How Warframe Gets Storytelling Right

I've been playing Digital Extremes' Warframe since it was in beta testing, on-again and off-again. Because of the way that I discovered it, I didn't have a chance to experience the storyline until a couple years after I started playing; at first because there was no storyline, and later because I had taken a break from the game for a pretty long chunk of time.

Since I got back into Warframe, however, I've noticed that its story missions actually do a really good job of making the game feel meaningful and building a universe around the player. Although they're somewhat minimal compared to, say, a traditional roleplaying game with tens of thousands of lines of interactive dialogue, for a game that's predominantly a shooter it's able to achieve a level of depth that wouldn't be possible elsewhere.

Warframe's story is told in a way that matches its format; short cutscenes, occasional choices (most of which simply add flavor to a foregone conclusion), and short exposition usually coming in the form of dialogue in the background of gameplay.

This gets the player through the first sections of the plot, where they learn what a warframe is and how the universe is set up in various factions, and meet the important cast of characters.

And this is where Warframe really shines in storytelling: the characters are presented in small snippets, and we're immediately aware of the role they play in the universe because of a combination of simplicity and drive. They're not so overly flat as to be meaningless, but we know that they have a particular goal and we can follow along with them. Often we discover that they have more depth (e.g. a greedy excavator who discovers there may be truth to the legends he ignores) than we originally thought, but this comes as a layer underneath their surface.

Basically, other than a couple well-executed plot twists, characters fit a certain role, whether they're a potential ally or a potential hindrance, and the story focuses on the player character's relationship to them.

And this works really well, in part because most of Warframe's characters are really clever and have value in driving the plot forward (or sometimes simply serving as comic relief).

However, once the plot thickens (and there are spoilers ahead, so if you want to experience the game unsullied then you should stop reading now), the game hits a layer of depth that isn't quite seen in other games.

One of the strengths of Warframe is the feeling of power that it gives players; it's not an easy game (at least if you push the limits), but with high mobility and a lot of options for bringing heavy firepower into the field, there are few reasons to feel weak or vulnerable through the game.

This stops when, at a point in the storyline, the player unlocks the Operator.

The Operator is the true identity of the player's character, the person behind the warframe that they use for most of the game.

The Operator is not (at the start) a capable fighter, like their warframe. They're little more than a child locked in semi-stasis for a long time, and they immediately face their nemesis, as they are carried to their ship by their own warframe (which they control using their mind).

This is followed by a plot-line in which the Sentients, an ancient enemy, begin to awaken, and the Lotus, the Operator's closest ally, goes into hiding.

With the help of a surrogate mentor, they have to face their greatest challenge and unlock their full potential, but in doing so they face threats that are much more raw and powerful than the ones they face in their warframe. The player can't use their warframes for much of this quest line, and as a result they're stuck with less mobility and much less durability.

Combine this with a deep integration of the backstory of the protagonists and their rivals and you've got a recipe to learn lost legends and deeper knowledge of the universe. The vulnerability combines with the desire for exploration to create a sort of child-like wonder in the player.

The Tenno, of whom the Operator is one, were children aboard a FTL vessel that encountered a mysterious force/plane called the Void. All the adults went mad, but the children were changed to channel the power of the Void themselves, leading to their later ability to control warframes.

The player is able to choose the back-story of their individual Tenno, going through dialogue selections that force them to engage with the backstory but don't require them to be bogged down by it. They learn how to use the Operator's powerful abilities, but while doing so they are confronted with challenges that would be easy with a warframe and are near-impossible with their now-limited power.

Up to this point, the player has been experiencing a lot of power and agency, and this twists that around. Further quests allow the player to continue on a journey to embracing and unlocking their power fully, but the new threats that are awakening still require a reckoning.

Rather than trying to do one overarching drawn-out narrative, this all comes in short chunks–each being an hour or two of play at most–but allows for the player to experience different stories that each can have its own lesson while still building toward a theme.

Each chunk of story also focuses on two or three major characters heavily (sometimes shifting at a midpoint to different characters), which gives the opportunity to build rapport.

And perhaps the most important thing that Warframe does that really pushes its storytelling over the edge from merely being competent to being truly good is that it always focuses on discovery, and it uses its medium well. We see snippets and slivers, and we're left to figure out the rest on our own.