Warframe is a Free-to-Play, live-service action looter-shooter video game created by Digital Extremes, which has been around for a little over 12 years, and during that time, it has been getting consistent free updates the entire time. Warframe is currently the best live-service game out there.
The developers of Warframe have listened to the community at every turn and even do weekly livestreams to better understand and communicate with the community. Warframe’s success is because of the developers’ strong connection to the community and the community’s support of the developers.
“We had a lever, basically, for all intents and purposes. And we saw, you know, a guy pulled the lever like 200 times. And it’s just like, ‘oh my dear god, what have we done? We’ve created a slot machine.’ And so you know, it was a couple days I think it took us to take it out-a day, day and a half. That one is a big regret,” said developer Sheldon Carter in an online article for the website Critical Hit Gaming.
Warframe is a game that respects its community and their time. Warframe’s updates are consistently high quality and well-liked by the community. Every couple of months, usually 3-4, the developers release a large update to the game. These updates usually include a new playable character with unique abilities and a new quest/mission that adds to the overarching story the developers have been adding on to since release.
“I love that they keep on releasing these big updates, that give the game so much new content,” said long-time player, Ethan Cambridge (11).
Even without the large updates, the game often has small events that allow new and old players to gain useful items or resources.
Unlike most games, Warframe is always improving because the developers at Digital Extremes care that their game, their product, is good. In the early days of Warframe, the movement was incredibly slow, but players eventually found an exploit that allowed them to quickly move long distances, really fast, and this was widely used and loved by the community.
Most developers would quickly remove any exploit, helpful or not, but Digital Extremes saw how much people liked the fast-paced movement, and in response, they decided to rework the game’s movement system as a whole, to make it much faster and more fluid. Digital Extremes listened to their community and improved Warframe with their feedback, and that’s something rare among companies and their communities.
“I wish more companies would listen to their community and improve their games with their feedback, like Warframe,” said new player, Clayton Morrison (10).
Warframe is unique in that it is truly special; its gameplay, its story, its developers, and its community all make Warframe a special game and one of the truly great games out there right now.
