TennoCon 2024: Warframe: 1999 Q&A With Megan Everett

During TennoCon 2024, the big-ticket item on everyone’s agenda was Warframe: 1999, the big content expansion that is slated for winter of this year. It not only showed incredibly well during TennoLive, but it was the general theme of TennoCon itself, right down to the very signage in the convention center. Considering there so much was shown of Warframe: 1999, and no doubt there will be more shown throughout the year leading up to launch. We at Lords of Gaming were given the privilege of sending over some questions to Megan Everett, the Community Director of Digital Extremes, regarding what we saw during Tennolive, and she was able to give us her time to answer them.

What Inspired Warframe: 1999 and Where Does it Land in the Timeline?

Considering Warframe: 1999 is very different to what we usually see in the game, I decided to start our Q&A with the following: “What was the inspiration for Digital Extremes to go with the idea of Warframe: 1999 as a follow up to Whispers in the Walls, and what inspired the choices of the Protoframes? Such as Excalibur, Nyx, Trinity, Cyte-09, Volt and Trinity?” And Megan gave a very lengthy and interesting lore filled response:

“In the early development days of the Albrecht Entrati storyline, we knew we had an opportunity to go a little wild with it in terms of the age-old question “Where did Albrecht Entrati go?” The players have known for a while now about his fumblings with The Man in the Wall, but we wanted to take a risk and really push our creative minds to expand even further on where we could take Warframe. Many people on the team brought their love for the 1999 aesthetics and tech to the table, and it allowed us to shape it in a way that still feels like Warframe.

We knew we wanted to include the original three Warframes in the Protoframe crew, so Excalibur, Mag, and Volt were a must. Nyx kinda followed suit organically since she was designed as a female counter to Excalibur and gave us the opportunity to create a sibling dynamic between Arthur and Eleanor. We also wanted to make sure to include the new Warframe arriving in 1999, Cyte-09, which became Quincy as the newest member of the crew (my personal fav). Trinity is kind of our “wildcard”, she was included because, well, we all just love The Matrix and with the aesthetic of this update we couldn’t resist the urge for an easter egg!”

Following this up, since there is some time travel that players can pick up on with the naming convention, I asked: “Can players who are invested in the lore see this as more of a prequel story that also moves the narrative from Whispers in the Walls forward?” To which Megan clarified the following:

“1999 is very much not a prequel, more of an “alternate history” exploration with a deep dive around one of Warframe’s biggest question marks: Albrecht Entrati. Everything about 1999 is a continuation of Whispers in the Walls, and thus, in service of the overall new story arc, we’ve set off on after The New War.”

The Feeling of the Live Gameplay Presentation

What separates the presentation of TennoLive at TennoCon is that what is shown when the screen transitions to gameplay is that its being played by a real person. Last year, Whispers in the Walls showed off a small slice of Warframe: 1999 with a cool transition that featured “Into the Void” by Nine Inch Nails. It felt like one of those “trailer” moments, but it was actually in the expansion to everyones surprise. So, with that in mind, I asked her: “What was it like being the one to present the gameplay for the highly anticipated update to the world?” and Megan broke down how she felt with her response:

“VERY nerve-wracking! We have been practicing that demo for months now, even as the team was still developing it. We strongly feel it’s important to show real gameplay during TennoLive and not something pre-recorded or pre-rendered. So much work goes into a 22-minute live demo and truly anything could go wrong but that’s what we’re all about. Take the risks! I just want to make sure that if I’m behind the wheel, I am making the team proud and showing off their hard work in the best way possible, so I feel the pressure for sure. I also just feel incredibly trusted by our team, anyone can press buttons and move a mouse around, but they let me do it? Wild, truly.”

Finally, as we all know, last month Crowdstrike caused an outage that caused a lot of distress worldwide. So much so that planes were grounding, computers weren’t working, and it happened the day prior to TennoCon itself. I felt it was necessary to ask her the following: “Outside of some technical hiccups due to an unforeseen situation the day prior, were there any concerns about what would be shown in the demo?” and Megan was able to share her thanks to the very talented people behind the scenes with:

“Now that everything is said and done, it was ironically hilarious for all of the computer issues around the country to go down this close to our Y2K-themed event. Rebb said it best in her tweet, it’s a bit too on the nose! But we had no giant concerns, our IT team had any major issues fixed within an hour or so, they are so good at what they do. TennoCon wouldn’t have happened without them, there’s a reason the crowd started an “IT” chant! Our players know that and are as thankful for them as we are.”

I can attest to that chant happening if you have not watched TennoLive itself, as Lords of Gaming was given the privilege of attending TennoCon this year. The stream started with a round of cheers for everyone during the stream, and the IT chant kind of happened naturally.

If you would like to follow Megan on her official X account, you can do here. As well as watch the full Warframe: 1999 gameplay demo on you here.

Special thanks to Digital Extremes for giving us the opportunity to ask these questions!