Warframe

Welcome to Warframe. Play the same mission 231 times for the peepeepoopoo blueprint.

The Platinum must flow!

Oh boy.

Before I can get into the nitty-gritty and answer the question of "Should I play Warframe?" let it be known that it's impossible to review the entirety of this game with the restriction imposed by Steam's review format. There are too many systems within it to cover them all. We can talk about what works and what doesn’t as a whole, but to truly dissect them we’d need one of those 6-hour-long YouTube videos that are all the rage these days.
The short answer: Yes, you should play it. It’s free, a lot of fun and doesn’t make you feel terrible if you never spend money on it. The long answer; here we go!
The good
Audio, Visuals, Gameplay, Variety
Warframe is an MMO, co-op, third-person shooter, taking place in our very own solar system, at an unimaginably distant point in time, where two major factions vie for control in the aftermath of a great war. Players take on the role of the Tenno – ancient warriors now needed more than ever to keep balance within the universe and protect innocents from the new war they find themselves in. The Tenno operate the titular Warframes, battlesuits with exceptional combat prowess, agility, and space magic.
After choosing your Warframe, you’re dropped into a tutorial where you learn the basics of Warframe’s excellent combat and movement systems. You get a primary, secondary, and melee weapon, and can switch between them on the fly. Each Warframe also has four unique abilities, ie. space magic. Although the game doesn’t have a combo meter, it is very evocative of Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, and similar hack-n-slash games. The movement is cathartic, as you can glide through the air, run on walls, slide, twirl, and generally parkour all over the place. It’s a lot of fun.
After the tutorial, you get your very own spaceship, from which you’ll be able to fly across the galaxy and participate in the abundant content Warframe offers. You can visit all of the planets in the Solar system, and then some. While some of them have open-world areas, the majority of Warframe’s game modes you’ll get to play will be standalone missions, such as Survival, Defense, Assassination, Excavation, etc. As you do so, you will be awarded crafting resources and blueprints on which to use them, usually for crafting new weapons and Warframes. You’ll also be awarded Mods, which you can equip on your equipment to modify its various stats.
You’ll also notice just how beautiful of a game Warframe is, with visuals that make me wonder just how in the world they keep the system requirements as low as they are. There are issues with how lighting works, as certain surfaces can be blindingly bright, but turn off Bloom and you should be good. The audio production is similarly brilliant, with excellent sound design that makes the combat punchy and satisfying, regardless of which weapon you’re using. It’s amazing how every single weapon, no matter if it’s a primary, secondary, or melee, can be auditorily distinct from another, and still sound amazing. The soundtrack has a fitting track for every situation, ranging from ethereal chants when the game is being mysterious, to faster-paced, drum-driven ones that compliment the combat. There’s a bit of inconsistency to it, as some are memorable enough to become known even outside of the game, while others are just something you probably won't think about outside of the moment it's playing.
The bad
Progression, Difficulty, Story Quests, Design Philosophy
So, after you’ve gotten acquainted with your ship and everything you can do around it, maybe progressed through a couple of planets, and tried doing a quest or two, the game opens up and provides very little information on what you’re supposed to do next. Don’t bother with figuring it out on your own, as that’ll only put you off. Look to the wiki and save yourself unnecessary frustration. After the first…40 hours, the game will click. You’ll find a weapon that works for you and continue progressing through the Star map, acquiring more gear and knowledge on the game as you go along, and getting to complete more and more story quests.
If you’re smart, unlike I was, you should probably stop around 400-500 hours, as Warframe’s problems become more apparent as progression continues. I believe that, first and foremost, Warframe was designed to keep player base retention. You may think that every game is, but no. As a free-to-play title, Warframe most likely relies on players to keep coming back; as they invest more and more time into it, the more likely they are to invest money as well. Other, paid titles, won’t mind how many hours you put in since you pay up-front. Warframe isn’t bad in this regard, as pretty much anything that can be bought with Platinum (the game's premium currency) can be grinded for, as you can trade Platinum with other players, so there’s a strong trading economy at play here - but you wouldn't know it from the in-game market.
The very progression is stop-and-go, as each piece of gear has its own level. As you level them up, so does your overall account level, called Mastery, increase – granting you access to more content and weapons. You’re encouraged to keep swapping between them, instead of getting more powerful with one – which you will have to do as well, at some point. Once this stops at Mastery level 16, you’ve pretty much encountered the hardest Warframe has to throw at you, and you still have another 24 levels to go, with new ones being added as the number of equipment in the game grows. Past that point, all you’re doing is increasing numbers and figuring out the most efficient way of farming for new stuff. You might not mind it as much, but know that the game wasn’t designed with a point of finality in mind, but for you to keep coming back, again and again, to keep grinding and completing content, without much substance to it. Enemies become trivial, as a single press of a button can wipe out entire rooms. Level-design becomes non-existent, as you spam the bullet jump maneuver to blaze through levels as fast as possible, so you can try again if that piece of loot you need didn’t drop.
As such, the developers prioritize new, replayable content to get older players into the grind again. At the same time, it has to be accessible to newer players, so it can’t be made too difficult. Story quests suffer especially, as they’re not designed with replayability in mind. The main plot of Warframe still isn’t finished, and it’s been three years since the previous major quest had been added. There’s a lot of wasted potential here, especially with some of the characters, as such a game can’t really have character development. There's simply no room for it. Meanwhile, characters already in the game get no arcs and remain the same for the sake of replayable missions and grind.
It might keep all those boxes in your mind ticked so you feel accomplished. I know I did way past a point I should have, but looking back at a good part of those 995 hours, and it feels like time wasted.
Performance & Verdict
Reviewed on the following system:
CPU AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6GHzGPUGeForce GTX 1050TiRAM 16GB
I’ve already praised Warframe’s optimization. I’m able to run the game at a consistent 60 fps at 1080p, with only some of the more demanding post-processing options disabled.
It is a game I loved playing, and sometimes still get some enjoyment out of, but no matter what the countless blinking lights on the star map and the XP bars that beg to be filled would have you believe, there is a point where it has nothing more to offer.
Check out Summit Reviews, a curator helmed by veterans of the review scene, for more professional-quality reviews of all sorts of games!

I've played for 220 hours and understand nothing.

Personal note:
“You have 4,300 hours on warframe. Would you like to write a review?” I would have written this sooner but I have had an odd relationship with this game. For a while I considered myself a video game addict and that there were 3 games that were my effective “drug of choice”. I went to an open minded Alcoholics Anonymous group that allowed me to participate as a person in recovery with a process addiction. Lately I’ve been in the mindset that I just have a lot of free time and a lot of mental struggles to deal with that is games to distract me from. I have gone in and out of believing and not believing that I have problems with this game and am still deciding how I feel about that.
Actual game review:
I have played warframe on and off (mostly on) for 8 or 9 years as of the day I’m writing this. I have always enjoyed grindy games like RuneScape or Adventure Quest or Cookie Clicker. Naturally, I like warframe. However I will admit the first ~100 hours of my gameplay experience was being an xp leech with friends who had god tier gear. Idk how the new player experience is nowadays but I doubt it’s as bad as it was for me so long ago.
When I describe warframe to people who are unfamiliar with it I say, “Space ninjas with guns and magic”. I feel that’s pretty accurate (to a certain extent for the sake of brevity). The movement is fluid as hell and unmatched by pretty much any other game I have played. It really makes you feel like a nimble, agile ninja. And if you’re more of a “run in and explode everything” kind of person in games you can do that too. The amount of power warframes and their arsenal have is absolutely absurd against the enemies in the game. No other game has made me feel like an absolute god tier powerhouse like warframe has.
The community is ridiculously silly and better than any other I’ve seen in any mmo. I think this is due to the game being almost 100% PvE. There are certain sources of toxicity (Eidolon hunters and their elitist attitudes on builds) but I would say that less than 1% of my experiences with the warframe community have been negative which is an astounding track record for an mmo.
I love warframe. I have seen it change from having a stamina bar and making you equip your abilities as mods to the amazing piece of art it is today. I have high hopes for this game to bring me many more hundreds of hours of entertainment.
TL;DR
Grindy PvE game about space ninjas with guns and magic.

Since I noticed I'd hit exactly 4,000 hours on this game, I figured I should finally write a review.
I really do love this game. I've been playing on and off for something like five years now. Even if I go on hiatus for months or even longer, I can always come back to it, and there will be something for me to do. I enjoy the gameplay loop, I'm invested in so many of the characters, and the amount of customization available for your warframe is just fantastic.
This game is entirely free-to-play, but it's one I gladly put money into. I love it.

This game is good if you have:
- No money
- Lot's of spare time
This game is bad if you have:
- a job
- a Wife/girlfriend
- children
- bills
- church
- a mortgage loan
- another hobby
- any form of responsibility in your life

If you have a life, DO NOT ALLOW THIS FREE-TIME BLACK HOLE, THIS TIME SUCCUBUS to consume you. You will hate it, yourself, and everyone who plays it, and you'll still be farming. If you've already seen the amount of stuff you can do in this game and you're still interested, I'm sorry. Its too late for you.