The Beauty of Captura

Considering how much I play Warframe, it seems weird how Captura is actually one of my favourite things about Warframe. Captura is basically a photo studio where you can take fancy pictures of your Warframes, introduced in Update 20 alongside Octavia and the quest Octavia’s Anthem. These photo sessions are done in specific Captura Scenes, which can be unlocked in a myriad of ways.

Originally though, there were only a handful. A Corpus scene, a Grineer scene and an Infested scene in a Corpus ship, as well as some basic scenes available from Syndicates. Slowly but surely, more and more captura scenes were added, like a Plains of Eidolon scene. The Plains of Eidolon scene requires max rank with Cetus and 132,000 standing to purchase, but there are other, cheaper ones. Somewhat cheaper. Each Syndicate has a handful of Captura scenes available, ones based on the rooms you can visit in the Relays and a handful of scenes related to either quests or somewhat familiar locations that the Syndicates represent. For example, Cephalon Suda offers a Captura scene based on Octavia’s Anthem.

When the Sacrifice came out though, everyone got given a nice new Captura scene. Umbra’s Courtyard Scene features the massive Bruce Almighty-sized moon and a single fancy tree, all tinted in that familiar purple.

This Captura scene became the bane of anywhere that allowed Captura screenshots. I swear, r/Warframe was flooded with shots from that stupid bloody scene.

The popularity of the Umbra’s Courtyard Scene aside, there are lots of insanely nice Captura scenes. Most of them locked away behind Syndicates. There are also a few very cool scenes that are simply too damn small. The War Within for example granted a free Captura scene upon finishing the quest, but the area included – the mountain area where you choose whether to drink or destroy a vial of Kuva – but it’s so small that you can’t really do much with it. It’s

Some Captura scenes though aren’t just there for photos of your Warframe. Many of them are beautiful in their own right. Because you have access to infinite health and can move the camera as you please, you can often look at the location of a Captura scene in far finer detail than you normally can. You can also travel across any Captura scene with ease since you have infinite energy while in Operator Mode and you can even use Archwing in Captura scenes.

The Plains of Eidolon and Orb Vallis scenes in particular are amazing, because you can finally explore these places without being shot at. When you take away the Grineer and the Corpus, these places are beautiful. They’re peaceful empty landscapes, devoid of life, but they’re also gorgeous and atmospheric, free to explore at your leisure. And because you can control both the time of day and the weather, you can get some amazing shots of simple landscapes.

Captura is made even more beautiful when you pair it with the music that plays in Captura mode. Between the stunning, silent landscapes and the variation of This Is What You Are, I can’t help but immerse myself in such beauty.

Really, it’s sometimes worth spending time looking at, loading yourself into a Captura scene and just having a look around. Even if you don’t actually take any screenshots, even if your Warframe’s fashionframe is mediocre, you can still have a nice time.