The New War. It’s finally here.
I picked up Warframe in Summer 2018 just after The Sacrifice dropped, which was the last mainline cinematic quest. Since then, there’s been 2 open worlds dropped, a space fighter game mode, two different types of Shadow of Mordor-style nemeses, and a half-dozen of smaller cinematic quests that advanced some aspects of the story. But since 2018, we’ve only gotten 4 glimpses at what Lotus/Natah was doing, how the Sentient threat was going to be posed to the system, and what our role in the story was going to be. So, with that in mind, how did the New War do? How well did it bridge the disparate parts of the universe together, and wrap up the main story of Warframe that started in The Second Dream?
It’s alright I guess.
There’s a lot that happens in The New War (henceforth TNW). A lot of it is really good. The quest as a whole was fun to play. There were some audible “oh shiiiiit” moments. But TNW can’t escape the jank that Warframe, that defines what Warframe is. At its core, the game is made by a team that’s pretty damn small for a game with the scope and scale of Warframe. The countless delays and the pandemic have only accentuated this, and TNW as a quest, as an idea, suffers because of it.
I’m going to start just by going through an overview of what actually happens in TNW. Spoilers, obviously, but I will be openly discussing everything that happens in the 4.5 hours it took me to beat the quest. There’ll be some points where I go off on discussions of what happens and my thoughts thereof, but I’ll have a conclusion of my main takeaways of TNW and the future of Warframe in general. Let’s get cracking.
The quest begins with the Sentient invasion, specifically focusing on Cetus and the Plains of Eidolon. Those who watched this year’s Tennocon will not be surprised to see our buddy Kahl, a Grineer lancer tasked with killing his way to a giant Sentient killing everything around it. A noticeable departure from the Tennocon preview is that you go through all of Kahl’s gameplay uninterrupted, followed by Veso and Teshin who each again have their entire segments uninterrupted. From a narrative stance (and gameplay) this makes sense, especially as the stores are presented in chronological order, but I will admit that the presentation at Tennocon was superb and I do kinda wish I could have played it like that. However no real complaints, just an alternative way this could have gone. Anyway, Kahl, you kill your way to the Condrix, grab a bomb, and as you are about to blow it up Erra, the Sentient leader, shows up and goes “Don’t be afraid”, seemingly mind controlling Kahl and ending that section.
Next up, Veko. Again, showed at Tennocon, you can summon a Moa that blows up and uses computers, a shield drone, and a shooty Moa. You run through a Corpus ship to turn off the defenses so Alad V can surrender to the Sentient fleet, killing some Moas that again have been controlled by the Sentients. There’s two sections that are a little frustrating, both involving a mechanic that’s not explained very well at all: you need to hover your shield drone over the 1st moa to give him enough health to survive electricity on the floor. Two issues: one, it’s not explained at all that this is a thing and two, it’s really finnicky to do. Also, one of the times you need to do it, you’re fighting a Jackal boss. So yeah, low pressure. But you get on with it, run your way through the ship, turn off the weapons, until Teko has second thoughts at his clearly evil boss who keeps forgetting his name deciding to sell out to the enemies of life. Viko instead rearms the ship, shoots the Sentient Murex, and then the ship gets hit with a billion lasers. Woops!
Not to worry, because now the real heroes have shown up, specifically, you the Tenno. You fly in on your Railjack and have to clear a path to the giant mothership to launch Teshin, your Dax buddy. The mothership has Orphix fields, rendering your Warframe useless, so Teshin needs to be the one to go in and kill all those Orphixes. The enemy ships before you are pretty useless, all things considered. Using the seeker missiles, I easily dispatched them all, then shot my Big Iron at a smaller Murex, killing it, then launched Teshin. Then I get to play as Teshin. Again, as shown at Tennocon, Teshin has two swords and his glaive that he can grapple to to go real fast. He can also change the element on his swords, which is good because there’s Sentients that are only vulnerable to one of those three elements. So you go through the mothership, killing Sentients, turing off security Orphixes, and there’s a miniboss fight you do twice. It’s a pretty simple one, but still fun enough, just beat his ass with the element he’s showing and like all Dark Souls big bosses, stay glued to the booty. So Teshin finishes off his task, then goes to hunt down Ballas, Erra, and Natah. And… gets captured.
Well, I say gets captured, but we see Teshin going through a portal, then the next scene comes and he’s being tortured by Erra while Ballas mocks you, the Tenno, telling you to come save him. Apparently he has a creepy mask that’s making him relive past memories or something. So you teleport in, blast Erra, but you’re too late, Teshin has been killed. To make matters worse, Lotus is here, calling you child, but she’s real fucked up. Ballas steals her power, then opens up a portal to the Void to dump her in. You try to hold on, but Ballas pulls out the Paracesis and chops off Lotus’s arm, sending her into the portal. Ballas then stabs you through the chest and dumps you into the same portal as Erra watches.
I’ve got a few things to say about this part.
First of all, there are several plot holes. Why is Natah so messed up? They use her to power something at the end of The Maker, was that it? Why is Ballas in control? Erra has been pulling him around on a leash the entire Prelude to war. Was that all an act? Why did Ballas give you the Paracesis then? Are there multiple Ballases? That isn’t a joke, by the way, the Ballas in this cinematic does not look like the one from The Maker, their eyes are different as are the legs. Significantly so. Are we supposed to take from this that Ballas is still alive? The end of the quest makes a pretty strong point to say he’s dead. And as the next scene shows, now Ballas is in charge again. What? Why isn’t Erra? Is Erra not Erra? Why does he help you at the end of the quest then?
A lot of these points can’t exist in the same universe, and while the quest later opens up the possibility of multiverses (we’ll get to that shit in a minute), there’s no indication this is the case. It might be any of these, but there’s so much going on here that I think they just expected people to accept “wow emotional moment such quest” and not actually question any of the glaring issues that this scene arises.
But now we move on to chapter 2. Ballas has taken control of the system under the name Narmer. The story resumes with a hooded figure stalking the forests of Earth to free some Ostrons and killing Grineer mind controlled by the same type of mask that was on Teshin. You play as this figure, who can heal their self, throw a smoke bomb, and has a radar ping. Also a pistol with a hard to use overcharge, it’s neat. You also have a knife that I only found out about like 3 missions later. Also, it’s clearly an aged-up Tenno. There’s a scrambled figure saying words like Archons acting as your mission coordinator as you go through this Grineer factory. As you do, you find a bunch of Sentients and possessed Grineer putting a mask on an Ostron. So you kill them all and then an Archon appears and kicks some serious ass. You flee onto a Grineer shuttle, turning back to see that the Archon is a Mag Prime with a giant snake head. That was pretty cool.
You fly back to your base as Nora Night talks about you and how the Tenno are all gone, where you finally reveal yourself to be, surprise surprise, an aged-up Tenno. For a bit after this, I was stuck with some pretty ugly hair and face but the color palette was clearly “Tenno” so I got the gist. You go to your previous Tenno chair where, surprise, you have the Lotus. She’s in even worse shape, and your coordinator, Ordis in a new body, mentions that you don’t have any idea how to use Eidolon powers to fix her. You agree, but mention that you do know someone that could help, who Ordis is shocked to hear you even consider.
I had no idea who they were talking about, but apparently to get to them I’ll need a Corpus shuttle, so we go to Fortuna. There’s an excellent inversion of “We All Lift Together” in “For Narmer” which is one of the highlights of the entire quest. It’s a great song and the corruption of probably the most well-known scene in Warframe is super cool. You sneak through Fortuna, avoiding Deacons who want to put a mask on you to mind control you, hearing Little Duck who has apparently escaped control. She offers you a shuttle off world at a factory through the Orb Vallis. There’s also a new hacking minigame that’s… fine. It’s kinda neat at first but it uses inverted controls so gets annoying fast.
You enter the factory, learning from Little Duck that you need to wear one of the mind control masks to do so. You put one on, and we learn the method of mind control is that Ballas is telling you that the person you thought loved you doesn’t, and in reality it’s Ballas that loves you and you should love him, all will be one in Ballas. Weird dude. But you sneak around more, shoot some dudes, and eventually bust your way out and get on a Corpus shuttle and head back to your base. Also, I should mention, your base is just your orbiter, crashed on the ground. It’s cool.
Anyway, you now can head to the outer system, specifically to Uranus, for the mission “Enemy of Enemies”, and it was here I was like “wait, are we gonna go recruit HUNHOW???” And yes, you do. You kill some dudes and descend into the deep, all the while the Stalker follows you, killing some dudes before you. You get down into the Hunhow Zone where he taunts you, asks why he shouldn’t have Stalker kill you, you know typicall grandpa stuff. You mention having his kid, and it becomes clear he’s just super jaded and real upset as his other kid (suggesting again that, yeah, that’s the real Erra). You discuss the Archons, where the game tells you their moveset and how to fight them, and Hunhow says “lol good luck” and you make it clear that you’re not giving up. Hunhow sighs and says “fuck it” and gives you a Sentient bow to kill the Archons and take their power to give to Natah. He then summons a bunch of Sentients of his own to make sure you’re up for the task, which you are because you’re a badass. Then you head back to your base.
You also get access to customization here so I spent the next 5 minutes fixing my drip. You also get some flashbacks to the Zariman ship, in a class. Specifically, a class about time taught by Mother, aka Gomairu, aka Euleria Entrati. The gist of it is basically quantum time, where until observed, all possibilities exist, and even if observed, you can still get the other possibilities if you use the void. Oh boy. Ohhhhhhh boy. Let’s get into this.
Time travel and alternate timelines are nothing new to fiction, but they’re kinda new to Warframe. Which is an issue, because Warframe wasn’t built on the framework off having time travel be a part of the narrative. But due to how time travel is so powerful, any story that features it by necessity becomes a time travel story. Which is a problem for Warframe. The conceit of Warframe is that you’re a Tenno, master of gun and blade, using your powers to bring stability and peace to the system. But if you have quantum time travel, suddenly nothing you do matters. Schrodinger’s cats all die and live regardless of what you do. Every possibility happens regardless of if you interact with them or not. This could help Warframe by suggesting that this is how multiple boss fights happen, how the whole Alad V situation came to be, how some quests get finished before others, etc. But they’re not doing that here. What they’re doing is using this to have both you, the Drifter, the Tenno without void powers, and the Operator both be in the same universe at the same time. And they don’t do a good job of explaining that, either.
I said in my tl;dr review that the quest was “too Steve” and while I don’t want to put the entire story on one dude, it reeks of so many other story decisions that we’ve seen in the past. The entire thing is big, weighty, has moral and philosophical implications, could be used for all manner of gameplay and story stuff, but… isn’t. It’s just another topic/content island used for one quest and discarded without considering the implications. Obviously, this is the most recent quest, and they might address this further in the future (and it’s implied they will) but how it’s addressed in this quest is pretty concerning, because again, taken as is, this concept removes the weight from every action you take.
Moving on, you’ve got three choices of Archon to fight. If you’re reading this and haven’t done the quest, DO NOT GO TO EARTH. I have heard horror stories of that one. Fight the other two, they’re fine. But it is time for monster hunting. I started at Jupiter, where I got to hear Erra and Hunhow hash out their issues, Hunhow insulting Erra for following Ballas, Erra mocking his dad, good stuff all around. Anyway, you kill Corpus and Sentients until you run into the first Archon, the snake-Mag you saw earlier. She’s tough, but you revive instantly when downed (Stalker does it for you actually), so it’s fine. You kill the Archon, Stalker uses his scythe on her, then gives you the big Eidolon crystal. You head home, feed the crystal to Natah, who starts looking better. Then she snaps at you, which is concerning, but whatever you’ve got more crystals to find.
Another flashback happens, where the Zariman void incident has happened and you need to barricade the door from the hungry parents and care for the other Tenno. You walk around the room, help out others, and then you see yourself in the back corner with a way too big smile. Oh shit, it’s Wally. You just got Hey Kiddoed.
Your next mission is on Mars, where Erra realizes “oh shit you’re the Tenno”, and says that he’s gonna resurrect Natah first… which, why did you let her die in the first place dude??? Do you have any agency here? What is your purpose in all this? But you kill more Grineer, the next Archon (who’s Rhino with a wolf head, cool ass design), and feed mommy another crystal. She’s waking up now, and remembers herself as Natah, which is not good because now she starts shooting you. Awkward. A “fight” happens, and you have another flashback, where it’s revealed that you specifically made the deal with the devil, shook the hand of The Indifference, and got all of the Tenno void powers from The Man in the Wall. Great going there, hero.
You flash back and forth, and as you shake Wally’s hand in the past, it turns into the Drifter’s hand, sending Operator into the present with void powers restored. Natah runs away, going to kick Ballas’s ass, as a cutscene shows Ballas pissed as he still doesn’t have his precious Margulis. Erra tries to console him, but fails, and we jump to the Operator back in the wreckage of Zariman. This section is kinda confusing, as you’re supposed to follow yourself, but that’s easier said than done. Eventually, you get to your house, where the Drifter is, making you guys lunch. You have a chat, the Drifter reveals they’re the you that didn’t get void powers, and you discuss who should go rescue Lotus. I chose Operator because I spend a bunch of plat on Operator cosmetics and wanted to flex them. You get sent back to your operator chair, your ship all ready to fly and your Warframe back in action. It’s time to go fuck up Ballas and save Lotus.
Chapter 3 has you headed to Cetus, to climb the tower of Unum. It’s been taken over by Sentients, so you take masks off some important people, fly a hot air balloon up, and kill a ton of Sentients as you clean up the tower. On your way up, you purge Sentient influence from the tower, and as you reach the top it turns out Unum is some sort of entity that sees all of time. She sends you onto the Murex that Lotus stole to go fly to Ballas’s fleet. Lotus isn’t super happy to see you since she wants this to herself and you’re positive she can’t handle it, so she sends Sentients at you to stop you. Rude.
Lotus reveals Ballas has the Sentient Devourer ship that he’ll use to eat the fucking sun and then go to Tau on his own. That’s not good, but she’s still not willing to let you join her, so you leave the ship… somehow, only to get picked up by good ol’ Cephalon Cy and your Railjack. You chase after Lotus and Ballas through a debris field near the fucking Sun, which is spewing out solar flares that will melt you. Fortunately, the debris field doesn’t melt so you can use that as a shield. You get close to the Devourer and launch yourself in a Necramech onto the ship.
I’ve kinda been going fast through this chapter, but that’s just because there’s not much to say. This is peak Warframe, my guns kick ass, my abilities are great, there’s a clear goal and baddies to beat. Chapter 3 is excellent game design through and through and I’ve got no real complaints about it, you just use all your abilities and kick ass with them. It’s a great time and DE should be proud they made it.
But back to the story, you get on the Devourer, and look, there’s Erra. He betrays Ballas, and offers to guide you to him so you can beat his punk ass up. You charge through with your Necramech, until Erra sacrifices himself to hold up some debris so you can go fight the final Archon. Using your Operator form, you go destroy the Orphix fields, then get back in your Warframe and kill the Archon in literally 5 seconds. I counted.
You get that last crystal, then go find Ballas and Lotus, fighting as you do. Lotus isn’t happy to see you, but Ballas is, and he steals the crystal, absorbs its power, then mind controls Lotus to make her love him. Fuckin’ incel. You fight Lotus, and have to shoot these giant orbs to beat her. You do this, she breaks Ballas’s control, and then he starts shooting sun lasers at both of you. To beat him, you need to trick him into shooting the same giant orbs. He tries to kill Lotus, but she blasts his ass. Unfortunately, his Incel powers are strong, and he stabs her. Not with his penis though. Still a virgin. Distracted, however, he misses you jumping on his back and putting his own mind control mask on him. He goes to kiss Lotus, who steals all his and her power, killing his ass. But before y’all can celebrate, shit get’s real real. The same void portal from earlier starts to open, and Lotus protects you as she tries to close the portal. But from the portal, A GIANT FUCKING WALL WITH A STONE SMILING DUDE IN IT APPEARS. On top, is of course Wally, laughing as the wall blots out the sky, turns off color, chants ominously, jumpscares Lotus, and leaves, closing the portal behind it. Yikes.
Lotus collapses, and in another excellent scene, you have an inversion of the end of the Second Dream, where you carry her to her chair. She’s confused, but you talk her through it, getting your therapist degree in the process. You’ve got the option of choosing which version of her will narrate your missions (though you can buy the others), and that wraps up the quest. You got the Lotus back, Ballas is dead, and the system… is unchanged. Well, there’s new bounties to fight Narmer enermies that are identical to old bounties and old enemies except for the masks and the glowly Sentient symbol. But that’s it. Quest over.
There’s a lot to like about this quest. The third chapter is fantastic. The visuals are great. The story with the Lotus is really well done. Hunhow and Stalker continue to be cool as hell. However, it feels like we missed a quest between this one and the Preludes. Ballas in particular is just a mess of a character and a plot device. There are literal, unreconcilable plot holes in his appearance, personality, and relationships. The way TNW handles time is a mess at best, incomprehensible at worst. Erra is only slightly less incomprehensible than Ballas.
There’s also no sense of time in this. How much time passes between the start of the quest and Chapter 2? How long have the Narmer been in control? Drifter is older than Operator, but the time mechanics don’t make clear if that’s because of artificial stuff or natural stuff and it has really been years.
There’s also a lot of issues with scale, scope, and continuity. What is Narmer? Why make up a new name for Ballas’s Sentient empire? Why aren’t there other resistance movements? What’s happening with other important people? Hell, where are the other Tenno? There are others, we see a dead Rhino canonically that isn’t you. Why aren’t they helping you? And if they were all enslaved, what happens now? Is Vay Hek a Narmerite? Where are the Grineer Queens? They’re Orokin, why aren’t they trying to stop Ballas? I could go on, but the picture has hopefully been made.
The future of Warframe is pretty interesting though. There’s a lot of stuff implied with alternate realities, and the path to the Plains of Duviri is pretty clear. The Indifference is the clear new major antagonist, and we’re gonna have to deal with his shit soon.
I’ve been critical, but I enjoyed TNW. It’s probably like a 7/10 quest, worse than The Second Dream and Sacrifice, but better than The War Within. They hit some stuff out of the park, but missed the landing on some other stuff. Overall, I liked more than I didn’t, though I admit I gave a lot of benefit of the doubt in the moment that, were I to play again, would not happen. However, for a free game, Warframe continues to have excellent quests and is a very strong game.
