My Overall Thoughts About the New War

I’ll be honest with you all, I’ve made far too many articles referring to the New War. We need a change of pace, and I’ll be on that shortly. But there’s an article I’ve not actually written about yet. My overall, general thoughts regarding the New War. Now, I’ve had many, many thoughts about the New War quest, mostly because it’s the big new thing that’s appeared in Warframe. A game-altering event with some small, noticeable changes, but also completely shakes up Warframe’s lore before swiftly returning to normalcy.

However, there is something that is still bothering me about the New War. And I have finally figured out what it is.

FYI, spoilers ahead. Go play the quest.

The New War was unfinished.

I am almost certain that the New War was released in a state of “this will do, we need to ship it now”. While yes, the quest is about 4-6 hours long, I feel that a lot of content was either cut or trimmed down. Or gotten rid of entirely. For example, at the very start of the quest, we see through the eyes of other people, namely Kahl, Veso and Teshin. We saw their parts, we see their heroism, but after that, they are gone forever. Particularly Teshin, who we haven’t heard or seen since. And despite his popularity, I very much doubt that Kahl got very far, considering that Erra was right there with him. I hoped that maybe Kahl and Veso might have survived, but it’s clear they didn’t.

However, there are story components that were rushed too. When Sentient Natah flew off with Ballas after the Sacrifice, she claimed she was going home. When she does so, she is told by her mother to finish her duties and kill everyone. However, this angry mother in the New War is either dead or comatose and never mentioned again. I’d assume the sun-eating Sentient mothership was Natah’s mother but that would mean that Natah was present when her mother died, and that doesn’t seem to be the case.

An Unused Star Chart

The biggest sign for me that the quest was unfinished is when we are told to fight the three Archons. It’s a rather brief look, but you can tell that the navigation chart was different. There were new nodes and new icons, as well as boss icons for the three Archons. The UI was clearly made for something bigger, but it was also clearly not used.

At the same time, as we move on to the quest’s finale, we seem to have missed out some steps. Because there seems to be people fighting back alongside us. But we never recruited anyone and didn’t signal for help or anything either. We free the Ostrons but that’s pretty much it, and they aren’t exactly well-armed when it comes to battle. There was no chance to save the people of Fortuna, no option to really help anyone. Yet here are people who, I don’t know, act like bullet sponges for Sentient ships to shoot at.

Speaking of which, the Railjack sections were very short, barely got to do anything aside from hiding behind debris. Necramechs were in an even worse position, literally just charging through a Murex.

Was it worth the wait?

The biggest issue isn’t so much that the New War was unfinished. It’s whether the New War was worth the three year wait. And in all honesty? I’m not sure. The quest is genuinely good, but I still feel like it could have been more complete, somehow.

In all honesty, I think the New War was a lot like Swiss cheese. It looks and smells nice and is a perfect type of cheese, but there’s clearly something missing. It’s still tasty, but it could still be better…