This applies to the setting: “Warframe” is a unique mechanical drive game in the sci-fi genre. “Soulframe” will be an exotic scene that matches fantasy. This also applies to gameplay.
“Where Warframe focuses on shooting, this one focuses on melee,” Sinclair said. “Where Warframe is very quick and fast, this game slows down and becomes difficult. But it still has a lot in common with the genre we’re used to.”
Even in an age of constantly updated live service games, “Warframe” is a unique success story. The game was released in 2013 to much fanfare and mediocre critical reception, but it found an audience after Digital Extremes bundled several ambitious updates into it and created a Frankenstein monster in the online gaming world. Slowly but surely, the humble co-op shooter has acquired an emotional story, complex character progression system, first-person assassination puzzles and massive spaceships you can pilot with friends. Catchy musical numbers About workers rights, open world planet, skateboarding (including tricks), pets and fishing.
Through development streams on Twitch, which have been running since 2013, fans have been able to help build and shape many of these systems. The result is a live-service game that drives developers and players alike, asking, “What’s the best thing we can do here?” At the center of numerous decisions.
But no game is without boundaries. Ultimately, developers need a blank slate. For Sinclair and his partners, Soulframe is an opportunity to step into a new and familiar territory and see where it takes them.
As already indicated, Soulframe is probably the most interesting character in the universe. The game focuses on themes of nature, restoration and adventure, inspired by works such as The Princess Mononoke and The Neverending Story – particularly the clash between art and nature. In its service, the world will show its displeasure with the players who occupy it.
“Useless [in ‘Soulframe’] “The world itself is a bit angry about what’s been done to it, and the reasons for that change throughout the day,” says creative director Jeff Crooks. give the world
Meanwhile, the axial world will be open, closer to the recently added open-world planets than the initial establishment of spacewalks and stations. Crooks wants Soulframe to focus on exploration in a way that Warframe never was – to make players feel more alive for a moment.
“I’ve been following that ‘short session but high immersion’ thing where you check in and out of your dorm and you’re the last place to check out,” he said, “but the world seems to go on without you.”
Although combat will be slow-paced and melee-focused, the game’s literal name is “GeistFrame” – Sinclair and Crooks emphasized that they were not trying to make a game in the context of Souls’ flagship series, which includes the 2022 MB Elden Ring. Or rather, they didn’t enter the project with that in mind.
“I think it’s definitely not the inspiration for the original ideas or what we wanted to do,” Sinclair said. Ironically, other titles that may have borrowed from Warframe may have had the opposite effect, but Elden Ring was definitely the theme. something Dialogue – Maybe it has to do with the camera, maybe it has to do with how fast the fight is. And you know these people are cursed [‚Elden Ring‘] It was absolutely amazing.”
Sinclair and Crooks weren’t ready to discuss the nuances that separate Soulframe’s melee combat from the Souls games, and for good reason: Soulframe is still in the very early stages of development. The game’s core concepts were first revealed at Digital Extremes in 2019, but a very small team – mostly artists – worked on it until February.
So why announce now when there is nothing to show? Sinclair admits he’s become a “meme” when companies unveil games with blurry CG trailers and few real details, but most of all he wants to be open with players.
“Our work was very community-based,” Sinclair said. “It’s deceptive not to say so [players] About the changes and who runs “Warframe”. In fact, it is still too early to announce “Solframe”! But when it comes to being transparent and making sure they understand the way we think, we tend to be more forthcoming than most studios.”
But Sinclair and Crooks have no plans to promote Soulframe and then retire to a silent development lab with all-metal rails and tinted windows. Following the success of Twitch’s regular behind-the-scenes Warframe streams, they plan to give fans a peek into Soulframe’s guise as soon as possible. Ideally, this process would start as soon as possible and Digital Extremes diehards would have a version of Soulframe within a year.
“What we’re trying to do is do something like ‘Warframe,’ which is, ‘Hey, watch us play, touch the rough bits and tell us how you feel,'” said Sinclair.
The strategy may seem unfamiliar at first, but Sinclair believes it’s not too far off from what Digital Extremes did with Warframe, a game that’s now completely unfamiliar compared to its release.
“It’s kind of detective work,” Sinclair said. “In my opinion, it’s OK, if it doesn’t work, keep going until you die or it does.” Much of Warframe was a catastrophic failure from a design perspective. And we just said, ‘Well, well, we don’t do that anymore. Just fix it and renew it.
It is tiring and difficult. You get things where someone makes a spreadsheet of promises you didn’t keep. But I think with Warframe we’ve made some people heroes [of the game] By speaking to them in a less reserved and less polished manner.
Sinclair also chose this moment to announce Soulframe, as Warframe is getting a new open-world expansion, The Duviri Paradox, and wants to prove that the game is in good hands.
“After a decade at Warframe, all the people in leadership positions have been there for 10 years and there haven’t been many opportunities for other people to take on leadership roles,” he said. “I wanted to get a little bit out of the way and get some new ideas — you have an opportunity, some resilience in the next generation of our amazing team.”
However, many years into the project, Sinclair and Crooks did not take it easy to abandon the project.
It’s exciting, but kind of bittersweet,” Crooks said. “
“We got hit a few times,” Sinclair said with a laugh. “I couldn’t help getting involved, and it caused some conflict.”
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