Something odd about Warframe is that we have no real idea how many Tenno are in-game. The number can fluctuate between thousands, hundreds and even possibly the tens, depending on how you look at things. Time travel, alternate universes and paradoxes could mean that there’s only one single Tenno who actually exists. Everyone else is an illusion.

Please be warned, we have hints of spoilers in this article. Please read this article first.

That being said, there definitely has to be more than one Tenno. After all, the Lotus has referred to us both in the singular and the plural. For example, if you fail a Granum Void mini-task, the Lotus will say that she’ll have send another team in to clean up. Little Duck knows there are many Tenno, and has done so since her first appearance, helping a Mag and a child find an Excalibur. Heck, in the New War, we see a dead Rhino. From whom Kahl borrows his Corinth Prime shotgun. Meanwhile, other Tenno ships can be seen in the distance.

But ever since I finished the New War, I feel like something’s been missing. A lot of the quest circles around a feeling of loss, how the player characters failed to protect everyone. The Tenno lost the war against Ballas and the Sentients. In-game, it’s suggested that the Tenno are pretty much extinct, after the New War ends. It’s implied that they’re either dead or in hiding, but leaning much closer to the former.

Where did all the Tenno go?

This is something that’s not really cleared up. How many Tenno are there and did they all seemingly vanish at the same time? It’s not well explained. But the general feeling was that all the Tenno disappeared at once. Around about the time where Ballas punts Natah through a portal.

However, immediately vanishing or running away or hiding, surely not every Tenno did that? The Tenno are brutal warriors, many of them would have stuck around as long as they could. Others probably kept on fighting until they were killed. In-game though? We don’t see other Tenno perishing or, well, anything. Some ships blew up and we saw a bit of a dead Rhino Warframe. But once the player character and Natah disappear, it’s implied that all other Tenno vanish as well.

If you’re going to make them disappear, then show us how and why.

The three opening scenes with Kahl, Veso and Teshin are all great ways of showing how the more normal people react. But aside from our confrontation with Ballas and Erra, we have no idea how other Tenno are fighting back. Did we have waves of Railjacks destroying conduits? Were we helping people get to safety? We have no idea, and all we know is that the Tenno vanished.

This problem could have easily been solved by simply showing more dead Warframes. Or perhaps have a few action scenes where a Tenno falls, a railjack blows up, something like that. While the story and connection between the Tenno and the Lotus are the main focus of this piece, it would have helped to see what other Tenno did as they fought back. Even if it was just seeing more corpses.

Seeing fallen Tenno and Warframes would have made a big impact, just like Fortuna.

One of the most (if not the most) traumatic part of the New War is seeing what happened in Fortuna. Solaris United had tried to hold their own but were utterly defeated, with way too many casualties. When you descend into Fortuna after the Narmer are put in charge, this is when I (and many other people) realized just how bad the Tenno disappearance was. All-round misery and slavery, including the children.

However, I am of the opinion that, had we seen our fellow Tenno brought down would have been an added piece of trauma, rather than saying they all vanished. Seeing dead Warframes and Operators would be rather horrifying as well, giving us a second reason to fight back, after avenging Fortuna and Cetus.

The New War is a solo quest, We go through Cetus and Fortuna in parts of it. But it also affects the entire solar system at the same time. It would have been interesting to see how the rest of the solar system turned out…