If you are not familiar with Warframe I will give you a quick synopsis: You are a space ninja and run as fast as you can through ships, planets, voids or fortresses of doom. You are one of the Tenno, equipped with a wide range of weapons and abilities. The movement in the game is like nothing you’ve played before. You can run super-fast, jump like a bullet, and staple enemies against any surface like a proud hunter you are. You as a Tenno are stuck saving the universe in what seems like endless hallways of action, but that is all about to change. Warframe is evolving with Plains of Eidolon (PoE). It's about to become a whole new game experience.
PoE is the next evolution in Warframe; I like to call it Power of Evolution. The developers have always been hard working and extremely transparent with their new content, but this next evolution in Warframe is their best-kept secret. For the first time in Warframe, players will be able to break out of the hallway fighting and fight on a vast open-zone (not open world, just a zone) landscape. In the new landscape, you can plot your own path. You can explore where you want and you can fly in the sky if you want. PoE might not be as big as Witcher or Horizon Zero Dawn, but this is only the beginning for the new direction Digital Extremes (DE) is taking Warframe. They have plans in the future to bring more landscapes. So, what is different about PoE that will change the way new and veteran players will play the game? Here are some of the key point to PoE:
- Map size: approximately 3 square kilometers
- Ability to call down Archwing at any time to either fight enemies on the ground or from the sky.
- Real time day and night cycles.
- Customizable weapons you can build and name yourself.
- New Quests never-before-seen in Warframe
- A new vulture companion (maybe at launch?)
- New skins you can buy for your current companions.
- A new glass themed Warframe (no name yet, but I am sure she will be a glass cannon)
- You can murder helpless birds.
- You can spear fish for fun!
- Difficulty depending on day or night cycle.
All that sounds awesome, but what does it really mean for Warframe? This new direction Warframe is taking is going to shake up the way players play the game. For example, players can now use the foliage as cover to sneak up on enemies. Does that sound familiar? Games like Witcher, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Metal Gear Solid have done this too and it feels amazing sneaking up on your enemies. As a space ninja, it has always been my dream to hide in some grass and stab an enemy in the left butt cheek or kidney (I heard they sell well on Darvo’s black market). I enjoyed this immensely when I was playing Horizowellro Dawn. That is just scratching the surface of what is changing with the game.
The day and night cycles play a huge role in how players will play the game in PoE. During the day PoE is very friendly to the new players and the landscape will be accessible from the start of playing the game for the first time. Most of Warframes past updates have been centered around high-level gameplay leaving new and potential players frustrated with stuff they think they will never see. The latest update Chains of Harrow is strictly content made for players that have been playing the game for hundreds of hours. With PoE, new players can jump in and explore from the start. Not only that, they can gather the materials required to build their own customizable weapons. This gets the new players involved in the game and the story right from the start.
But what does that mean for the veteran players? That is where the night cycle comes in. If you are a new or low-level player in Warframe, you might want to run. At night, giant sentient beings come out to rebuild their bodies and power. These sentient beings even scare off the enemies you fight during the day. Once you see drop ships of Grineer coming to get the heck off the planet, you might want to rethink being out in the wild. The sentient beings are only for the masters of the game. They have been described as 50-foot-tall monsters you have no chance of killing on your own. If you have ever played Monster Hunter you will want to check out PoE.
Since the beginning of Archwing in October of 2014, people have tried to find ways to like Archwing gameplay. Something was always missing from what the Archwing was and how it really fit with the universe of Warframe. With PoE, your Archwing is now accessible whenever you want it in the plains landscape. This adds not only a new dimension to movement in the game but how players will engage in fights. Fighting enemies might start with you dive-bombing them from the sky, but at the push of a button, you can disembark from your Archwing to slaughter them like a true ninja.
Traveling all over the vast 3 km landscape might become monotonous if players have to fight their way from one end of the map to the other every time they step into the plains, but by giving the players the option to use their Archwing can make travel the way you chose. And no, there is no lengthy quest to enable your Archwing if you already have it. It as simple as calling it down from your ship to equip. At night, it will come in handy with the sentient enemy battles because there is a possibility of them taking flight too.
This will be one of the largest updates Warframe has ever had in the 4 years the game has been out. DE has never been shy about updating their game with 21 updates (not counting patches or bug fixes) since the launch of the game in 2013. That is a feat very few games can say they have accomplished and a free to play game it is unheard of. The developers take pride in making a game that is ever evolving and not shying away from something new and different. With PoE players will get to explore on their own terms and build weapons like never before. This new update is set for late summer of 2017.
