On July 17th, we got to see Tennocon 2021. And boy was it… weird. I stayed up until late to watch the show and hopefully get excited. But did I get excited? I’m… not really sure.

Normally, a Tennocon event is there to hype up cool, upcoming events and gameplay. TennoLive 2021 did just that, but only for the New War. The New War however has kinda been teased for years. To hype us up, after some quick questions and answers, we got to see a live demo of the beginning of the New War.

We got a handful of other cool stuff, like several Deluxe skins (OMG VOLT DELUXE!) and we got to see the next Warframe to be primed: Nidus Prime is coming soon, sooner than I thought. And, thankfully, he gets cute little Orokin maggots as well.

However the majority of this TennoLive event was in the New War demo.

SPOILERS HERE

“Before we start, what other news is there?”

The New War isn’t the only interesting tidbit. Somehow, perhaps by using some sort of voodoo magic, there are plans to release Warframe on MOBILE DEVICES! Literally the ability to play Warframe on your smart phone.

But, most importantly, there are finally plans in development to bring Cross-play to all devices. This will hopefully mean that we’ll be able to play Warframe on any console, with players from any other console. This is colossal news, and something players have demanded for years. It’s amazing that cross-play, or even cross-save between platforms is even being worked on.

A short demo from another perspective.

This demo was remarkably simple but also complex at the same time. Most importantly, it did NOT feature the player controlling a Warframe, or even an Operator. Instead, we step into the shoes of people who are ground zero.

In this demo, we follow Kahl the Grineer, Veso the Corpus tech and the old Dax Teshin as they fight for their lives on ground zero. In doing so, we get to see lives from someone else’s perspective.

Most of the demo involves being told what to do by Vay Hek and Alad V, but it’s pretty interesting. Kahl mostly just has grenades and a Grakata, while Veso uses various Corpus bots to fight for him. Teshin though is a complete badass, fighting with his dual katanas, while also swapping elements at will. You switch between all three perspectives. Kahl is on his own, trying to stop an Orphix by himself. Veso is just trying to follow orders, but gets caught up in Alad V’s cowardliness.

Teshin’s part was pure action, involving a teleporting glaive and switching to various elements to best damage the Sentients he was fighting.

These perspectives are great.

Somehow, people seem to find more interest and personality in these three characters than the whole saga of the Operators has ever given us. Multiple people I spoke to immediately became attached to Kahl. Maybe not so much since he stole a Corinth Prime from a dead Warframe, but there was general care about all three characters we saw.

But then in comes Erra, being all creepy. He’s telling people not to be afraid, and I’m pretty sure he’s mind-controlling people somehow.

At the end of all of this, we’re left on a massive cliffhanger, followed by… Well, not by a date, but a year. Apparently the New War will come out sometime in 2021.

Sadly, there were technical issues.

There was a big problem though with TennoLive. We simply had too many people, to the point that relays were completely broken. This meant that the developers couldn’t teleport us into viewing rooms to see dioramas of the new content for ourselves. In fact. relays were so broken that the majority of viewers were actually placed into solo relays all to themselves.

The reward for watching are most likely bugged too. While I did manage to get both the new gunblade and Loki Prime, the new armour was nowhere to be found. Fortunately, DE are generally quite understanding, and I bet we’ll get the armour set and sword skin on a later date, most likely for free.

Overall though, it was just another teaser.

Just like last year and the year before, the TennoLive demo as just another fleeting taste of what’s coming up. But we also kinda didn’t get much at all. What we saw was pretty damn cool but since we don’t know when this quest will be released, it’s still got to somehow keep the hype-train moving.

While I’m still kinda excited, I kinda expected, well, more.

I suppose, at least I can be excited for a new Volt skin. It’s about time he got some love…