TennoCon is upon us as soon as once more, and the Digital Extremes fan occasion’s introduced us an prolonged gameplay demo for Warframe: 1999, Warframe’s subsequent main story replace. When Warframe: 1999 was first teased final yr, I am going to admit I used to be skeptical about how on-board I would be for the house ninja sport’s dabbling in CRT-era nostalgia. However when this yr’s TennoCon gameplay demo kicked off with an authentic single from On-lyne, an alt-universe NSYNC knockoff, I knew I used to be improper to doubt.
Warframe: 1999 will pluck gamers out of Warframe’s far future setting and place them in an episode from its historical past: the ultimate New 12 months’s Eve of an alternate twentieth century, the place they will hunt named Albrecht Entrati as an outbreak of a biomechanical Techrot infestation is corrupting the world’s computer systems and equipment. Whereas searching Entrati, you will get to discover metropolis streets plagued by alt-history ’90s ephemera and Techrot monsters, drive excessive tech bikes, and—put together yourselves—dabble in Warframe’s first romance system.
In the course of the 1999 story quest, you will observe Entrati as Arthur Nightingale, squad chief of the Hex: a six-person unit of operatives geared up with Protoframe exoskeletons that every, conspicuously, look like an early model of Warframes we have seen within the sport’s current-day. The Hex operatives shall be Warframe’s newest faction, with its personal fame development just like the Solaris United or the Ostron.
The Hex may also be Warframe’s first romanceable characters, as Arthur will be capable to flirt with them by way of conversations on KOL Instantaneous Messenger. If KOL and On-lyne do not talk how exhausting Digital Extremes is leaning into its late ’90s parallel actuality, I do not know what is going to. Perhaps the deeply Rob Zombie-coded music that performs throughout a boss combat later within the demo?
Arthur himself is an especially late ’90s thought of cool, being a man who has each a katana and a bike. In 1999, you’ll freely journey by way of the Techrot-infested metropolis of Höllvania whereas drifting, bullet-jumping, and stunting with a high-powered Atomicycle, which you will ultimately be capable to use in Warframe’s different open world areas. Arthur’s story looks like it’s going to additionally shed some gentle on the Warframes themselves. In the course of the demo, a Techrot creature vomits out a faceless entity mimicking the superpowered sword skills of Arthur’s Protoframe, and it is none apart from Excalibur—the sport’s mascot Warframe.
DE closed out its 1999 displaying with a sequence again in Warframe’s current-day, the place a surviving pressure of Techrot has spent the centuries producing my new favourite Warframe foe: a mutated, biomechanical incarnation of On-lyne themselves. After ending Warframe 1999, you’ll hunt the house zombie boy band because the long-awaited Infested reply to Warframe’s Grineer and Corpus revenants, providing endgame weaponry by way of nemesis system showdowns.
As anticipated, Warframe: 1999 may also add a brand new Warframe for gamers to assemble in Cyte-09, a beret-wearing sharpshooter. The replace may also convey new weapons just like the Kalashnikov-ish AX-52 rifle, and new “Gemini skins” that’ll allow you to play as one of many Hex operatives in case you’re utilizing their related Warframe. The Gemini skins are absolutely voice acted, and they are often personalized independently of the bottom Warframe.
Warframe: 1999 is about to launch in Winter 2024. Earlier than then, Warframe shall be getting a smaller replace in August so as to add The Lotus Eaters, a brief quest that’ll bridge the hole between Whisper within the Partitions, the earlier main story chapter, and 1999.
