Warframe prepares for its next mission with a massive spring cleaning update
Pass the broom
A new threat is preparing to take on Warframe's interstellar ninjas. Operation Scarlet Spear kicks off next month, pushing the sci-fi stakes higher as The Sentient begin their system-wide invasion. Wait, we're having visitors? Oh gosh, but the place is a mess. Before the next battle can begin in earnest, developers Digital Extremes have decided to put together a doozy of a housekeeping update, bringing dozens of quality-of-life changes to Warframe early next week.
Revealed earlier this week, Operation Scarlet Spear will have players teaming up to take on a new threat on foot and in their fancy new spaceships. Once intending to bring their quality-of-life changes to Warframe alongside Scarlet Spear, Digital Extremes explained that they've brought the revisions forwards a bit to give players more time to feel out the changes in a 20-part developer workshop stream.
Titled Review, Revise, Refresh, there are too many changes to list in this humble news post. I'll run through some of the more notable changes coming next week here.
Warframe introduced spaceships and space battles with its big Empyrean expansion late last year. 'Course, you had a to build your ship - the Railjack - first, and doing so cost a lot of time and money. With the Railjack playing a key role in Scarlet Spear, the devs want to make it easier to get your shiny metal ass into orbit - reducing construction costs by 66-75%, and cutting the time required to assemble ship parts by 6 hours each. The Railjack has also been given a once-over to fix up a few bugs before its next outing.
Based on feedback, Digital Extremes have implemented some of their previously-teased UI changes - starting their removal of hold-to-confirm functionality on certain screens, improving controller support placing item labels on by default. Grenades thrown by baddies now have visual markers to help keep them from getting lost in hectic brawls.
The maximum field-of-view has been cranked up from 78 to 80 degrees. Additionally, Warframe is getting some small graphical improvements, letting players preview HDR support and deferred rendering on supported hardware. Then there's everything else, of course - balance changes, buffs to status chance mods, new blueprints and the like.
I've not touched Warframe since its earliest days, so I'm afraid you'll have to work out yourselves what these alterations mean to you. A lengthy rundown can be pored through over on Digital Extreme's lengthy update post.
Once Warframe's done cleaning things up, though, it can get back to the important business of chopping up space baddies. Scarlet Spear isn't alone in the pipeline either. It'll be followed in April by the Deadlock Protocol, taking on the Corpus with a new 'frame (Protea) and a remastered tileset.