Soulframe Preludes Preview – Beautifully Modest

During TennoCon of 2022, the bookend to the show following The Duviri Paradox’s gameplay demo was the reveal of Soulframe. Soulframe was revealed as the next chapter in Digital Extreme’s history. A third-person action-adventure fantasy MMORPG that would be treated as the inverse of Warframe’s gameplay design. Instead of fast-paced looting and shooting science fiction with extreme parkour, it would be a slow, methodical fantasy setting with an emphasis on magical abilities and its weighty melee combat. In this preview, we will be diving into what is available, and the innate quality of this pre-alpha build.

Ever since its debut trailer over the last few years, Digital Extremes has showcased two different gameplay demos. In 2023, it was a look at how the game played, and what shape the adventure would be in. A brief glimpse of some of its musical mechanics that appear inspired by Ocarina of Time, a procedurally generated dungeon system, and a cinematic boss fight against a corrupted stag showed a lot of promise. This year’s TennoCon showed off a thunderous mini-boss, instantaneous weather-changing with a potion throw, and a teaser of more corrupted animals to come.

However, in their recent Soulframe Devstream Digital Extremes delayed the game’s open Preludes program. Where everyone could get their hands on the game, and opted to keep their steady roll out of invitations while they worked on the game. On Thursday of last week, Digital Extremes officially lifted the non-disclosure agreement that we at Lords of Gaming agreed to, and can now fully talk about the gameplay experience.

Author’s Note – Please keep in mind that the Preludes version of Soulframe is a very early alpha version. Meaning that the game is very far from release.

What is Soulframe?

Soulframe takes place on Midrath island. A land ravaged by the Ode, a militant force that is stealing resources of the land, polluting, and corrupting the animals that roam it. You play as an Envoy, a character that was betrayed by the Ode and left alone on Midrath island. Currently, the only real story quest that is available right now is the same one shown last year. Where you have to free a corrupted Omen, a stag named Garren Rood and reclaim the souls of your ancestors to fight back the Ode.

This and the quest to unlock the potion and cosmetic pigment Ancestor, Verminia, are the only available story content in Soulframe. The cutscenes are not pre-rendered, they are all in-engine and run beautifully. The boss fights are intense, cinematic, and put your skills to the test. The spirits all have this grayish blue aura around them with incredible designs and the story experience so far is fairly curated. I did not feel lost and was really engaged with the personal and emotional tones they wove in.

The storytelling seems like it is going to carry on the legacy of Warframe’s quality in that department. But, how what does the game actually play like?

A Hefty Dance of Drift and Adrift

Soulframe is a third-person action-adventure MMORPG. In its current form, the game requires a constant internet connection, and you can play cooperatively with other players. I have not tested cooperative play, but in my solo experience, the difficulty has varied in my weeks of playing. For starters, the melee swings have a nice level of heft to them. Each connected blow captures the weight of each weapon, light or heavy. For instance, the longsword is fluid and hits hard. While dual daggers feel light and nimble, in contrast, the halberd feels methodical and hits the hardest.

Each weapon also has their own unique backstab, or finisher animations. Enemies have a stagger meter that allows you to go in for a decisive blow. This lets you sweep an Ode off their feet with a halberd and stab them when they are down or thrust the longsword through their chest in a cold animation.

The game also features a bow that allows you to fight with ranged combat for a safer experience. The bow can also be used for melee attacks with the use of the arrows if an enemy gets too close. You can also charge up a special melee swing to throw your weapon and recall it. Similar to Dark Sector, or God of War 2018.

There is only one real problem I have with the combat in Soulframe right now. Despite having a stylish and effective parry system, the game feels like playing a hack-and-slash-oriented game. This is a stark contrast to a difficult soulslike experience. For example, you cannot lock onto enemies. And at times, it feels like you are skating between foes in the auto-targeting system that only affects the Envoy and not the camera.

It can feel confusing at times. But when you get lost in the sauce so to speak, it feels very much like its own thing. Especially when you couple it with the current Dungeon design, and how the Pacts work.

Playing with Magic in Labyrinths

When playing Soulframe you will not only have the robust melee combat system to take advantage of, but you will also have the Pacts. Pacts take the form of your character’s right arm and behave like subclasses in Destiny 2. You start with the Fey and Ode Tempest Pacts. The Fey is the stealth archer Pact. Where you use a mystical bow to turn foes to stone, summon a flock of birds to stagger enemies, and turn into a blue butterfly to get a sneaky stealth attack in with.

The Ode Tempest is more confrontational. The Pact has the ability to roll a magical ball in a direction that drags foes along with it into a devastating explosion. As well as being able to make a small field around foes that allow you to deal more damage. In addition, you can generate a shield around yourself that can nullify attacks for a time.

The Pacts are made even more powerful by their Idols, which can be summoned similarly to ultimate abilities. The Fey Pacts bow for instance fires a highly powerful and piercing arrow through foes when it’s needed. While the Ode Tempests Sphere fires constant chain lightening for as long as you need it to.

Where these Pacts are most enjoyed is in the Dungeons. There is the Undercity and the Glades. Both dungeons are procedurally generated with puzzles, foes, and loot to collect, but have an interesting twist that I don’t think I have seen in an online game this graphically impressive. That is the fact the dungeons have fixed entrances around the open world. But when you’re adventuring through it you end up in another location after finishing the run.

The Undercity serves the resource grind and leveling side of the game, while the Glades serve the quests more until they are completed, then they become the harder version of the dungeon system. The interconnectedness really makes the trek across Midrath itself more interesting.

As Below, So Above

There is only a very small section of Midrath island to explore so far. But that does not mean it is not packed with stuff to do or even interesting places to explore with periodic public event-like activities. For instance, each major location will always have some Ode to kill, and boxes to break for money or resources. As well as these little balloons that carry crucial resources that you need to use a charged melee throw to knock down. It adds a little fun between the variety of chests that carry pieces of equipment and crafting materials.

The major locations can either be villages, castle forts, towers, and even caves and mines. It’s a classic fantasy setting. But the Ode’n Moaners that look like drooling mechanical heads that pour oil into the rivers, and the mechanical ships that descend down to suck in the balloons create a unique twist. The Ode themselves also adds more to the unique fantasy setting. Their uncanny faces are etched into their helmets which give them a unique appearance. In combat they range from standard sword slingers to dual dagger and magic users. There is an interesting mini boss that descends from the mechanical ships called Nimrods. These are lightning-protected giants that use a polearm that can be tough to take down.

The Ode and some of the corrupted foes will often present constant difficulty curves that leave your ancestors to help you every step of the way in the way of a unique approach to customization.

Enter the Nightfold

The Nightfold in Soulframe is where you interact with your ancestors. The first you unlock is Orlick the scholar, who serves as your in-game journal. But his key function lets you collect Motes after getting memories from each major location that reveal their names. These Motes are used by Fenn Jotar, who installs them on your Pact or weapon for extra stat boosts similar to the mod system in Warframe. It is more limited, but the changes feel very impactful.

Couple this with Tuvalkane who takes the resources and fragments of equipment to craft new weapons and clothes on a timer system similar to Warframe. As well as the customization menu where you can assign points to certain aspects of your Pact to increase the strength of those abilities and take advantage of the Arts. The Arts unlock basic stuff, like a quick riposte after a parry, or more unique changes to Pacts. Such as the grappling hook for the Ode Tempest that can be used to sneak up on foes and initiate a quick backstab in style.

Soulframe is very mechanically sound. The ancestors work in tandem with one another to create a unique customization system in a breathtaking environment you can instantly teleport into. I can only imagine how much more can be added to the Nightfold as a whole and what stories can be told with the ancestors.

Beautiful Sights, Sounds and Performance

Soulframe‘s performance can be spotty in the open world but solid in the dungeons. On my PC using an RX6600, Ryzen 5 5600G, 16 gigabytes of DDR4 RAM, and an m.2 NVME SSD, the game can run at 1080p on the highest settings without relying on FSR 2.2 upscaling to get anywhere from 70-144 frames per second. The only settings I turned off were motion blur and film grain. I did turn down the volumetric fog, but I really love how they’ve utilized Bloom and Glare in Soulframe. It not only makes the rays of light feel real, but the glare off the Ode Tempest Pact arm, and even weapons all look gorgeous in motion.

The music in Soulframe is also very ambient and uses notes from an original song called “Rivers of Dendria” that was used in the Garren Rood quest while exploring the open world to great effect. You can even use an emote to play notes from the song through your Ocarina. The music is a big part of the experience so far, and I can only imagine where it goes from here.

In Conclusion

Overall, when it comes to Soulframe. The current version of the Preludes is honestly very beautiful and enjoyable. The fact that the gameplay experience it provides right now is just the pre-alpha version is very impressive. While it is still very far from being deemed feature complete, the Preludes is an important step to get there.

Soulframe is very competently built. It only got to the state I am able to talk about here due to Digital Extreme’s consistent ability to work with fans’ feedback. There is a shared vision, and fair compromises made with each hotfix and Preludes version update. For example, the Pacts used to require absorbing energy with a “Soul Sight” feature I rarely use now to recharge abilities. But in Preludes 7, the abilities shifted away from this approach, and opted to cooldowns and made them stronger.

The Arts were added as well to give a meaningful sense of progression when crafting equipment. There is even a Halloween event going on right now that might only offer a minor cosmetic, but they are not treating players in the Preludes as just testers. They are respecting the time of the players who have a say in what they want in Soulframe as time goes along. I have no doubt that the long road ahead will be carried by this approach.

Currently, Soulframe’s Preludes is only available through invite on PC which you can sign up for here. But it will open to the public sometime early next year.

Disclaimer – Digital Extremes provided access to Soulframe Preludes for coverage.