Digital Extremes aren’t going to “ditch” Warframe: 1999 in future updates

Warframe is set to take players of the beloved MMO further into the game’s history than they have ever seen. Now, the development team has confirmed that the effects of the update will be felt for a long time to come.

The introduction of time travel to any form of media opens it up to complicated and difficult narrative paths. Though Warframe has dipped its toes into that theme in the past, it has never embraced it as fully as it’s set to do in 1999.

That leaves a lot of questions about how it will function in the broader landscape moving forward, so we asked Community Director Megan Everett to clarify precisely what players can expect 1999’s legacy to be.

“We definitely looked ahead to the next few years, real years in terms of game development and different stories that we haven’t expanded on yet. A lot of those are obviously in the Origin system because we’ve been in the Origin system for 11 years, and players can probably guess the stories that we haven’t expanded on yet,” Everett explains.

“We won’t do a 1999 or Echoes of 1999 and then just ditch it and leave it. I think there will always be a piece of it that applies to whatever we do moving forward. We also want to maintain the Origin System side of the story and continue stories there that we haven’t touched yet.

“So, not to say that the game will only be 1999, and there won’t be much else going on. It’s going to be a back-and-forth. Dr. Entrati, Albrecht Entrati, started his story in the Origin system, so there’s more to see of his influence there. Plus, The Man in the Wall is literally everywhere.”

Digital Extremes

The exact format of this path forward (and backward) is unclear, but the theme of 1999 could have presented real narrative issues for a dev team less agile than Digital Extremes.

Fortunately, a proven track record of introducing the weird and the wonderful into the game without incident makes this next step an exciting one, rather than being anything too foreboding.

Plus, it continues the significant narrative legacy of previous updates, where important characters and arcs continue to remain relevant years after their initial appearances.

Warframe: 1999 is set to release in December, with the exact date to be confirmed soon.