My Concerns About The New War

In Tennocon 2021, the New War was given some sort of release date. At the very least, the massive quest would be released this year, in 2021. However, it’s been an overly long and drawn out quest. So much so in fact that I am actually kinda concerned about what the New War will entail. After all, this has been bubbling away in the background of Warframe for years, and expectations are al over the place.

The question is, will it be worth the wait?

Playing as different characters is cool, I guess

Funnily enough, one of the more exciting things to come out of Tennocon 2021 was a massive teaser for the New War. Rather than playing as our standard Tenno however, we actually control, well, other people. In the teaser that we saw, we get to play as Kahl the Grineer grunt, Veso the Corpus grunt and, rather unexpectedly, Teshin. Each sequence had its own different mechanics. Teshin had rotating elements and his dual swords, while Veso used proxies to help him battle other proxies. Kahl on the other hand grabbed a Corinth Prime from a fallen Rhino and was ready to sacrifice himself to blow up a Sentient object, thus winning the hearts of all who watched Tennocon 2021.

These are all rather novel twists and turns, and definitely a cool alternative to normal gameplay. But the question is, how much of this quest will be even touched by a Warframe? I ask this because a huge amount of recent Sentient-related gameplay has been very focused on us NOT using our Warframes. The cinematic shorts all use Tenno with minimal Warframe stuff, and our most recent Sentient update involves globes of energy that force us out of our Warframes. Will the quest feature bits of both Operator and Warframe like the Second Dream? Or will it be like The War Within and the Sacrifice with very little Warframe action?

Like, I get it, we have story building. But we also need to remember that this game is called Warframe, not Space Kid or anything like that.

Maybe we’ve waited too long

Hype is a powerful yet tragic thing. Plenty of times, we’ve waited for something big to happen, only to be disappointed. I honestly worry that the New War might be overhyped. After all, work on this one single quest has been going on for years. So long in fact that I’ve kinda forgotten what Lotus looks like, and all I see is the purple Ordis-based fake Lotus.

Not to mention that the following build-up has been all over the place. Orphix Venom finished back in January 2021, and Scarlet Spear, the first Murex attack, was all the way back in March 2020! Or April/May 2020 if you’re on consoles. Heck, the Sacrifice was all the way back in 2018!

The hype train for The New War is kinda terrifying, but it might easily be knocked off its tracks.

Nothing will change

However, the biggest thing I am concerned about is change. The Second Dream showed us what we are, the War Within gave us power to walk on our own and both the Sacrifice and Chains of Harrow opened up new lore. All of these quests introduced us to something new, but they were very localized. The events of those quests are self-contained and only small aspects of them are seen elsewhere. On the other hand, the New War promises mass destruction on a massive scale. One of the very first things we see is a Murex crashing into the Orokin tower on Cetus, and destruction across the solar system. The Sentients are back in force, and we are all too splintered to fight back directly.

I mean, it’s literally a war, there should be tons of change in this quest. And some of this destruction should be permanent. Or at the very least have lasting consequences. If we finish the New War quest and it seems like nothing has changed, then, honestly, it would be a let down. All that planning, all that waiting and all that war, it should leave a permanent scar on the solar system.

If it doesn’t, well, that’s years of hype, fading away.

While I do think the New War will be good, it’s best to not let ourselves get too hyped for this. Even if it has been years in the making…