I’m trying to get in to Warframe.
That makes it sound like I’ve tried if for a few hours. In fact, I’ve put 32 hours into it. I think I like it. It frustrates the hell out of me at times, at others I have a really good session that leaves me with the same kind of satisfaction as my favourite games. The insanely complex spreadsheet-y side of things repulses me like a force field. I’m trying to ignore it, but I get the impression that it’s the real heart of the game.
So I’m not 100% sold. But still I try. For 32 hours and counting. Why?
One: I’ve never yet found a comfort game. The closest I’ve gotten is Gran Turismo or Dark Souls, but they can both leave me literally in a sweat, exhausted, and seriously depressed. I have always envied players that have a Fortnite, or an EA FC. Just something they stick on to feel like they’re wrapped in a blanket, or just to hang out with pals.
I’ve also tried to get into Fortnite, but I’ve given up. It just doesn’t grab me. And judging by how many people it has “just grabbed” I’m going to go ahead and assume this ain’t for me. I’ve also never found a group of pals to hang out with in a game. Real life pals play on a Thursday night when I’m always doing Question Time.
Two: it’s cross-platform. Like Fortnite, I can play it on almost any device, and my progress carries over. Not only is this convenient, it frees me from the anxiety of being tied to a platform—an anxiety that increases with every passing day, as the console paradigm seems to implode around around us.
It’s a Free-to-play that doesn’t require real money to progress. Again, this is like Fortnite. I could spend money for some snazzy gear, but I don’t need to. I can play the whole game without spending anything. This is quite important when I want to play the game on different systems. I currently play the Witcher 3 on PS5 and Switch, and started on PC, back when I had an Intel Mac that could run Windows. To do that, I had to buy the game three times, once for each platform. I justified this by never paying more than ten pounds, thanks to sales, so I’ve actually paid less than £30 for a game I’ve played for hundreds of hours over the course of seven years (and I’ve only just started one of the DLC packs). Not a bad deal.
But Warframe, I can play on my Mac (via Crossover), my phone, my Switch, and my PS5, and it only cost me four times zero.
I was tempted to part with money when I realised I had acquired through gameplay all the parts of a Chroma Warframe, but just didn’t have the Blueprint. But I found to my delight that when I selected it in the Market, next to how much Platinum it’d cost me, it actually told me how to get it with gameplay. That’s just… nice. Which brings me to
Three: Warframe has an amazingly good reputation as a community. The developers are relatively small, have promoted internally so that, for instance, the game’s Creative Director was once the Community Manager, and so it accutely sensitive to the player base. If a game mode seems to encourage any toxicity between players, it’s quickly updated. I’ve certainly found that when I’ve been with random players, they are not frustrated by my lack of experience or skill. I’ll give those individuals credit for being nice people, but it’s also because their game wasn’t ruined by my fumbling, which is part of the game design itself, and quite deliberate.
In short, in this world of predatory practices, especially in free-to-play games, Warframe is a relatively safe space, because the developers are trustworthy. They value the positive, welcoming player base. That’s to be applauded, but it’s also simply nice to be a part of. Everyone I interact with is helpful and nice. How many spaces are there where that’s true?
They say the first 70 hours are the tutorial, so I’m still finding my feet. I enjoy the loop well enough that I can dive in for ten minutes, but don’t feel too bad if life interferes mid-game. (This is why I can’t give as much time to Elden Right: Nightreign as I’d like: if you bail out you genuinely ruin the run for the other two players, potentially wasting an hour of their time, and my life means I can’t guarantee an uninterrupted hour.)
It’s not a perfect game. It’s hand-holding and tutorialising (which I need) can sometimes vanish, leaving me stranded not knowing what in the hell to do. The systems are absurdly complex. I assume some types of brain love shuffling mods, and switching polarity, and fusing, and all that, but mine doesn’t.
Luckily, just playing the game the way I want is satisfying enough, and perhaps I’ll pick all that speadsheet stuff up through sheer osmosis, and end up a total sicko. At the moment, though, it’s fun, it’s free, it has good vibes, and any number of platforms could go completely kaput, and I’d still be able to play.
So I’m trying to get into Warframe. All in all, it’s worth it.