Warframe Update 30: Call of the Tempestarii is a worthwhile investment

The Empyrean mode has been one of Warframe’s more ambitious projects as of late, and it has gotten the much-needed support and tuning it needed from its initial launch. Before, it was that ambitious idea that would be the game to end all games. It was the 10/10 game mode but with a 6/10 execution given the performance issues, bugs, balancing issues, and disconnection from the rest of Warframe.

Empyrean— or Railjack (the mode’s name is interchangeable)— is in a dramatically better place than it was at launch, and it’s starting to actually become more connected to the rest of the game. Since 2019, the dev team at Digital Extremes took the community feedback and gave it better balancing, fewer barriers to entry, and worthwhile rewards.

In Update 30: Call of the Tempestarii, railjack and all things Empyrean just became more worth the investment. Not only do you need a railjack to partake in the newly added quest, but it’s also how you can acquire new weapons, better railjack gear, prime parts, and even the newly added Sevagoth.

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Technically, Update 29.10 added the additional Venus, Neptune, and Pluto Proxima regions to the game. Console players received this and the Tempestarii update in one package, so there’s more to uncover and dive into. The whole railjack modding system should be much more familiar with the rest of the things you mod in-game like frames and weapons. To be honest, I didn’t like that everything translated differently between the old railjack and the game. With the new additions, everything is more easily understood and easier to explain to newer players.

Of course to veterans like myself, this does just seem like another fancy grinding island to burn a few extra hours, but this time it’s different. The updates prior to this one mostly just added new tilesets, new materials to farm, a new Warframe to play with, and maybe a quest to introduce a new mission mode. While that is true here, there isn’t just an endless node to farm on and mindlessly slay away at enemies until you receive the materials you need. There’s more depth, more flare, and more planning.

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Railjack missions used to be very one-dimensional, making players destroy X amount of ships, disable a missile platform, and assassinate a captain. Now there’s more mission variety, side objectives, and a decently worthwhile grind. The gameplay approach is much more methodical and doesn’t just have players resorting to “delete all enemies and go to the extraction.”

New modes in Update 30 include the Volatile missions and returning Orphix missions. Speaking of the Orphix missions, playing those gives players an alternative to grind for the highly sought-out Arcane Enhancements. You can also play defense and exterminate missions while aboard capital ships in the Corpus Proxima regions.

In addition to the new modes, there are unique void storm variants throughout all the Proxima regions. They’re essentially the fissure missions you can partake in when playing normal ground missions. Pick a relic before starting the mission and collect ten reactants in the mission. Given the high level scaling in later regions, the difficulty is set at a good pace where I don’t get to just breeze through content and burn out from relic farming.

Digital Extremes /

More additions to this hefty update include the long-awaited Command Intrinsic. Essentially, this Intrinsics tree is mostly for players taking on railjack missions by themselves. You can recruit converted Kuva Liches to be part of your squad, or you can hire crewmates via Ticker in Fortuna. You can assign your crewmates different roles like gunner, defender, engineer, or even pilot.

To enhance the single-player aspects of things, you can let non-Kuva Lich crewmates wield a primary or secondary weapon from your arsenal. You can even customize their colors, armor, and even equip them with syandanas! Do note that as of writing this, the rank 10 Command Intrinsic level is unavailable.

Digital Extremes /