Fans of the free-to-play cooperative third-person shooter Warframe are buzzing with excitement after what was revealed at the game’s second annual TennoCon. In addition to the global release of the “Excalibur Umbra” and “Hydroid Prime” Warframes, Digital Extreme, the developers of the game, revealed that in the next big update, they will be adding on an open world area known as Landscape, and unlike Warframe’s previous generated levels, the update entitled Plains of Eidolon will be a completely hand-crafted, realistic, open world environment with its own day-night cycle.
The Landscape will have a new social area known as Cetus complete with NPC (non-playable characters). Here players will be able to craft weapons, and take on quests, crafting weapons will have a new creative twist that Cetus will offer to players. Instead of the traditional gathering of specific parts to create a weapon, which Warframe players are used to, players will now be able to gather parts for weapons and mix and match weapon parts in order to create a weapon suited for their quest or to their own liking. These weapons will be known as Ostron weapons and will even be able to be named by the player.
Cetus will only be able to support up to 50 players at first, before you can then venture out in groups of up to four. Players will also be able to equip their Archwing and support allies from above or use it to travel throughout the plains without having to wait during a loading screen when transitioning. Players will be able to fight the Grineer enemies during the day and enormous alien dragon-like creatures known as the Eidolons roam the plains at night and are advised to only be fought by veteran players of Warframe. Digital Extremes’ Live Ops and Community Producer, Rebecca Ford provided more details about the Plains of Eidolon update and in what direction Warframe will be heading, “Something we worry about constantly is how to keep things fresh after four years, not fall into a comfort zone, and to continue to take risks. We built Warframe with a procedurally generated map system that encompassed indoor and outdoor closed environments to help elongate play and keep players entertained while we continue building new content.” Ford goes on to state that this will be the first time they will be introducing Landscapes to the game and though it may not be quite the size of what a player would see in other open world games it is still rather sizeable and provides new interaction between the NPC and the player.
The NPC characters will be able to provide players with quests and mini-quests when they are met in Cetus, Ford states that currently the developing team is adding more content for the players to experience when they walk into Cetus. The battles in the Landscape will be randomized as well, players will be able to encounter random battles while they roam the players either on foot or by equipping their Archwing and flying around. Ford mentions that players can expect more after the update is released provided that players enjoy the new content as much as the developers do. Plains of Eidolon will be available later in 2017 and is set to be Warframe’s biggest update yet, players can expect more information to be released as the year progresses. Happy gaming Tenno!
Featured Image via Flickr/Rob Obsidian
