(dramatic music)
- [Tom] There aren't many games
that make me feel as cool as Warframe does
when I'm bullet-jumping through the air at breakneck speeds.
This free-to-play co-op shooter has wildly outgrown
its simple space ninja reputation
since it first came out in 2013.
Its updates have added tons of stuff,
including open-world areas, deep story missions,
and even a hoverboard with a Tony Hawk-style scoring system,
to the point where it can be confusing
and tough to get into,
but the way it makes everything you do
feel fast, powerful, and just plain awesome
keeps me coming back to its almost endless well of loot.
Warframe is a dense game,
a tangled ball of yarn made up of
almost six years of updates and reworks.
It can be overwhelming to even think about
trying to untangle it all,
but that also means there's a ridiculous amount of deep
and often extremely entertaining content to discover.
For better or worse, this is a game
that you're gonna need a wiki a play,
because loads of essential information
just isn't explained well in-game.
Thankfully, Warframe's player base
is one of the nicest and most helpful communities around,
which makes an intimidating game more inviting.
Once I made it past the initial confusion
and started setting clear goals for myself,
which was usually making a cool new weapon
or getting to the next planet,
Warframe felt more like a sandbox
full of treasures waiting to be dug up.
There are tons of weapons and titular Warframe battle suits
to track down, craft, and collect,
and enough curated quests to keep pushing you forward
for dozens of hours.
Those quests can be hit and miss,
with some like The Glast Gambit
being downright painful to get through,
but they're generally interesting and a lot of fun.
The more recent story-driven quests in particular
are a huge standout thanks to impressive writing
and acting I wouldn't have expected
after Warframe's earlier missions.
- But of course you are impressive just as she was.
(painful groaning)
(dramatic music)
- [Tom] The actual run-and-gun gameplay
is so dang satisfying that it's worth digging into for.
Movement is lightning fast and incredibly versatile,
and every gun and melee weapon feels unique.
There's real variety here beyond just raw stats.
Pinning enemies to walls with the heavy-hitting Boltor
is a very different feeling
from the rapid-fire Furis pistols,
and slamming someone with the Fragor hammer
is satisfying in a different way
from slicing off limbs with the Heat Sword.
The Warframes themselves let you flex
your preferred playstyle as well.
There are straightforward options like Mag or Frost,
which use magnetic and ice abilities respectively,
but also stranger options like Limbo,
which can temporarily put enemies
in another plane of existence.
I love that you can generally
pick your loadout based on what's fun,
not necessarily what's objectively strongest.
If I saw a cool Warframe that can breathe fire,
I could research how to get it,
collect the crafting materials,
and then breathe some dang fire.
That process takes far longer for some things than others,
but picking and pursuing goals like that is the point,
and it was endlessly gratifying for me.
One double-edged sword is Warframe's mod system,
which lets you buff up your gear.
It's rewarding and offers a ton of customization,
but this system is also convoluted
to the point of being downright hostile towards new players.
I still don't really like dealing with it
even after years of playing.
Crucially, Warframe's free-to-play nature
generally doesn't get in the way.
Pretty much everything except for most cosmetics
can be acquired through playing.
It's a commendable model,
but the one place it really hurts is inventory space,
which is limited unless you use
a premium currency called Platinum to expand it.
Warframe is fundamentally a game about collecting,
and the restrictive inventory space is antithetical to that,
but I've had so many hours of enjoyment playing Warframe
that a couple bucks to carry more guns wasn't a hard call,
and spending money on anything else besides cosmetics
sort of felt like pointlessly paying not to play.
(exciting music)
Warframe isn't an easily approachable game,
but it's one that's worth getting comfortable with
because it never stops growing
and just feels amazing to play.
Its satisfying kill-collect-craft loop
is supported by a mountain of choices
and some wonderfully responsive movement mechanics.
Learning to navigate its overly complex systems
pays off in the long run.
For more PvE co-op shooters,
check out our reviews of Overkill's The Walking Dead
and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's Zombie mode.
And for everything else, keep it right here on IGN.
(rapid gunfire)