Why I Am Curious About Tennocon 2023

Tennocon is Warframe’s biggest event. It’s a real-life get-together, where players and developers get to meet up. There’s panels, art shows, cosplay and merchandise to be bought. Tennocon also hosts TennoLive, a massive devstream revealing all the cool stuff we have to look forward to. It’s the showstopper. TennoLive is where Fortuna was announced, where we first discovered liches and Raoljack, where the Sacrifice was teased and how we got the Duviri Paradox. It’s massive.

But this year, I am more curious than ever. This year, I feel Tennocon is going to be different.

And I’m not just thinking that because of Soulframe. Yes, Digital Extremes released a trailer for their new game. I expect that we’ll see some more of Soulframe this year, since what we’ve seen is very little. Although I’m still unsure about the name. Soulframe just sounds weird. No, the main reason is that, well, we don’t have anything from prior years to look forward to. Fortuna is finished, Duviri is finished, it’s all basically finished content. We have a complete blank slate ahead of us. Not only have we seen everything that was teased at previous Tennocons, we also finished a major story arc when it comes to the New War. We’re at a strange point where we don’t know what’s coming next. Literally no idea.

I mean, of course, there will be new stuff. We always get teased a new Prime Warframe or a bunch of deluxe skins. We also often get to look into the art of Warframe, and there are always a bunch of cool skins or weapons or whatever, relating to whatever the big reveal is. There’s also smaller news, perhaps a new Warframe being added, or a Warframe being reworked. But there’s no massive big thing that’s been teased.

More importantly though, the person in charge is different. Last Tennocon, it was announced that Rebecca, the former community manager, is now the creative director of Warframe. Steve stepped down, mostly to work on Soulframe. But Rebecca was, at first, carrying on with Steve’s work. Things like the Duviri Paradox were Steve’s brainchildren, and Rebecca had to finish all the Duviri stuff before moving on to new projects.

We’ve already seen Rebecca’s new direction in action. We have the Kahl stuff on Earth and the new Seven Crimes of Kullervo updates. Most of what the dev team completely under Rebeccas’s lead has been considered pretty damn good. However, we haven’t seen a big project run under Rebecca’s vision. We’re yet to see a big project completely free from Steve’s influence.

Actually, thinking about it, we’ve barely seen anything. There’s been no teases, no leaks, nothing really. Sure, every year is a new surprise, but 2023 feels like it’ll be something different. After all, where do we go after the events of the New War and Duviri? Where can we go? I can’t even really begin to guess.

But yeah, that’s why I’m so insanely curious about this year’s Tennocon. What direction will we go in, now that we’ve completed the stories of Durviri and the New War?