How Warframe Fixed Disdain for Shooter Games

I never considered myself a fan of shooter games. Some are cool, like Bioshock and Borderlands, but those stand out to me amidst the sea of shooter games I will never play. At least, that’s what I thought before I downloaded Warframe in September.

Warframe is a sci-fi free-to-play third-person shooter game. Players control a Tenno, an ancient warrior who has the power to control Warframes, armor sets with distinct powers. We find ourselves in the middle of an ongoing space war between five factions: the Grineer, Corpus, Sentients, Orokin, and Corrupted. The Tenno are on their own side, and we soon learn that every faction sucks on some level. Throughout our time in space, we learn about the origin of the war, the Tenno, and the dangers across space and time.

Why Warframe? Why Now?

The truth is, I, like many FFXIV players, came across the tweet announcing that the upcoming December 10 update would add a new character, Roathe. He will be voiced by René Zagger, who also voices one of my favorite characters: Emet-Selch. I was in the middle of creating my character in Monster Hunter Wilds when I saw the tweet. The next thing I knew, my PC was downloading the game. However, I didn’t anticipate the impact this game would have on me in such a short time.

When I first awakened as a Tenno, all I heard was the Lotus, a nice lady, in my head guiding me out of the cave. After finishing up the tutorial, I explored the solar system with little direction. Warframe uses our solar system with the addition of some moons, Phobos and Deimos, for its universe. I stumbled upon the early quest on Deimos, and it piqued my interest. It follows the Tenno as they help a dysfunctional family come together for a common cause. Each member of this family was sarcastic and apathetic to some level, but I found myself laughing at their remarks. This kept me going until I reached Venus. I met a group of enslaved revolutionaries and helped them in their fight against a tyrannical slave driver.

After that, I slowly worked my way through each planet, looking for the next quest. Gameplay became a seemingly never-ending loop of slaughtering Grineer and Corpus camps across the solar system. I questioned myself and my motivations for starting and continuing this journey. I considered giving up, but everything changed in the middle of exploring Uranus. 

Hold on Till Uranus

Upon entering Uranus, I triggered a cut scene that gave me a new main quest. This new quest started a chain of events that led me to fall in love with the universe and the characters I was mostly neutral towards. Learning about the origin of Lotus and how interconnected the player character and her are gave me a sense of purpose. By the end of this chunk of the story, I felt I had to continue this journey to help my space mom bring some comfort to the universe. I only have one complaint: the main antagonist didn’t suffer enough. I need the power to beat his head in like Kratos did Zeus in God of War 3.

Soon after, I found myself fighting against an entity called The Indifference. This entity has been mentioned throughout the game, but it takes the spotlight here. This specific quest makes callbacks to the very first quest on Deimos, where I helped that dysfunctional family come together, and it blew me away. Following this quest line, I ended up in 1999 trying to stop The Indifference from launching a nuke. Thanks to the power of friendship and some time travel, I was able to save a planet…for now.

While my Warframe journey is only at the beginning, I’m excited to find out more about the universe as I continue exploring and making my way through the optional quests I ignored to get up to date with the main story.

The Content Can Be Overwhelming

Outside of the story, there’s so much to do in-game. You can race, modify weapons, grind for materials, date NPCs, complete weekly challenges, engage in invasions, furnish your spaceship, play fashionframe, and so much more that doesn’t include the new game modes coming next week: Descendia and The Perita Rebellion. There’s something for everyone, and it’s awesome that a free-to-play game has so much content. I can’t wait to sink my teeth into fashionframe once I figure out which warframes I like fighting with and can stylize to my liking.

New Perspectives

I never considered myself a fan of shooter games. I don’t think I ever will. Playing Warframe made me think back to what all the shooter games I like have in common: a good story and fun mechanics. I loved learning about Rapture when I played Bioshock and Bioshock 2. Playing around with guns with different effects was the highlight of my time with Borderlands and Borderlands 2. With this in mind, it’s no surprise Warframe was a perfect fit for me. I hope I can find more games like this in the future.