Not all of Warframe’s expansions have been good to new players. The most recent Heart of Deimos expansion and previous open-world additions have tried very hard to make sure new and low Mastery Rank players have access to them, but certain mechanics like Railjack basically required many hours of progression before you could fully access them.
Digital Extremes is trying very hard to make sure that all future content drops will be playable by both veterans and newcomers alike, according to chief operating officer Sheldon Carter.
Just before speaking with our very own Cian Maher, Carter was on a call with Warframe’s creative director and lead designer to see how they can ensure that expansions provide a sense of story progression without locking themselves behind hours of content that new players will have to get through first.
“The discussion was one of those design backflips we have to do in order to make sure that we keep our big story reveals interesting and relevant, but still let a new player try those things without having to go through all of that,” Carter said. “We’re trying to think about ways we can get players that story information if you just started. You just got your PS5 and you wanna make your way through Warframe’s story, well how can we make it really clear to you what the core story beats you have to hit are so that when new content comes you’re ready to go, and you don’t think you have to play 40 or 50 hours before you understand it all.”
This is a bit of a departure for Warframe development. Without getting too far into spoilers, a very large part of Warframe only gets unlocked after the player has spent between 20-30 hours going through Warframe’s story quests. It’s a big reveal and one that Warframe has made itself famous for.
That said, if you want to grow your playerbase, you can’t keep new and exciting content away from new players. That’s a lesson that many MMOs have learned, and many failed MMOs haven’t.
