It's been ten years since free-to-play space ninja simulator Warframe first captivated millions of players with its revolutionary movement and combat systems, and it seems like Digital Extremes is somehow only just getting started. Warframe's latest expansion, The Duviri Paradox, is perhaps Digital Extreme's most ambitious project to date. The Duviri Paradox offers fledgling players an alternate start to choose from for the first time in the game's history, while The Duviri Paradox's clever roguelike twist on the Warframe formula makes the experience refreshing for veterans though approachable for beginners.
Game ZXC spoke with Rebb Ford, Warframe's Creative Director, about all things Duviri Paradox. She talked about the various thought processes that went into the expansion's roguelike elements and mood-themed weather system, as well as how Warframe seeks to become more approachable to newer players who might be intimidated by the game's ten years of existing content. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q:You mentioned that this new update is going to be the most accessible that Warframe has ever been. Can you go into some specifics as to how it's been made more accessible to players?
Ford: It's basically the exact opposite of some of our past updates like The New War. When we're approaching something like The New War, we're writing out the prerequisites. We're looking through, and we're listing all the “homework” that someone has to do to access our latest content drop. We felt that it was time to really take a radical approach and release an update that required nothing but installing the game. And how can we achieve that?
We had three huge problems to solve: one was a narrative which we squared away and solved.
Two was the difficulty, which we think we solved with the loaner builds and everything.
And then the third version of it was acceptance of risk. “Is this the right choice” and having a “business plan” for sustaining the game when it has two beginnings now. That's the more technical business side and everything that goes with running a live service game.
But ultimately, the most important part of the past 10 months of my life has been making sure that the Duviri experience is available out of the gates. Because 10 years in, with every update we add, we don't want players to get more and more concerned with the time sink to get to certain things. So we thought, “Let's just completely radicalize our approach and start at the beginning and put a lot of work into that.” So that's what we did.
Q: How do new players get introduced to the rest of the Starmap with this new start?
Ford: So if a player chooses Duviri, they basically finish the quest and then Teshin will ask them “Do you want to stay or go?” If they choose to stay, they can just play in Duviri, but there will always be a nagging waypoint like, “Oh, someone needs your help on the other side,” and then you'll go up to a door, and then the door will turn in to your escape portal to start Vor’s Prize.
So you can stay in theory, but I suppose if you find that little blinking thing annoying, you'll eventually be motivated to go to the other side. But once you do that, you can go back to Duviri any time. There are no hard cuts for a player.
Q:What was the thought process behind making Duviri an entry point for new players?
Ford: Honestly, it was an offhand remark, and it turned into the biggest undertaking we've ever done. It was, “Wouldn't it be cool if players could choose how to start Warframe when we released this update?” And it was like, “Yeah, that would be cool.” And then we were like, “But it would work because we could do it this way. And narratively, this would work. And then that would work. And then… Oh my God!”
So it started. I mean, every task starts with an idea, and this one really was made in a sort of offhand way. Then, it turned into a full system designed for us to tell people that if you've been intimidated by Warframe, this is the best update to start with, because everyone is going to be normalized with Duviri. It's new to everyone, and you can access it right away. You don't need to go through 20 hours of cinematic quests to get there. It'll just be there.
Q: Duviri features some interesting roguelike elements. Could you talk about some of those and how the idea came about?
Ford: This is definitely me starting to get my smudgy fingerprints all over Warframe, because, for the past couple of years, I've really been hyper-fixating on games like Slay the Spire and Hades. They're my most played single-player games recently. As fate would have it, in a moment of weakness during the pandemic, my friends were like “Install League of Legends!” and I was like, “I love the characters, but I'm really bad at PvP. PvP is just too hard for me to calm down,” but they're like “No, no, you should play because you can play ARAM with us.” And I was like, “What's an ARAM?”
Then I learned that it was a game mode where they took League of Legends, and they turned it into “All Random All Mid,” hence ARAM. So you don't get to pick your character ahead of time, you just get randomly assigned a character. There's no meta concern about the top lane, mid lane, jungling, or whatever, you just play a middle lane. And that's it. You just play League of Legends. I was like, “This is the best ever, I can't believe this is real.”
It was like a perfect moment to realize that Warframe has a lot of characters, and I love roguelikes. So maybe we could make a Warframe version of random roguelike runs mixed with the idea that the world is giving you choices from the other side. So all of those things mixed together to create the foundation of Duviri and the idea that we want every run to be different. So we want players to approach their run and get different Warframe options, get different decree options that allow them to skew their build, in different and fun ways.
It's not going to be as punishing as most roguelikes like Hades, you die a lot, Slay The Spire, you die a lot. Our version will still be a bit more of the power fantasy of Warframe. However, it has all the elements of that permanent progression versus the instance and session progression. And then, of course, the “offering” of Warframe from that randomization, which I love. So it's really fun to go in and see who's there and pick stuff.
The idea is to really look at how much content Warframe has, and recontextualize it entirely to give you a whole new way to engage with it.
Q: How do you strike a balance between the randomness and chaos of roguelikes versus player decision-making?
Ford: Drifter Intrinsics provide a really strong foundation for you to have agency, especially with the widening of the RNG in them. Starting from choosing three frames and then all the way up to five does really open the doors for more control and agency. Then just generally the fact that it's not as punishing.
You won't feel like you've wasted time – not that you feel like you waste time in roguelikes – but you're always making some progression. But in our case, it still has a really high-power fantasy, so when you're thrown into battle, you're not really going to feel like you've been screwed over.
Q: One of the Drifter Intrinsics is a horse-like mount. How customizable is it in terms of cosmetics or upgrades?
Ford: It has full cosmetics. Really, really deep cosmetics, probably more than we've done for any other mount-style thing in the game. Because not only can you customize the horse, but there are also customizable saddles, tails, and headgear. Like with the Necramech you can't put attachment pieces on, but you can with horses.
And then the horse will have powers that are pretty static. I don't think they benefit from the Decrees right now, but the horse is generally a movement tool. So you're a Drifter, and you can't bullet jump, but players are used to bullet jumping. So the horse is the Warframe analog for movement just because we didn't want people to feel like they were moving too slowly. So the horse is primarily movement, movement, movement, and then it has abilities that are on cooldown. So it's not like you'll be sitting there spamming horse abilities all the time. It's very much a utility versus a combat item.
Q: Speaking of Drifter Intrinsics, are there any interesting paths or upgrades that stick out to you?
Ford: There are basically four archetypes for players to choose, which ones they want to do first or if they want to do them all at the same time. The Opportunity one will be the most familiar for people that are familiar with roguelike style games because those are the ones that really expand your choices and give you a chance to reroll things. Endurance is going to be a pretty popular one if you want to not die as much and then Riding is pretty straightforward. And then Combat allows you the general skill as a force of violence on the Duviri Paradox.
But I should say that all of them have a row dedicated to impacting the main game. So if you really like Riding, you're going to need to progress in that tree to make sure that you can unlock the horse for the main game.
Q:Rather than a day-night cycle, Duviri has this really cool mood spiral system based on how Dominus Thrax is feeling at a given time. How do those moods affect the environment and the gameplay? Will players want to target a specific mood?
Ford: I don't know if they're going to want to target a specific mood, that honestly remains to be seen. We're not designing them to be intentionally dodged or not. I think probably the toxin one’s going to be the hardest because of the damage-over-time stuff. But all of them have specific damage types that can really impact the Drifter. So it's not like you'll have a really easy day one day and then a really tough one the next because of the mood.
But the way that the world changes is artistically. We've made all of our environments support tinting, and we have fully custom sky boxes for each mood. And then the enemies themselves will start taking on buffs that thematically represent that mood. So you know Envy is the green-eyed monster, it's poisonous, so all enemies will do poison damage on the Envy day. And then you know for a day like Sorrow, it's cold and it's ice-themed. So it's really the elemental stakes.
Q: Do you have a personal favorite mood?
Ford: Aesthetically, Happiness is my favorite. It's just so whimsical and beautiful. And then character-wise, Sorrow is my favorite because we have this wonderful voice actress who's voicing the head of Sorrow; she's just so elegant and she's so lovely. And you can really feel her sorrow. So I think emotionally I like that one the best, but visually, I like Happiness the best.
Q: The mood-based weather system is very unique. What was the process like coming up with the idea and putting it into practice?
Ford: I think the first draft of this was thinking of it as an exploration of emotion, the many moods of Dominus Thrax. I really wanted it to feel like feelings, and how do we play through them? I worked with the art team on “How many can we do?” There was a version that had 10 moods, and then we narrowed it down to five, because that felt like the most comprehensive opposites. When you start doing mid-tier moods, they overlap a little bit. We really wanted to have distinct visuals.
And to that end, the art team started playing with the tinting first, like really aggressive tinting support for the foliage and for the world. And then the skybox team thought, “Hey, we can make really unique and interesting sky boxes per mood.” And then oh my goodness, the work they did really started to sell the world of reacting to the king’s mood.
And then the lighting came in, and the effects and then the sound team. So when we got to the sound part of the process, we realized we could really push the feeling with the lack of music or the overkill of music. So all of these departments just came into this with such an open mind about how we can make these moods feel different, and they just nailed it. It's just really beautiful to walk through and play.
Q: Is the exploration of those emotions a central theme of Duviri’s narrative?
Ford: Our narrative goals are to have our Drifter start at a point of apathy. So when you feel nothing and that's a low point for this character, and then to end up in a place that can embrace and work within the complexities of human emotion. You know, is it worse to feel or to feel nothing at all? And sort of asking those questions.
Q: Warframe has released a few different free roam areas over the years. What insights or lessons from those past experiences helped inform your development of Duviri?
Ford: This one is the most different. It's hard to even call this an open world if you compare it to our other ones because we re-did everything. We're not using mining. We're not using bounty and NPC quest givers. What we're doing instead is we're trying to really lean into the fact that you're doing a run.
So you spawn into the world, you're looking around, you're going to be in a mood, and the activities and the things you're doing will be different every time. That means that we can walk around and we can see a puzzle there, and we can see a combat encounter there. So you're always being sort of fed a different experience that has a completely custom encounter system that we developed for this update, whereas past updates would mostly be clusters of enemies, and your bounty string. And now we have a 10-plus variety of encounters for you to do as part of your exploration.
Q: Have there been any changes to the broader game outside of Duviri with this update?
Ford: There is the expansion of the Incarnate system for it, which is more for end-game players, which means that some of the first weapons we ever released in Warframe are getting a new lease on life in this update. So going back and giving players a way to engage with their old content.
Q: Warframe players will have a couple of different modes they can pick from as they go into Duviri, what are the differences between them?
Ford: So for Duviri, you have your Warframe Only mode, which is how you're going to earn very specific loot where you're only playing the Warframe sections of it with no open worlds. And then you have your two other options, which we think players that want to spend a lot of time in one instance will gravitate toward.
There’s the Full Experience where they'll be able to walk around and smell the roses, and then the lone Story Mode which is just the six chapters of the story and is for people that want to get in and out in like 30 minutes or less. No distractions, just go. So it's basically a sorting of player styles between the explorers versus you know, “get me in, get me out, get my loot, the end” players.
Q: Does Duviri increase in difficulty or change in interesting ways when players go in groups?
Ford: Yeah, we have some puzzles that only spawn if you are in multiplayer so there's some very puzzly-focused gameplay that requires multiplayer so that's more rewarding exploration. But otherwise, it's classic Warframe where more people are along for the ride and it'll just have a larger amount of enemy density. It's very much true to classic Warframe.
Q: What sort of progression from Duviri carries over into the outside world?
Ford: You will be able to unlock weapons on either side. So all of the Drifters melee weapons you can progress through Duviri and earn them for the Warframe or the Intrinsics themselves that are dedicated to the Warframe side, and then there are resources, and I think there are some other cosmetics that you can get. But it is generally pretty standalone, especially as an economy. But there are weapons and those Intrinsics that can carry over.
Q: Do you plan on revisiting earlier free-roam areas now that you’ve got Duviri dialed in?
Ford: Probably not anytime soon. There are a couple of things that I would tweak if I had a week to do it but we're pretty much looking at Duviri, expanding Duviri, and then we want to really buckle down and tell a very different story for the rest of the year. So no open-world revisits anytime soon.
Q: You mentioned story development over the rest of the year, so players can expect more to the story. Will that take place on Duviri as well?
Ford: We do have our Duviri follow-up update all planned out and ready to go, so, that means that because this update doesn't have a new warframe in it, it will have one in its follow-up update. So we have a Duviri-themed Warframe coming as a release.
Q: Is this going to be a one-year-long story arc or can we expect it to go even further than that?
Ford: Duviri is actually the last chapter in The New War arc, I would say. So this is about “How is it possible that The New War happened?” and this sort of fills in the gaps there. Now that the Drifter and the Operator are together, and Lotus is back, we are sort of a “found family” and it's time to take on what's next, which is what players can learn about at TennoCon this year.
Q: How are you guys celebrating Warframe’s 10-year anniversary?
Ford: We're doing a lot of legacy items from now until TennoCon and then at TennoCon is when we're gonna really give you the wow factor for new items and all the fun stuff. So you can look forward to earning and playing through our 10 years of history of items that we're happy to freely provide. And then the new items come at TennoCon.
Q: The game has changed so much in the last 10 years. Are there any old features or mechanics you’re nostalgic about?
Ford: I would say I have a bit of nostalgia for our mission key systems we had for Void Keys, where you would earn a key and you could run that key, and it would be like its own little dungeon of the Void. I kind of miss what that represented. I prefer how you earn Prime stuff now, don't get me wrong, but the idea that you could earn a mission I think is something that we will look into. Maybe you'll be able to pillage a ship, and upon doing that, you would get a mission key to run after so that you have these little micro missions.
Q: Warframe’s lore is incredibly deep and has grown considerably over the last decade. How far ahead do you plan out the narrative?
Ford: It is. And it still is, and will be. But for the foreseeable future, at least the next five years have a general plan for narrative. I know where we need to go and what the arc is. It's just about building it. So my hopes and dreams are that after Duviri fills in the gaps for The New War, everyone will be ready to take on the next major arc, which will of course involve Man in the Wall.
Q: What are you personally most excited for players to experience when Duviri comes around?
Ford: I honestly think the rewiring of Warframe. I hope people are really excited about being presented with random choices and going out to do a run and feeling like no run is the same, and that they're able to find new fun in playing Warframe from this new perspective.
Q: The update is hopefully going to attract a lot of new players. Do you have any advice to give to people who are just stepping into this big world today?
Ford: I think for Duviri, if you're new or coming back to Warframe to play it, everyone is starting off on the same page. There's no wrong way to play Duviri. And just have fun with it. And let the randomness take you through this beautiful, beautiful world.
Q: Any final thoughts before we finish up today?
Ford: It's been an amazing 10 years, we look forward to 10 more and tune intoTennoCon! Enjoy The Duviri Paradox. It's free cross-play on all platforms. No harm in trying it out!
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Warframe is available on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox One Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.
