Warframe Tennocon 2021: The New War, Crossplay, Mobile, and more
With Tennocon 2021 wrapping up, I can confidently say this was a huge turning point for the future of Warframe. The whole show started off on a positive note, slowly building up to the game’s next huge expansion: The New War.
The New War was supposed to be released two years ago, but given some inevitable delays and the unfortunate COVID-19 pandemic that plagued the world for the majority of last year and this year, some goals couldn’t be met. Now, and with a more realistic release window, the hour is upon all the Tenno to dive into the next cinematic quest. There is more than meets the eye, however…
Before getting into the meat and potatoes of what was shown, Nightwave Intermission 3 will finally end on July 28, with the next main episode of the Nightwave series coming the week after. On August 4, Nora’s Choice, the next Nightwave Episode will be released. It is reported to be more “casual”. Judging by that, perhaps the weekly challenges will be easier to complete, and possibly just in time with the surge of new players after this event.
Next, the new frames coming to the game, revealed in the art segment of Tennocon are the long-awaited Nidus Prime and a sentient hybrid warframe named Caliban. As of now, I’m assuming Nidus Prime will be released in the second half of the month of August. As for Caliban, there was just some concept art done for them. They will most likely be seen in the New War update coming this year. There were also upcoming deluxe skin concept pieces for Baruuk, Protea, and Volt.
As for the main course of this Tennocon meal:
Crossplay and cross save are coming to Warframe
This is not a joke, it’s finally happening. In an article I wrote predicting what I want and what would realistically happen in last year’s Tennocon, I talked about cross play. Though, it was originally just supposed to be cross-save. This means that you can only transfer your progress from console to PC and vice versa. However, we get that AND cross play. All Warframe players rejoice, now you have an even bigger reason to badger your friends to play the game.
This means players on PC can play with others on the Nintendo Switch and Xbox, and surprisingly even the PlayStation consoles! This feature is currently in development and will come out in The New War update slated for some time this year.
Warframe goes mobile
If crossplay wasn’t enough, Warframe is now also coming to mobile phones! I have no idea how this will be practical, but it’s a meme that the dev team really took to great lengths. Warframe is such a complicated game due to the controller scheme; I can’t even begin to fathom how it’ll be played optimally without the need of some kind of physical controller.
Take that, Fortnite, you’re not the only game that is literally on every current console! But in all seriousness, this brings me and so many other players so much joy. Finally, Warframe Mobile will also be thrown into the crossplay mix.
The New War
We have known about The New War for some time now, but things have really come a long way since then. Spoilers ahead, so be warned. Following the events of The War Within, Chimera Prologue, and Erra, the brewing Sentient conflict has reached an all time high. They went ahead with a full-scale invasion in the Plains of Eidolon. The Corpus and Grineer are also at war with the Sentients.
As far as I was aware, this war seemed to only be a conflict between the Tenno and Sentients, but it has turned universal. Our sneak peek into this upcoming cinematic quest puts players in the reins of Teshin, the Conclave master, and two new characters — Grineer soldier Kahl 175 and Corpus engineer Veso— who will hopefully be recurring figures in the Warframe character directory.
This is actually going to be something I look forward to the most. You’ll actually be able to play with characters outside of the Tenno, and not in your typical Warframe manner. Will this create a desperate alliance with all the factions to quell the Sentient invasion? We’ll see more as the days come closer. As of now, let the fan speculations begin. This is reportedly going to be the longest scripted quest yet
Warframe is out now on all major platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series S|X, and PC (Steam and Epic). The game’s mobile release is to be determined.