During PAX East this year, Digital Extremes hosted a live Devstream that unveiled a lot of goodies for the Warframe community. Devstream 178 not only showed off a very cool trailer, revealing Arthur’s companion, Aoi in Warframe: 1999. Who will be voiced by Alpha Takahashi from Cyberpunk: 2077. But Jade Shadows, a surprise update that will tell an all-new story involving the Stalker in cinematic quest format. As well as a glimpse of Protea Prime, and an extensive Q&A with the live crowd.

I was in the audience with so many burning questions that I knew asking them during the event would have deprived so many eager fans. But luckily, Digital Extremes was able to give us the opportunity of asking a series of questions of regarding what we saw in the Devstream. Here are a series of questions that Megan Everett, Community Director of Digital Extremes and Live Operations, was able to answer for us.

Warframe Devstream 178 Q&A

I started off by asking the following: “How long has Warframe: 1999 been in the works? There is a level of depth to everything we have seen so far.”

To which Megan replied with:

I think the initial idea for 1999 was conceived in 2022, so it’s been bouncing around in all of our brains since then! The moment Rebecca Ford came on board as Creative Director, she was cooking with fire right out of the gate.

So, it would appear the upcoming expansion this year has at least two years of consistent work being put into it. But how big could it end up being?

To follow up on that thought, I asked: “When it comes to Warframe: 1999, can we get a comparison of the scale of this expansion? Something along the lines of The New War, or maybe Whispers in the Walls?”

And Megan explained:

It’s so hard for us to compare these content drops to one another, Rebb would say it’s like choosing your favorite child almost, haha. It’s honestly an ambitious update and every release before this one over the past 11 years has honed the team’s skills to the highest level possible to improve the next. It’s the culmination of a full decade of partnerships, relationships, and memories with our players! It’s definitely on a whole new level we have never explored until now.

It is sounding more and more that Warframe: 1999 may be comparable to either The Duviri Paradox, or even Railjack. Due to how much emphasis there is on the experimental nature of it. Nothing is still confirmed as of right now, and the full gameplay reveal for Warframe: 1999 is slated for TennoCon in July.

But when it comes to everything we have seen thus far about Warframe: 1999, one thing that stands out is its overall aesthetic and tone, to which I asked: “What inspired the overall tone for Warframe: 1999? It feels so unique, with a blend of futurist sci-fi and its gritty old-school aesthetic.”

To which Megan replied with:

Warframe: 1999 has the gritty sci-fi near-future setting of the Matrix series (and our version of motorcycles, too – ‘Atomicycles’), but we also return to our roots and are embracing the aesthetic of Dark Sector, a very important game in our studio’s history. Warframe probably wouldn’t be here today without Dark Sector! Players in the community have also made a lot of references to Metal Gear, a series many of us on the team consider a favorite. What we don’t want players to lose sight of with 1999 is that it is still Warframe at its core and our gameplay will very much reflect that.

That last part is a reference to how a lot of the community do not generally enjoy the cinematic feel of certain quests and game modes. Such as Duviri, and The New War. But one more question about the general design for Warframe: 1999 I had was the following: “Were there any specific inspirations for the Proto-Warframe designs for both Arthur and Aoi?”

With Megan giving a short and sweet answer:

Eagle-eyed fans have spotted some similarities between Arthur and Hayden Tenno from Dark Sector… and we’ll neither confirm nor deny that but keep digging!

But I knew that with the gameplay reveal in a few months, there were more important questions to ask. Such as those related to the endgame of Warframe. Mainly the new Deep Archimedea activity: “When it comes to Dante Unbound, the new activity “Deep Archimedea” sounds a lot like the raids Warframe had years ago, like Law of Retribution. Can we expect to see more of this type of activity in future updates?”

To which she explained where activities like it will fit into Warframe as a whole:

We are very hesitant to make specific promises for things like Trials, but we do know later game content for veteran players is immensely important. We’ve added Steel Path Alerts recently and Deep Archimedea is a new challenging experiment for us that also acts as a fresh way to deliver some of the highest-tier rewards possible for players.That being said though, we also realize not everyone likes to be challenged in that way. We want Warframe to be a game that works for you when you want it to. Want to go fishing for hours or grind out gear to complete the perfect Fashion Frame look? Do it! Want to take down endless hordes of our strongest enemies? You can do that, too! Why don’t you go ahead and be invisible while you’re manipulating time and calling in Air Support while you’re at it? So, we will always continue to experiment with what “true end game” content looks like.

There are a lot of people who either migrate from or bounce between it and Destiny 2. So, while more direct, squad focused activities may come down the line. It sounds like it will be additive to overall endgame experience of the game and not their focus as they move forward. I did also ask: “Will there be more Incarnon weapons in the future? The Ruvox and Onos seem very interesting.” Considering they are mostly impressive weapons in the recent update.

Megan responded with just:

Yes, no, maybe. Stay tuned!

And finally, when it came to breaking down all of the Warframe related news. The upcoming Jade Shadows update that will launch sometime before TennoCon this year in July. I asked the following: “When Jade Shadows was revealed during Devstream 178, it was mentioned that it will involve the Stalker in its narrative focus. Will the structure for the cinematic quest mentioned be similar to past quests like The Sacrifice or The War Within?”

And Megan’s response went hand and hand with some news that Digital Extremes announced today:

While I would love to answer this, I can’t! It would really be a spoiler. All I’ll say is expect the unexpected and look forward to peeling back more of the Stalkers onion.

It was announced today that Devstream 179 will be going into more detail about what we saw at PAX East. This news was dropped from their newest weekly Devshorts stream, that you can watch here.

Special thank you to Megan Everett for her time and Digital Extremes for allowing us this opportunity.

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