Warframe’s The Outdated Peace skip is “sh*tty” for some, but it surely’s Digital Extremes’ “survival technique” in a busy crowd

Previously 12 months alone, I’ve plowed properly over 50 hours into Warframe. Whether or not it is farming supplies, adorning my Orbiter, or going backwards and forwards on what coloration actually appears to be like the very best on Oraxia, it’s extremely simple to seek out your self awake at 3am bopping Grineer and watching the harm numbers soar. However, as a more moderen participant, I discovered the preliminary grind to be fairly the hurdle – whereas issues decide up with the Natah quest, the preliminary Awakening missions really feel like a sequence of disparate components that haven’t any actual rhyme or motive to them. As somebody who has been determined to get to the Warframe 1999 content material and is invested within the MMO’s world, I am joyful to place up with the grind, however I perceive why some others would play just a few hours and name it a day.

Coming into The Outdated Peace, nevertheless, Digital Extremes is letting gamers skip hours-worth of content material to check out the replace’s two new recreation modes, Descendia and The Perita Revolt. New gamers will encounter streamlined variations of each missions (though some spoilers might slip by way of), akin to the Warframe 1999 demo we noticed forward of that questline’s launch. You will need to be above Mastery 10 to play, in any other case you will should be “‘taxied by a good friend.” Should you’re above the extent requirement, you may enter the general public matchmaking queue.

In an Outdated Struggle press pre-brief, artistic director Rebecca Ford “closely encourages [players] to do the [precursor story] quests,” noting that, in case you skip, you will “simply be capable of do the gameplay, you will not be capable of see the post-gameplay quests, the Triad: that is simply purely a approach on your good friend to leap on in and play with you.”

However that is the primary time we have actually seen a content material skip in Warframe – the 1999 demo was woefully quick, and whereas The Duviri Paradox will be performed at any level throughout your journey, it follows its personal distinctive storyline and feels very completely different from the bottom recreation. I ask Ford why the staff has carried out this now, particularly after her earlier considerations about doing so.

“It is a survival technique,” she tells me. “That is the equal of the fish growing gills: it’s important to evolve to remain related. As shitty as it’d sound to somebody who treasures the Warframe story as a lot as we do – we would like everybody to play the hunt and really feel what we felt – there are individuals who simply wish to check out the sport at its greatest and see if it is value investing in.

“It is type of just like the equal of a demo of the latest trying, playable content material,” she continues. “Individuals could make choices in reverse: they’ll strive [Descendia and The Perita Rebellion] out and say ‘oh, that is completely value entering into, I’ll begin my quest journey.’ Should you do not evolve to do this, it is solely going to worsen for us, as a result of each time we add a brand new quest on the tail finish of the sport, the quantity of latest gamers which might be going to be prepared to get there’s going to be diminishing.

“That is a tough spot to be in in a market the place new video games are popping out the entire time,” she laments. “There’s new video games that launch which might be clearly impressed by Warframe, a lot so that you simply do elevate your eyebrows and suppose how, if somebody by no means needed to play Warframe, however heard that there is a recreation precisely like Warframe, they are going to go play that if it simply got here out.

“So [the Old Peace content skip] is a little bit of a survival technique,” she continues. “I believe it is a good compromise between what our mission assertion is and what gamers anticipate from video games in 2025 and now going into 2026. I like doing experiments that may make extra individuals play Warframe; essentially, if the scientific goal of that is ‘hey, extra individuals are going to play Warframe and provides it a strive,’ that is a very good factor. If that is the one technique to do it, let’s discover methods to make it higher subsequent time we strive.”

When requested within the pre-brief Q&A about whether or not the staff would contemplate providing related, content-skipping entry to different quests, Ford says that “we’d in all probability return with it to 1999 if it was tremendous profitable, however on the very least we’d preserve doing it for future updates. I do not know [how] we’d resolve on what makes it profitable; we do not actually have a really perfect participation worth, however we’ll positively do it sooner or later if it is good.”

Digital Extremes has confirmed that Warframe’s The Outdated Peace replace launches on Wednesday December 10. New gamers will be capable of play each the Descendia and Perita Revolt modes, whereas those that have performed everything of Warframe’s story may have entry to the remainder of the content material.

As somebody who was initially delay by the grind, I’ve actually fallen in love with Warframe’s story. The elimination of the Necramech requirement for The New Struggle definitely helped, however the narrative itself actually does decide up post-Awakening. So I too would, to borrow Ford’s phrases, “closely encourage” you to tear your approach by way of the Plains of Eidolon and expertise it for your self – plus, then you can romance Marie.