Playing Warframe feels like playing one of those abandoned, long-dead MMOs, but the game is still updating.
There are so many outdated, old, ancient, untouched, dead things. Game mode content islands. Entire systems deprecated and forgotten. Archwing, railjack, necramech.
When was the last time I had a reason to visit Cetus? Was there ever a point to the k-drive other than the hype of its release?
Game modes that require you overinvest in dead content. To do the railjack orphix missions you need a good necramech. To get a good necramech you need to mindlessly farm isolation vaults. This will get you a good necramech, a machine you can use mostly only in orphix (one shitty mission type) or open world content (not worth playing, outdated, abandoned). You can use that necramech to do orphix missions (abandoned, half-baked game mode) so that you can unlock enough railjack nodes (outdated, unloved) to farm Sevagoth (deprecated, has a prime, only need him for the Gloom subsume).
You can wander into strange corners and find yourself in content from 2016. 2018. 2014. Things that long needed an update and were ignored and paved over. Warframes like Equinox whose kit was great in 2016 and whose kit is clunky and barely keeps up in 2026. Frames like Loki who try to play a game long-since dead. Trinity, desperately trying to keep the team healed while Dante ensures they never took damage in the first place.
Lunaro, conclave, a strip-mall with its storefronts gutted. There's little to even urbex into. You will not know what once was by exploring what remains.
Half of the surviving tile layouts reference a parkour/movement system that hasn't existed for a decade. There are so many places I remember you used to have to run up the wall and backflip from onto this platform, run up this wall and jump to this one. Void parkour challenges that required you to learn the wall-run patterns and make it before the drums stopped. Secrets that required careful platforming. We can fly now. We jump from point A to point B. The whole of the cell is elided and ignored.
I remember calling out the arrival of bombards, of nullifiers, of knowing the difference between this and that and learning the prioritization of their targeting. The differences between enemies are become incidental. They appear and die the same. Cosmetic changes with no meaningful mechanical alteration.
I remember, once, hiding behind the pop-up cover in void towers for my shields to recharge. I remember watching my friends' health get low and hitting my 4 at the right moment to save them. I remember planning team compositions and weapon types. Now every player is expected to be a monolith, to be immortal on their own merits, to be self-contained, to kill every wave the moment it arrives on the map.
A single player game with three other players incidentally on the screen.
A picked-clean whalefall, and every few months, a new corpse joins the pile, is chewed at, stripped bare, forgotten, and settles into the tangled mass of rib-beams. Follie's Hunt. Isleweaver. Abyssal zone. Ascension. Infested Salvage. Index. Rathuum. Here comes the new death, soon. The sinking flesh is rotting. Ready your teeth. Chew to the bone. Wander the charnel cathedral another month, another month.
I recognize you only by the corpse.
I can understand this viewpoint. I’ve had similar feelings about other MMOs. But with Warframe I have the view of a newer player. October will be two years.
I was the last one to start playing in my family gaming group. When the others immediately dove into 1999 when it dropped, I stubbornly stuck to my slow, solo, methodical pace. I wanted to experience such a rich game as fully as I could, as I have a FOMO play style: the need to discover every secret, grab every bit of loot.
Even before half of us (we do make up a full squad) got into the game, the number of game modes and mini games became a household joke. When I started playing, I enjoyed the variety of skills to master, more prizes to be won. It kept the game fresh, the grind a little less noticeable.
I’ve also been deeply engaged by the story and the lore. A long story of war and trauma. Thought-provoking storylines about the nature of humanity and how identity is formed. A veritable diversity of characters that allows almost everyone to find someone they identify with. An epic space opera with a side of fantasy.
As a recent player, what I see the most is the power fantasy. I understand the MMO game mechanics of forming a balanced team, and having your strategy for the challenge you’re facing. I’ve played those games. I can see how it can feel disappointing that Warframe has moved away from that.
The power fantasy that is offered is not one that is without demand; commitment and real life resources are necessary (time and/or money). But what it comes with is worth it. Make your character who you want them to be. Physical form, play style, weapon preference, role preference, it’s all there. Be part of the story where you are the hero, the savior, the prodigal child, the lover, the demi-god, the devil, the war criminal, the cursed, the lost and forgotten, the most trusted ally and friend.
I’ve put in a ridiculous number of hours in the last 20 months. I do find myself tiring a little of the game loop. Perhaps someday I’ll have OP’s view of Warframe.
I can also understand the challenge that faces any company that produces an MMO: to engage both new and veteran. The thing I’m struck by when I read and watch the DE team is how they seem to derive joy from giving their players new additions to their power fantasies. I haven’t gotten that sense of dev team care and connection from any other game I’ve played. It definitely fuels my desire to continue to play Warframe, and feed the positive feedback loop between devs and player base.
Anyway, thank you OP for posting your thoughts. Mine aren’t a direct response, just what thoughts that were brought up when I was reading yours.
