TennoCon 2019: Warframe’s Great Guns cinematic story intro

If you saw the Warframe trailer ahead of the new Spider-Man movie, you caught a glimpse of the new cinematic created to introduce the game to players — but only a glimpse. The full movie-quality cinematic was unveiled on stage this evening at TennoCon 2019 to the cheers of fans. Director Dan Trachtenberg worked with Digital Extremes to create a re-imagining of Warframe’s origin story.

Perhaps more important than Trachtenberg’s directorial resume (which includes 10 Cloverfield Lane, Black Mirror: Playtest, The Boys,  and Uncharted) is the fact that he is also a seasoned player, making him intimately familiar with the game, its lore, and its secrets. Those two skill sets combine to make an action-filled, movie-quality cinematic to share all that in a whole new way.

A new beginning in the past

Warframe may not have started with story, but it’s sure making up for that as the years progress. Between the powerful story missions and now this new intense six-minute cinematic, what folks might think is just a shoot and loot experience has grown to a deep universe with lore that ties it all together.

Filmed as a new player introduction to the game, it gives context to the game and showcases many aspects of Warframe that new players can expect, from the frames themselves and their powers to movement to lore. It takes viewer back to an earlier era — all the way back to the Old War in the Orkin Era. As proto-Grineer hunt down a lone survivor of the village they just destroyed, viewers are treated to three flashbacks where the original Warframes rebel against their Orokin masters and fight against Dax Warriors. Each flashback highlights one of the three frames that new players will select from when starting the game: Excalibur, Mag, and Volt. The idea is that this new intro will give new folks a better understanding of the Warframe universe and a taste of the more comprehensive storyline.

The studio plans to incorporate this new introduction in late 2019/early 2020. Why so far away? Game Director Steve Sinclair explained that the team is working on creating that swamp area and integrating more of that experience from the new opening trailer into the game. That might just include some new Mag powers. Fun fact: There was talk of enhancing up the action, but Trachtenberg didn’t want to deviate from who Mag actually was.

New players aren’t the only ones who get value from the cinematic, either. Sinclair emphasized that there are plenty of Easter eggs and lore hidden within that six minutes. He then joked about adding in Deluxe Moss Skins for those three warframes. Trachtenberg suggested that veterans might want to freeze-frame it to catch everything.

Having such a well-know director creating the cinematic, players might wonder whether there is a real movie in the works. Sadly, no, it was just one cinematic. Would Trachtenberg work with Digital Extremes again? He explained that he actually was the one who reached out to the studio and told them he was their man if they wanted to do anything movie-wise.  And now we know the result of that. Maybe, someday, there could be more. We can hope. Trachtenberg said,

“Getting to work so collaboratively with the dev team at DE has been an awesome experience. As a massive fan of the game myself, having logged in hundreds of hours of play time, it’s been so much fun crafting a story that both sets up the universe for new players in a pretty epic way, while sprinkling it with moments that, I hope, make it doubly rewarding for hardcore fans with a better understanding of the game’s lore.”

Get caught up on all of our coverage of this year’s TennoCon!