Warframe: 1999 is the Y2K dating sim I didn’t know I needed
After over a decade, Warframe continues to grow, evolve, and reinvent itself. The third-person shooter/RPG hybrid has thrived as a free-to-play game thanks to steady updates expanding the story, systems, and weapons. With the upcoming release of Warframe: 1999, Digital Extremes looks to conquer some completely unexpected things: Y2K, chat rooms, and boy bands.
As Rebecca Ford, creative director for Warframe, tells Digital Trends at this year’s Tennocon, “The Journey that Warframe has taken is unexpected.” Following the conclusion of the New War storyline, the team was looking for the next narrative direction to take, and Ford credits former art director Michael Brennan, better known as Mynki in the Warframe community, with the suggestion it would be cool to visit other times.
“I wrote the numbers 1999 on my whiteboard,” Ford says, “and they have sat there for the better part of 18 months.” That simple squiggle has now turned into Warframe‘s wildest chapter yet.
Party like it’s 1999
It’s New Year’s Eve 1999. It’s the era of boy bands, chat rooms, and the looming specter of Y2K. It’s Earth, but not our Earth, with signs of societal decay. “We have a sort of vaguely Eastern European impression of a 1999 that has roads, military CRT screens everywhere, and the sense of the sort of abandoned culture, malls, stadiums, and those types of hallmarks for the time,” Brennan says.
Arthur is the leader of the Hex, a group of six individuals in the process of transforming into early Warframes. While the frames are traditionally faceless and silent avatars for the player, Arthur and company are something different. As Ford puts it, “They’re guinea pigs. They’re part of some pursuit of power and protection, but they’re their characters. They’re people. You will meet them as a player. You will interact with them. You’ll learn what makes them tick and what they’re after.”
My demo starts simply enough: Arthur is looking for the keys to his motorcycle. He checks in with the other
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