Digital Extremes has recently dropped a bombshell of an announcement for gamers worldwide.
The popular game developer behind the hit free-to-play action RPG multiplayer online game Warframe has revealed it has been developing a new game that prominently features "romanticism and fantasy" behind the scenes.
Digital Extremes revealed the game's existence by showcasing a surprise reveal during TennoLive, a convention for the Warframe community.
Soulframe Details And Features
Soulframe, the new game being developed by Digital Extremes, is a free-to-play action hybrid-MMORPG set in a fantasy world inspired by "childhood favorites" like "Never Ending Story" and "those elaborate fantasy worlds," as Digital Extremes said in its announcement.
Interestingly, Soulframe Creative Director Geoff Crookes mentioned that the team behind the game's development has a "fond love for Hayao Miyazaki's "Princess Mononoke," where there are recurring concepts of nature and humanity colliding.
The game elaborates on these inspirations through its "worldbuilding and thematic elements," as well as the concept of "nature and humanity colliding" through Digital Extremes' lens.
It will also play with ideas of "restoration and exploration," which is highlighted in the game's conceit. Crookes mentioned to The Washington Post that the game is about the world itself raging against what has been done to it, and the grounds underneath tend to shift as days go by, creating a proceduralism within the cave networks and crevasses and so on underneath the world.
Warframe fans might be confused about where Soulframe fits in the former game's narrative. As such, Steve Sinclair, the soon-t-be former director of Warframe told The Washington Post that Soulframe is less of a sequel and more of a sister to Warframe.
Soulframe will also have an open-world hub world similar to Warframe's open-world planets than its early foundation of corridors and space stations, giving the game a focus on exploration Warframe never had.
Moreover, Soulframe will also feature its sister game's focus on cooperative player-vs.-environment combat and procedurally generated environment, but it will be "the mirror universe version of Warframe."
Simply put, where Warframe is about sci-fi space ninjas powered by mech suits focused on shooting, Soulframe is a "sutably strange take on fantasy" that focuses on melee.
Additionally, while Warframe is focused on speed, Soulframe is expected to be slow and heavy. Even so, Sinclair believes that Soulframe is expected to have "a lot of similarities to the genre [Digital Extremes] has experience in."
Sinclair and Crookes also stressed that Digital Extremes is not trying to make a game in the vein of FromSoftware's Souls Series despite the game having a "soul" in its name.
Both Digital Extremes leadership weren't ready to discuss what sets Soulframe's melee combat apart from FromSoft's Souls Series, as the game is still in the early stages of development. However, Digital Extremes want Soulframe's release to be a familiar one - transparent, collaborative, and an iterative process shaped alongside players and the game developer.
Sinclair added that Digital Extremes' work has been "extremely community driven" and that it's "way too early" to announce Soulframe. However, in terms of transparency and making sure players understand what the developer thinks, Sinclair says that "[Digital Extremes] tend to be a lot more open ... than most studios."
Soulframe Availability And Release Date
Soulframe is a game still in the early stages of development. As such, a release date, general or specific, could not be given as well as on what platforms it can be played.
However, insterested gamers who want to register for updates and be allowed to reserve their in-game name by declaring their Envoy can do so after solving an interactive puzzle at the official Soulframe website.
