Released in December 2021, The New War continues and concludes the game’s main story arc revolving around Ballas and the Lotus, which began all the way back in ’17. Despite being available for eight months already I only now played through it.
Not that I hadn’t been anticipating it before it came out. Despite featuring some annoying bits of gameplay here and there I always liked Warframe’s main story quests a lot. The thing is though, most of them have such an immense importance to the player character’s – and sometimes the whole galaxy’s – fate that once you’ve started there is no going back to regular gameplay until you’ve finished it. The New War is no different – in fact the game even warns you about it before you start.
Since I’ve played only sporadically and been rather strapped for time in general this past year I didn’t want to commit to that. Now I’m taking a vacation at last, and we’re not actually going anywhere until the 25th, so I’ve finally dug in and finished it over the course of two days.
It’s really great!
Spoiler warning: I won’t talk much about the story itself, but obviously the screenshots show scenes from it, so if you haven’t played it yet and want to go in with a blank slate I’d suggest you stop reading now.
First of all, the visuals are jaw-dropping once more. Warframe isn’t the most gorgeous game out there, not by a long shot, but DE always go all-in for their big story moments.
The huge vistas are enhanced further by some nice little details. For example, during the first hour or so you play a couple different characters, and they all have their own distinct UI-elements fitting their themes and abilities. Above you see a Grineer soldier, below a Corpus tech, and finally Theshin (whom you’ll be acquainted with if you’ve played the preceding quests).
They even designed a new hacking mini-game (of which I forgot to take a picture), a nice variation to the well-known Grineer- and Corpus-style hacking.
Overall there is a good mix of combat, stealth sections, boss fights and cutscenes. Yes, the stealth bits could be a bit more forgiving, and you know how I think about boss fights in general – but these really were ok.
Also featured are Railjack- and Necramech-gameplay, and to even start this quest you need to have finished building both.
I liked the story itself too, especially since we don’t just go back to normal after it. In the tradition of The War Within and The Sacrifice not only we as players have grown and learned in the end, but also our characters, and the whole galaxy has changed too. Well, at least a little bit.
I didn’t keep track of time, but I’d guess that the whole thing took me five hours or so, whithout skipping any cutscenes and with the occasional pause to take screenshots. Time very well spent in my opinion. Highly recommended!
To cap it off here’s some more pretty pictures:
Blaugust 2022 post count: 3
Mailvaltar 