As the mobile edition of Warframe releases, the developers talk about ten years of progress.
Warframe has made a name for itself in the free-to-play third-person shooter genre for more than ten years. The Digital Extremes development team started off small on the PC in 2013, but they have since expanded the Tenno faction throughout many platform generations. In 2018, Warframe made its way to portable gaming with the release of the Nintendo Switch.
In 2024, Digital Extremes brought Warframe's large player base together with cross-platform save files, completing the last necessary component for the game's mobile release. We had a conversation with Jussi Elonen, the main Warframe developer at Nitro Games, and Rebecca Ford, the creative director of Warframe at Digital Extremes, in honor of the game's iOS launch, to get insight into this remarkable and much anticipated mobile adaptation.
According to Ford, Warframe is the brainchild of Digital Extremes, and the company is eager to expand and bring the welcoming, cooperative community to all Apple devices. Of course, without the knowledge and insight of our Nitro partners, we could not have succeeded. In collaboration with Digital Extremes, Nitro Games, a Finnish publisher and producer of free-to-play mobile games, redesigned Warframe's intricate gameplay for mobile devices.
Elonen clarified that in order to ensure a seamless iOS transfer, the two businesses started collaborating on the project last summer, taking use of Nitro's experience with mobile devices. We are mobile developers, therefore it goes without saying that we are skilled at making things function on a tiny screen.
Given how long it took for Warframe to evolve from a PC-only game to the multiplatform monster it is now, we pondered why 2024 is the year it would make its mobile debut. "For us, it's just always a good time to grow," Ford said. We have been beta testing for the greater part of 2023, but we were getting caught up in the thought, "We can play it, but can people who aren't Warframe veterans play it?," so we decided not to release it to the public until we had specialists assess the usability.
The date of the release of the mobile version was largely dependent on Warframe's current platforms' ability to support cross-platform saves. "We wanted cross-platform play and save to be available so that players who have been with us for a long time may advance no matter where they are playing and so that the community could grow. In our game, account growth and development are mostly focused on the long term, thus restarting isn't always the ideal option for our community. For a mobile launch, we thus want cross-platform save live to at least get things going.
Even with Digital Extremes' extensive understanding of every aspect of Warframe, the game's renowned fast-paced and intricate gameplay needed the experience of Nitro's mobile veterans to function well on small touch displays. Elonen's team concentrated on making Warframe's distinctive feel as simple and automated as possible, all the while keeping it playable for mobile players.
"Auto shooting will be available, but you may easily turn things off from the settings menu. In order to provide gamers complete control over their HUD, we have included a HUD customizer. Therefore, although there is a default setting for everything, the player also has the option to experiment and find what works best for them. For users who prefer to use mobile controllers over touchscreens, Nitro was also able to integrate Warframe's console controls into the iOS version.
As you can undoubtedly already see, Digital Extremes has given careful thought to both preserving the essential elements of Warframe's personality in the mobile adaptation and opening up the universe to new players. According to Ford, the goal of the mobile launch is to both expand the player base and provide current Tennos an easy way to play while on the road. "Inside, there are sort of two schools of thinking. One group consists of more realistic businesspeople who say things like, "Oh, we're going to get a whole new community where we have thousands of pre-registrations." These are all brand-new individuals who will be using Warframe for the first time.
Others, meanwhile, are thinking, "Well, I can access all of my account progress on the go now. Thus, in an ideal world, it would be like a match made in heaven between bringing in a ton of new players for Warframe and folks like me who travel or visit relatives often and still want to play Warframe even when I'm not carrying my laptop or anything else with me. Throughout our conversation, Ford's enthusiasm for the game was evident, and it was evident that some of this approach was influenced by her own experience as an experienced player.
"I am really optimistic that new people will give Warframe a try and just get charmed by our weird little game we've made," the speaker went on. Ford thinks that this mobile alternative will assist in reducing the amount of time that fans must spend playing Warframe. "I'm hoping that veterans like myself will really benefit from simply being able to use a Warframe mobile client's portability and usability to perform the tasks that Warframe frequently requests of you, such as responding to time-limited alerts, events, engaging with clans, and other similar tasks."
When we asked Ford whether gamers on mobile devices will get any platform-specific bonuses, such cash or cosmetics, she replied that Digital Extremes tries to provide the same content across all platforms. Due to Warframe's ten-year history, some unique goods have occasionally caused issues during platform conversion. "Our game is old, and we've had a lot of exclusives in the past," she said. For example, we couldn't transfer an Excalibur skin that is special to the Nintendo Switch to mobile devices, just as we couldn't transfer a PlayStation skin to the Xbox, is that correct?
There is a lot of user-generated material available in Warframe, and the team is trying to license it for mobile devices whenever feasible to reward its artists properly and provide a same experience for all players on all platforms. Ford went on, "We want to acquire as much user-generated material as we can, contract by contract, but there will be a longer release of some on mobile. We're trying not to do exclusives, but we're an ancient game, so it would be a very lengthy response. It's a long process. Read the small print, then.
Regarding the future, the team plans to shift its attention to 1999, the game's next massive content update that advances the plot, when Warframe's iOS deployment is complete. Additionally, Digital Extremes and Nitro Games are still collaborating to bring Warframe to Android. Warframe's website allows you to register to participate in the Android beta testing, albeit we don't yet have all the specifics. You can get Warframe for free right now if you possess an Apple device!
Tenno, while you're here, check out our selections of the top mobile shooters and top free mobile games. Choose from our selection of the top phone controllers if you're seeking for new accessories to use with Warframe Mobile.