After more than nine years of cultivating the success of Warframe, Digital Extremes embarks on a brand new project. Soulframe will be a completely free-to-play fantasy MMORPG.
[Updated July 18, 2022 at 10:52 a.m.] It was through an article in the Washington Post that the information reached us this weekend. Digital Extremes, the studio behind the popular Warframe, embarks on a whole new adventure with its new Soulframe game. The one that will be a completely free-to-play MMORPG was revealed to us by a trailer entirely in computer graphics, and seems to leave the futuristic world of Warframe for a more fantastic universe. It is also Steve Sinclair, the director of Warframe, who confirmed that this game would be strongly influenced by the themes of nature and its fight against the influence of men. Themes that are reminiscent of the worlds of Princess Mononoke or Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, the two masterpieces of Ghibli studios. On the other hand, it will be necessary to wait a little bit to learn more about Soulframe, the game being only in the infancy of its development. At least that gives us time to go over everything we know about him in this article.
It was therefore by a legend that we were introduced to the Soulframe universe. That of a hero rejected by his family, left for dead then saved by nature. Soulframe’s themes are strong and central to its plot, reminiscent of Studio Ghibli’s work on some of their finest creations. There are questions about the influence of Man on nature and the destruction he engenders, in a new universe that seems rich and entirely unique. Granted, at times the character aesthetic can be vaguely reminiscent of some Warframe armor, but the resemblance seems to end there. Information confirmed by Steve Sinclair who defined the world of Soulframe as “a new and strange vision of fantasy moving away from the SF-mecha genre of Warframe”.
While Warframe is a movement and speed-based third-person shooter, Soulframe seems to be taking an entirely different route than its predecessor. Sinclair said it himself: “Where Warframe is shooting focused, this one is melee focused. Where Warframe is super fast and goes insanely fast, this one will be much slower and heavier. But it still has a lot of similarities to that genre we’re experienced for.” And by similarities, Sinclair clearly means the great importance of PvE in Soulframe, which does not intend to move away from its venerable elder on the aspects of cooperation in multiplayer.
As for the pure and hard gameplay of Soulframe, we know that it intends to place exploration at the heart of its multiplayer experience. Digital Extremes intends to make the game universe more alive for new players, and also wants to keep the system of large hubs open to exploration, similar to that of Warframe or further to that of Destiny 2. The studio does not also not hide the influence of some big releases like that of Elden Ring, saying that discussions about it had to take place as the quality of the latest creation from From Software is immense.
