll give you the summary: it's smooth, it's fast, and once more it feels like you have all the power in the world. In summary, I'm giving Warframe an 8/10 on core mechanics.

Next up is progression. Most people that dislike Warframe have their issue here: Warframe is a looter shooter. As with all looter shooters, most of your time is spent leveling up items and farming resources until you have the right stuff to beat one character or another. Now while many people don't enjoy this as they feel it is boring, I love it. I love being able to relax and play some Warframe after a long day at school. That said, even for me it can get boring at times. Sometimes it feels like it's just too much to do, sometimes it feels like not enough to do. And in a system like this, you can find that the game has more control over you than you would like. I know I've whiled away at least a few Friday nights grinding Warframe when I've had better things to do. 6/10

Last one is management, and here is where Warframe shines. Warframe is an indie game, and comes from a small company, Digital Extremes. Before Warframe, DE was doing work for hire and basic coding, the gaming developer equivalent of a blue-collar job, but far more unreliable. Because of this, DE has always been far more connected to their fan base. For one, they're a smaller company, which means the CEOs and people in charge are just that much closer to the actual work and fans, which can be humbling and keep  game developers invested in the lower tiers of their games and not just the money. The second is that for a long time, Warframe was DE's one project. DE couldn't just give up on Warframe because if they did, that was it. They would've been out of business. Because of this, for DE it really is about what the fans want and not what makes money. Two examples of this come from the Kubrow. In Warframe, Kubrow are dog-like creatures that you can raise and keep as pets, that will then fight for you. When Kubrow are born, they come with a random appearance, and DE threw in a little way to essentially re roll your result. They then proceeded to remove and revamp it almost immediately because it was making too much money. Yes, that's right, DE removed a feature for making too much money. They found that people were just rolling it in hopes of getting a good look for their Kubrow, and decided that this gambling aspect was not something they wanted in the game. The second example has to do with something called "Vacuum." Vacuum was an early mod for one of the first sentinels (robotic companions) that allowed that sentinel, called Carrier, to vacuum up items around you. Now obviously, in a game where looting is a huge aspect, being able to loot more efficiently is huge. Almost immediately, the fan base started complaining that they could no longer use their favorite Kubrow because the new vacuum mod was just that good. DE heard this, and despite the fact that restraining vacuum to just one sentinel could potentially make them more money, they made vacuum a mod that was available for all sentinels, and in the next update they will be adding a similar mod for Kubrow too. I give DE a 10/10, and they are the only game developer I'm willing to give that rating right now.

In summary, Warframe is a game that, while not for everyone, can be an absolute blast if you get into it. The best part about all this is that Warframe is constantly evolving. it's already been out for five years, with huge changes throughout, and with the new Fortuna update planning to add a whole new area (the biggest yet) Warframe doesn't appear to be slowing down anytime soon. At the end of the day, it gets an 8/10 from me.