Warframe is not the same today as it was a few months ago. In fact, if you played the game during its early beta and not much since, you’d be doing yourself a disservice by not checking up on it now. Earlier this week, we were treated to a developer livestream with the devs at Digital Extremes to check out the Archwing update. Due later this month, Archwing will literally take the “space ninjas” into space with wings and weapons systems that attach to the Warframes themselves, making the players airborne weapons of death.
When Warframe first began its life, there was but a single ship for players to play on. Then an entire solar system opened up, giving players tons more locales (and more being added often). Then came the Dojo, player constructed “homes” and a place for Clans to gather. Then came player pets, and finally the Quest system. Different than missions, the Quests help DE dish out lore and give players a more direct story to work through. They reworked the entire melee combat system, and now melee is a completely viable way to play the game all the time. They revised the entire UI and gave players their own ship (the Liset) to use for their own personal base of operations. And now, with Archwing, the Tenno is moving into outer space and giving the ninjas a whole new way to play the game.
The video below shows that the Archwing is no ordinary spaceship. Players don the Archwing as an extension of their warframe. It can be customized visually, and with actual upgrades as well. You can adorn with different art, sigils. The warframes are getting new mods and colors as well. This isn’t Star Fox either. Archwing missions allow you total freedom in space, and two brand new quests will teach you how to obtain and pilot your Archwing.
There are several Archwings to build and equip, and each of them have their own weapons to equip and upgrade as well. Each one also has their own set of powers which replace the Warframe’s powers while in flight. What we were shown of the gameplay was very impressive indeed. Moving with the wing is fast, fluid. Think WASD movement, with the ability to strafe and everything, just adding that third axis to the fight as well. As an extension of your frame, the Archwing allows the same kind of quick movement.
Aside from the space missions and Archwing quests, there are two brand new types of weapons and even a new warframe to look forward to as well. A new plasma gun and a new boomerang will be showing up, along with the Magician-like new frame whose hat (of all things) wields new powers. The devs didn’t go too much into these, but I’m sure we’ll see more of them soon.
It’s very impressive to see the creativity with which Digital Extremes is working on Warframe continuously. The game’s come an incredibly long way in the short time since its launch, and if the Archwing update is anything to go by, 2015’s version of Warframe will be even more impressive. The new patch lands sometime later in October, so stay tuned for our hands on with the game modes.
