It now seems like clockwork for Digital Extremes to come out with a new open world zone each year. This year is no exception, but with a catch. At the end of the 30-minute demo of Empyrean, we got glimpse of where the next open world will take us in Warframe. So far, we only have a short trailer and not much more information. There are a few tidbits from the panels at TennoCon that can shed some light on what to expect for the next open world.
Horses?
Towards the beginning of the video, we see a new enemy type that is riding a hose out in the parallel universe known as the Duviri Paradox. Later towards the end of the trailer, the operator kills the enemy riding the horse and takes the reins. The operator is no longer a child and has lost his powers. He might have lost his powers, but we now can ride horses! The rest of the trailer only raises more questions like, do we not have access to our Warframes in this zone? Are we space cowboys? What is that ship he is riding towards? Actually, I know part of the answer to that one.
New Open World
During the Warframe art panel, a short video was shown of the next zone and what is going to be in store for the players. The ship in the distance could possibly be a living sentient ship. The ship is sending out waves of drone ships to suck the lifeforce out of every living thing in the solar system. It appears the Duviri Paradox open world is linked to the events in The New War because the trailer at the beginning of the TennoCon live stream showed the ship shooting out these drone ships. The two might not be linked, but the artwork of the ship looks very similar to the other sentient ship artwork.
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At TennoCon Steve Sinclair mentioned this time around they are trying to bring Warframe players closer together and connecting them to the content that is throughout the solar system. Having both the new sentient mothership sucking the life out of the world and a new race of shattered beings in the paradox, might be all tied together. Because the Sentients are taking the life force out of everything, is it creating more void storms that lead to the Duviri Paradox. The other possibility is that the void storms are building the foundation to take Tenno to new solar systems or new dimensions. Again, as we understand some part of the new trailer, we have more questions unanswered.
Space Dragons
I just want to know: Is the space dragon we saw going to be the next world boss? Because of the scale of the dragon we can theorize it will be a new type of raid-like boss the players will have to take down for rewards. This will make the third planetary boss fight. From the past changes to the game Digital Extremes has taken, I do not think it will be as simple as just a boss fight. There is a lot of speculation here, but I feel they will go in a different direction with this giant dragon. The developers are not ones to keep repeating the same mechanics over and over hoping people do not get bored. There is something deeper and more profound about a giant space dragon.
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The development of Duviri Paradox seems in its early stages, and there is a list of updates Digital Extremes still has to do. We will have to wait a bit longer for more information about what the paradox is for an open world and how does it fit in the game. Until then, we can look forward to The New War, the new player experience, Empyrean.
