Warframe 2024 Year in Review

8 minutes read

In 2024, Warframe had one of its best years ever. Following the launch of Whispers in the Walls in December of 2023. There was a consistent upswing in content delivery, quality and communication. As 2024 was the start of a new series of weekly streams for Digital Extremes, appropriately named Devshorts. Allowing the community to tune in for 15 minutes almost every week to get up to speed on what’s going on between their monthly Devstreams. But without further adieu, let us delve into how the year went, starting with.

Gauss Prime’s Launch

While not a major content drop for Warframe, since this followed up Whispers in the Walls, and a very enjoyable clan event called Gargoyle’s Cry. This launch of a Prime warframe did a couple things for the game. Not only was it the most impressive trailer for a Prime warframe it also put the game at the top of Steam’s Best Sellers. Whether it was the trailer itself or the overwhelmingly positive sentiment of Whispers in the Walls that drove people to buy the pack on Steam. One thing is for sure, it was definitely a highlight of 2024 for Warframe.

Dante Unbound

Now for the big content drop. In March they launched Dante Unbound, which was pretty big for the game. As it launched a new daunting weekly activity called Deep Archimedea. Which offered multiple more chances to earn Archon Shards, Melee Arcanes and Vosfor for getting packs of random arcanes. On top of this, they also launched a new Disruption game mode to the Entrati Labs and Dante himself, which was a strong new warframe added game.

Between a new loot goblin that was added to the Entrati Labs, and the new rooms added. There were a few new great weapons and even the ability to hug the Cavia, which sounds small, but considering how tragic their story was, it meant a lot.

Overall, Dante Unbound was just a classic Echoes style update for Whispers in the Walls. While there were a few misses, like the delay of Deep Archimedea, and Dante getting nerfed, then un-nerfed, it was just a great update that excellently followed up on the highs from the expansion it was meant for.

Jade Shadows

At PAX in March, there was a major update that was announced with so little to go off of called Jade Shadows. Its announcement trailer was so secretive, and what took the community by surprise was that it would have a cinematic quest tied to it. Despite how short the quest was, this was a surprise gut punch that I am still left in awe by. The quest even left a friend of mine in tears and needing a break to process the events of the quest.

The story revolving around a new warframe, and the Stalker was a new take that paid off immensely. I will not go into spoilers, but what was achieved in such a short amount of screentime cannot be overstated. But alongside the quest came a traditional number of weapons and Jade herself, who was expertly crafted as the current best support in the game. But the only thing that was middling was the new Ascension game mode.

Which does offer a lot of goodies and can be a great source of experience points. But when the event that launched with Jade Shadows was over, it did not feel the same and finding a group to farm it for the Arcanes is near impossible. Despite those issues, Jade Shadows was excellent and was worthy to stand alongside the greatest quests in Warframe so far, like The Sacrifice. But this was just the first half of the year. From July onward? There was nothing but constant news and equally heavy hitting content.

TennoCon 2024

TennoCon 2024 was a major hit for the company. Having over 300,000 viewers watching on Twitch at one time. While also showing off three major updates for Warframe. From The Lotus Eaters to a new major quality-of-life with Koumei and the Five Fates to the full gameplay reveal of Warframe: 1999, there was a lot to look forward to. But if you were there in person, the entire showcase was a truly wonderful time.

The entire crowd had glowing foam tubes to use as makeshift glowsticks to emulate a concert feeling. With President of Digital Extremes, Sheldon Carter acting as an MC for the beginning of the show and exciting the crowd. The presentation was a true labor of love for everyone at Digital Extremes working around the clock to ensure everyone had a fantastic time. Just like the developers behind the scenes who delivered three back-to-back incredible updates afterwards.

The Lotus Eaters

While The Lotus Eaters was a very short quest, it set the stage for Warframe: 1999. I was admittedly disappointed that parts of this prologue were not fully utilized in 1999, but overall, the quest was good and eerie in its tone. It also included Sevagoth Prime, which was an excellent new addition to the game. But for normal content additions, it was pretty light.

Warframe Lotus Eaters Chase Sequence

Koumei & The Five Fates

One of the final big updates of 2024 for Warframe was Koumei and the Five Fates which added a whole new defense game mode, Koumei herself, and two new weapons. Alongside a whole slew of changes to warframes like Nova, and Caliban, with the second part of the companion rework. The new game mode is very easy and can be quickly done to earn rewards like crazy. Nova’s surprise rework was excellent and so was Caliban’s. But Koumei is the only weak link of the update overall, she is fun to use but lacks in certain areas, like not being able to pick decrees when earned with one of her abilities.

Overall, for a japanese themed update, Koumei and the Five Fates was a major hit. Launching Warframe to Steam’s top 10 at launch, and the game has stayed in the top 20 ever since.

Warframe: 1999

Time for the big-ticket item. Warframe: 1999 has been out for almost a month now and has revitalized the game in ways I was not expecting. I was only expecting a great continuation of the ongoing narrative, a good new syndicate to interact with and a few cool new weapons and obligatory warframe. But boy oh boy was the story better than I thought it would, with an excellent new take on the syndicate system that brought with it Warframe’s first romance system and alternate ending to the narrative.

Not only that, but every new weapon, from the Vesper 77, to the Reconifex and even Cyte-09 himself were all incredible new additions to the game. All of this was wrapped up in a bow of awesome fresh takes on existing mission ideas. Like an endless capture mission, a more active survival mission variant and even an incredible new boss fight with the Efervon Tank that also has a raid-like variant to it.

Warframe: 1999 is going to go down as one of the best updates to the game thus far. It’s a home run for an overall great year for Warframe in general. I can only imagine where they go next in the narrative, but that is an exciting thing to try and imagine right now.

Warframe Year in Review Grade

Overall Warframe had 6 back-to-back incredible content updates, no matter their size. Following the trend from last year, it will be a hard act to follow, but last year for the game was an A+. Everyone at Digital Extremes should feel proud of what they accomplished.

With that being said, however, one thing that is lingering in the back of my mind is that currently, two of the games Warframe is compared to, and thus competing with similar fanbases on, that being The First Descendant and Destiny 2, both games are currently on rapid downswings in popularity for various reasons. In the last few months alone, I have seen a lot of posts of new players from those games trying the game for the first time, leading to a steady influx of new players for the game.

While this is good news, I personally like seeing Warframe get more attention and players. Its healthy and ensures that more support is given to Digital Extremes. All eyes are going to be on them now, but I can only hope that they can maintain momentum and deliver on what veterans of the game love, and what new players want to see. Striking that balance is going to be hard, especially with Soulframe entering its open preludes release soon.

Joseph Repko

Associate Editor and writer for all things Warframe and Soulframe. Xbox/PSN: LivingIgnis Steam: A glittery moose Twitter: @FlameLOGNET