Warframe has been around for a while now. With the game coming up on its 12th anniversary, it’s become a staple in the world of live service. Who would have thought that space ninjas, farming Brakk well past your twenties, and farming cryotic for a melee weapon you’ll use for an hour would be so enticing to so many. In this time, the game has been blessed with 59 warframes in total. All distinct, all visually interesting, all respectable picks. Except Khora.
But what actually goes into making a Warframe? How long does it take, and how does the team manage to get them out on the endless treadmill all live service devs are cursed to walk, forever. Well, according to Pablo Alonso, design director on Warframe, there’s a lot of moving parts that determine how long it takes to make a frame, as well as what exactly goes into making a warframe.
VG247: How long, on average, would you say it takes to create a new warframe? From concept to playable.
Alonso: “It really depends, we’re concepting new Warframes all the time behind the scenes and are always coming up with new design ideas. Sometimes you have a really great concept and the game’s needs shift and you have to switch focus and come back to it later (if ever). But that’s also live service development – we need to create things that work for the game, its narrative, and our players, and those needs typically change as we go.”
“In general, there are so many layers to creating a Warframe, but everything starts with an idea and then you have to think about their abilities and weapon kit and cosmetics and then figure out how to make all of that work alongside 12+ years of content without breaking anything. Sometimes, we get through all those layers quickly, other times we encounter challenges that require us to go back to the drawing board and try something different so it’s tough to answer the question with a direct timeframe.”
VG247: Could you give a broad overview of what the design process looks like? Do you start with an aesthetic design, then figure out gameplay? Is it the other way around, or does it depend on the warframe?
Alonso: “It varies, sometimes it will start with a designer having a great mechanic idea that they want to explore, and then concept art teams will design a frame based on that. Other times, it starts with concept art and then a designer will create the mechanics and build out the gameplay based on the art. And sometimes, it will even be more based on the setting of where the update will be that inspires it (like Jade for our Narrative Update Jade Shadows). What is super important is that somewhere along the line, someone is passionate about it since that usually carries the Warframe to success.”
VG247: Could you provide some insight into the challenges present when trying to create a warframe to schedule, given the Warframe standard of quality. What points in a warframe’s development are the most challenging to overcome in time?
Alonso: “Since we have almost 60 Warframes (not including our Prime Warframes), we tend to try more crazy things now. All the basics have been explored at one point or another, so be it a Warframe whose abilities depend on the luck of a dice roll or one that can see through walls or be invisible, we are always trying new stuff.”
“And with new ideas, there will always be hard to predict pitfalls that you won’t know until you are there, which tends to make a mess for schedules. We try to put enough padding and be very diligent during prototyping to find those potential issues as early as possible.”
VG247: As a bonus question, do you have an anecdote that best personifies the challenges in the development process for a warframe? Something that sticks out as a great example of how hard it is to get the work done, as well as the effort it takes to get an agent over the finish line.
Alonso: We develop Warframe with a lot of transparency, which can be great to get early feedback, but also means sometimes you get a bucket of cold water thrown on you. For Garuda, we were initially planning to make one of her abilities her spinning and pulling enemies in to get cut by her claws. We showcased this on a devstream and players were not into it at all. They felt it was slow, and we already had other “spin-to-win” abilities that were not fan favorites. So, with just a few weeks to go until release, we scrapped the ability and made a brand-new one that players were much happier with. I think this is a pretty unique Warframe challenge, given how open we are about development of the game with our community.”