Warframe is an astoundingly gigantic game, with hundreds of worlds to explore, and even more quests to complete. It’s a game that shouldn’t really work on iPhone and Android, yet Digital Extremes proved it was possible with Warframe Mobile. I recently caught up with design director Pablo Alonso, who shed light on the mission to make the small-screen iteration of Warframe possible.
“Honestly, it’s a little crazy. When we were first talking about a [Warframe] mobile [port], often we would talk about like ‘oh, do we just say this part you just cannot do a mobile because it’s gonna be so much work’. And you know, we had that temptation many times,” Alonso giddily explains to me. An obstacle most new mobile games face, especially ports of existing franchises, is ensuring parity with previous platforms before it.
FPS games like Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile offer some flashes of this, with weapon camos and operator skins weaving between the two experiences. Meanwhile, Arena Breakout is largely treated as a separate experience, and newcomer Delta Force is understandably focusing on getting iOS and Android experience off the ground.
In the case of Warframe, whether it’s the Nintendo Switch or mobile iteration, Digital Extremes makes no compromises. Alonso says that “there are certain things that definitely push mobile hard, especially like on the lower end devices, but, you know, by the power of stubbornness we got there.”
Warframe Mobile launched in February last year, and the results off the bat were exceptional. Not only does it offer controller support and a smooth 60 FPS experience, but it also came in at a smaller file size of around 14 GB – practically half the size of the Nintendo Switch equivalent. It continues to receive stabilization updates, but the ability to use cross-progression to seamlessly jump back to my Asus ROG Ally playthrough isn’t lost on me. It’s also a game that respects my time, instead of forcing me to carve out time in my week in fear of missing out on rewards.
I bring this aspect up to Alonso, and he’s glad to see the studio’s intentions are manifesting. “This last Tenno Con, a guy came over and told me ‘I’ve been playing since I was 11’. We’ve got players that have been around for over a decade. You know, they started when they were in high school, and now they have families and jobs and stuff like that,” Alonso tells me.
Maintaining a balance is important to Alonso’s perspective on Warframe, adding that “I don’t want to pressure them to feel like they have to log on every day, or they’re going to miss out, which a lot of games in the free-to-play sphere do.” Warframe’s 12th anniversary celebrations are live now in-game, with a myriad of rewards to earn across the next few weeks.
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