Garuda is gloriously gory
Before stepping out into Fortuna’s more open-world areas, we took Garuda for a spin in an exterminate mission to demonstrate her skills and how they work together to eviscerate enemies. As much as I am a horror and gory film fan, I have found that in many games I do not like playing with blood-themed mechanics. I suspect that is related to the specific sound effects, so I was very curious to see how Garuda’s skills played. And as it turns out, I definitely want to try her out!
Garuda’s four abilities really play well off each other. I haven’t always felt the synergy of abilities in the warframes I have played, but hers work together like the steps of a (deadly) dance. Her third ability cannibalizes her own health pool to give her energy.
“It may seem a little weird to put yourself down at the brink of death, but for Garuda that’s actually the intent,” Ford explained. “The lower her health is, the more damage she deals across the board.”
The team then demonstrated just how much more damage is dealt out on one unsuspecting mob: Garuda sliced that guy into multiple pieces with one swing of her blade-tipped hands. This works beautifully in conjunction with her first ability, which is using a mob as a shield in a unique way. Forget using the body, she only wants the blood! Garuda grabs hold of said mo
b and creates a directional shield — represented by a blood orb over Garuda’s head — that deflects all incoming damaging using the its blood. That orb can then be thrown as a bomb at mobs, and Garuda can make a new one by latching onto another mob and ripping it to shreds. So as long as Garuda has the energy, which she can make herself by halving her health, she can create an endless loop of slice-and-dicing, shielding, and slinging bombs.
So if you are dropping your health down to next to nothing (Garuda kept being at two health during this run), won’t you just die? Never fear, the second ability is here! This one is a speak that Garuda calls up from the ground to pierce enemies and siphon life away from them and into anyone who stands in the circle. So the bloodletter is a team healer. Yes! See, I told you I wanted to play her.
Ginsu-riffic
Now I really loved the fourth ability, and I am seriously saddened that it might actually be changed. As it stood for this demo, Garuda’s ultimate ability turns her into a giant blender that just shreds everything in her path. I vote for calling this ability Ginsu! All her blades come out, and she moves along her path with them whirling around her obliterating everything. Currently she floats, but Ford explained that might change to a more refined walk (a request from target testing), or even switch out completely to something more survivability- or stat-based. I really hope it is the first choice and not the others; I am looking forward to being a blender.
One signature aspect of Garuda was that as she cannibalized her health, her ‘Frame got bloodier and bloodier. Ford explained that brand-new tech was created by sounds, art, and effects to support this bloodied look. And then she mentioned that the team is already anticipating players wanting a cosmetic they can use on other warframes, so DE is considering making one.
I am excited to test out Garuda for myself. According to Ford, there is a small chance that this 37th warframe will be pushed back a bit and not launched with Fortuna in order to give her a quest, but that is to be determined. The team has ideas, but who wants to deprive players of this fun? Speaking of fun…
Fun on the frozen Fortuna tundra
Next we followed Garuda into Fortuna. We took a look at creating your own robotic Moa companion and the modular weapons that were announced back at TennoCon. I admit I am going to have a bit of trouble here trying to balance building what I think looks cool and building with the components that have the stats I want! (While constructing your kit gun, take note of the names of the parts; Ford mentioned the team had quite of bit of fun coming up with them.) Luckily, Moas are more than the sum of their parts: You can throw mods on yours to customize abilities instead of being tied to what each piece offered. Players can even give the Moas emotions! Yup, pick between sensitive, aggressive, or inquisitive moduals to give your companion a personality it can express to you while you adventure.
As interesting as I think the hub is, I was itching to get out in the ice and snow. That is, I was until Ford let us in on one little secret. While we didn’t get super revelations about the nature of the indentured cyborgs here (we have to discover that all on our own), she did point out this little non-cyborg child sitting above a vent. This little fellow, and his whole band of orphans, have created a cool secret hidden club that offer a whole new syndicate. And what does this syndicate have to offer? The K-Drive! We knew that the hoverboard was going to be a part of the expansion (and luckily, players can get their hands on one fairly easily the first day), but I really love how it has been tied in to the lore and story instead of just being a movement mechanic. And it also brings meaning to the K-Drive races you can participate out on the surface; impress the kids with your ability to maneuver and your tricks to earn standing with this syndicate. And Ford emphasized that there was much more to learn about these orphans as you explore the open world.
Now we moved on to the open-world area of Fortuna, the massive snow-covered terraformed biome on the surface of Venus. We caught robotic fish with the magnetic fishing spear. Ford said that of all the minigames that are being redone for Fortuna (including mining), the fishing will be the most skill-based. Then we ran a race to earn points with the orphans, flew around a bit on our archwing (yes, you can use the archwing here and the K-Drive on the Plains of Eidolon), and infiltrated a corpus base. Let me tell you, this base is huge and you can definitely get lost in its maze. Next, we delved down into a cave then tried to capture one of the five critter available at launch to help in the conservation efforts. We didn’t run into any of the massive orb spiders, but that’s OK since they won’t even be attackable right at launch.
Each time I see Fortuna, I am excited by the vastness of it. Just traveling around the zone, being able to stay inside it to continue moving from bounty to bounty, discovering new races and raiding new bases, will be crisp and refreshing — just like the snow that blankets the landscape. I am really looking forward to getting my ‘Frame’s feet wet in Fortuna.
Massive Multiplayer, not massively multiplayer
With how massive Fortuna’s open-world is, I am still a bit saddened that it is still restricted to only a four-man instance. It feels like you should be able to bump into a number of other players. That said, it makes sense that you can’t. Fortuna is a massive multiplayer world as opposed to massively multiplayer. Ford explained that the backbone of Warframe is the four-man instance, and there isn’t a plan on changing that winning formula. You will also be bumping into plenty of NPCs, so the vastness won’t feel empty. Ford emphasized that vastness isn’t the sole direction of Warframe’s development; there will be smaller content drops again as well, and not every expansion will be massive open-world areas.
While I can live with having just a four-man group (although I hate when I have five friends online!), what I can’t live with is when your groupmates can’t adventure with you. Remembering how difficult it was to actually load in with your group to the Plains of Eidolon when that expansion launched, I asked Ford if there were measures being taken to ensure groups could remain together. Ford said she doesn’t know if they can make it foolproof, but they can sure try. “We should check to make sure that that will be handled more smartly this time because yeah, it was a huge issue,” she said.
Unrelated to Fortuna, Ford offered a final note to console players: The planned support of keyboard and mouse on the XBox One might be released before the expansion, so keep an eye out for that.
