Warframe Beginner’s Guide: Play Now or Miss Out?

This was Warframe 10 years ago back then the team at digital extremes was celebrating tiny Milestones today we’re celebrating 1,000 likes on Facebook skipped to today and Warframe has gone through many changes not least in logo design but the core gameplay Loop remains shoot the bad guys use cool

Powers collect Loot and more and more players are jumping into a game that has gone from celebrating 1,000 likes on Facebook to supporting over 70,000 concurrent players each month which begs the question is it too late to start playing Warframe this is warframe’s huge annual convention Tenon a gathering of super fans content creators and the developers and I can’t think of a better place to find out we have 10 years of Warframe that’s been built and we’re about to make it feel like this one connected sci-fi weird MMO that finally and

Readily is about to get a lot weirder what makes Warframe so great and enduring is the huge variety of things you can do in it the nearest mainstream equivalent is GTA online and even that doesn’t come close it really is that diverse if you like Sci-Fi games like

Destiny Eve or Mass Effect or do you prefer collecting loot in something like Borderlands or Diablo or do you just love min maxing in games if you answered yes to any of these then Warframe is for you the gear you get also gives you different play Styles seriously the

Options you have get wild there’s a frame that eats his enemies and to add insult to injury he can spit out the digested bodies as projectiles warframe’s biggest gameplay principle is you want to do what that sounds cool go ahead and do it you want to fire 30 homing missiles that lock

Onto enemy ships in the middle of a dog fight do it you can be invisible at the same time it’s something I very much appreciate Warframe that is it’s it’s very easy to pick up and very easy to put down and the game never feels like

It’s judging you for that which is just a very unique experience at the moment sadly unlike other free-to-play games they don’t lock stuff behind payars or time gate stuff they don’t try and force you to buy stuff with real money the game even tells you to take a break when

You’ve been playing for over an hour most missions are super short at 10 to 15 minutes and this relaxed attitude also trickles down to the player base everybody I’ve interacted with here is super lovely and super relaxed there are two things about the game that I would

Warn you about that could turn some people off while there is a fantastic story with amazing cinematics it doesn’t get going until about 20 hours in and it’s also a game that doesn’t tell you too much once you got past the tutorial you have to look stuff up which isn’t a

Problem for me because I love guides but I I understand if that would put some people off so what about this amazing Space Opera of a Storia so good let’s take a look at what you need to know about the story we’re members of an ancient warrior cast we’re called the tenno

That’s what the player faction is we are using the warframes to keep the balance keep the peace in the solar system but we’re very mercenari we’re not exactly good guys we’re not exactly bad guys we’re kind of on the more light and positive side of things but at the end

Of the day you got to pay the bills those bills are I want more weapons make me a God you got these kids who are the tenno and they use Space Magic to control these biomechanical power suits called warframes and each Warframe has their own like unique powers abilities that

Either protect or my favorite part blow stuff up but actually underneath there’s actually this really compelling story about discovering who you are and what that means and I just think it’s there’s something very special about having this kind of game be about a personal journey and personal

Growth so while it’s your standard save the universe setup there’s so much more that I’ve left out it’s been built on constantly for 10 years so there is so much more to discover here but I just wanted to keep it simple as a jumping off point for more on the story and the

LW of Warframe that goes into much more detail I’ve linked a great video down in the description that you can check out if you want to you get three classes or more accurately three different warframes to pick from when you first start the game got a sword melee Warframe called

Excalibur a defensive electric stunning Warframe called Vault but as a newbie myself who tested them all out beforehand I would personally recommend mag I mean Excalibur is the poster boy but I prefer mag every time I restart I always go with mag cuz I just I think

Like pull is just a great just it’s just a great um opportunity for new players to be able to you know get that to you you can use that melee early you can kind of control things so yeah I like me each Warframe has four abilities that

They can cast think of them like spells the more powerful the ability the more energy it costs to cast that’s what’s great about mag is that the abilities are super useful for new players easy to understand and don’t use much energy mag’s pull ability pulls every enemy in

The area to just in front of you and stuns them making it easy for you to take out huge groups of enemies in one swipe mag also has an ability called magnetize which tears through bosses or higher level enemies point at the big bad in front of you cast magnetize any

Bullets you shoot into that ball will ping around over and over harming anything within it honestly unloading One Clip and anything in that ball is always dead finally mag has an innate ability to Hoover up any dropped materials ammos items and upgrades again for a game that is a loter shooter not

Having to actually loot saves so much time so now I convinced you mag is the best starting Warframe let’s take a look at the weapons you have to choose between because if you pick one and you don’t like it you might be stuck with it

For a long time oh for me at the start of the game I go Bratton every time just because I really like the way it sounds and plays for your main weapon I’d suggest the Bratton which is your standard assault rifle and it’s great the other option you could choose is

Paris which is a bow that’s fine but has a really low fire rate and is mostly good for stealthy missions which there are not that many of and our sidearm can be used as a stealthy weapon if we need it that stealthy sidearm is the kunai which I suggest taking over the latto

Which is your other option as we do need some stealth sometimes and latto is great but not worth being so loud for for our melee weapons we have both the scarner swords and the bow staff and they’re both great but if you’re choosing mag who can pull enemies to

Right in front of you the bow is lethal when there is a clump of enemies lying on the floor in front of you begging to be bopped this combination of of Warframe and weapons is what I enjoyed the most and was the most efficient for

Me as a beginner but feel free to pick any that appeal to you or your play style so how do you get new warframes weapons or items do they drop with glowing colors like Borderlands or do you have to run endless dungeons hoping the RNG gos will be kind to you and

Reward you at the end like in Destiny nope it’s neither of those random unlucky and frustrating ways that will have you sacrificing money or time at the altar of the RNG gods praying they look kindly on you in Warframe you buy a blueprint of the armor or gun for

Peanuts it lists the things you need to build them and even tells you where to find them it really is the most upfront and fair game that I have ever encountered when it comes to getting what you want obviously there are Hoops to jump through and you have to put time

Into farming but you always feel every minute you’re getting closer to your desired goal and none of it is wasted time even when I’m like this is the best time I’ve had with Destiny but you know it kind of sucks that I didn’t get the drop I wanted whereas with Warf I’m like

I had a great time that was good I really enjoyed that if you’re even remotely interested in playing it that you will get so much more over the game than you will ever expect to you can get nearly everything in the game for free just from farming but if you want to

Skip farming you can straight up buy the items you want there are even regular sales but you really don’t have to spend any money you know I didn’t put any money into it until I must have put in like 60 hours or something okay so now you’ve got your Warframe you got your

Happens and you’ve done the tutorial Mission now you’re left in your spaceship looking out into the vastness of the Warframe Universe what do you do next well first off you’re going to want to unlock access to all of the planets which invariably means completing all of the missions on one planet before you

Can skip off to the next if you want to do story specific missions you’ll need to go over to your codex station over here bring up the menu and select the quest or story you want to follow a blue flashing triangle will appear on your star chart for which Mission you need to

Do for that Quest the Blurred out ones are ones you can’t do yet and some of the missions you do try might actually be too hard for you without expressing telling you so so think about joining up with others to make it easier the game even automatically teams you up with

Other people up to four players can be put into a squad for each Mission and playing with other people is one of the things I’ve truly loved about Warframe as you get to watch other people activate some Bonkers abilities I regularly make notes on future warframes or weapons I want from seeing other

People use them and it’s great fun being able to play with high level friends and not feel like they carrying you too much there is no huge separation between myself who’s played for a thousand of hours and a friend who played for 10 yeah I’m stronger but we can still play

Next to each other all the way the vast majority of the game is PVE but there is some PVP if that’s what you’re interested in there are over 21 mission types that really help to keep the gameplay feeling fresh with things like spy missions where you have to hack into

Terminals without being spotted honestly it feels like metal gear sometimes there are also defense missions where you have to battle wave after wave of enemies as you cut through them like a Dynasty Warriors character there is space combat there is hoverboard surfing there is apartment customization there’s open

World you’ve now got horse riding in the game there’s just all these different games under the one hood and yeah somehow it all fits it is it is a very bizarre unique thing and it really is free to do all that stuff so once you’ve enjoyed jumping into a few missions your

Next goal is to unlock the whole star CH and be able to travel to any planet in the system because that is when the story really starts to kick into gear only issue is unlocking all of the planets will take between 50 and 100 hours and that’s when the story starts

To get good it’s one of the few drawbacks of Warframe is that the story doesn’t kick in sooner but I do have a solution the deiri Paradox the D Paradox was introduced in 2023 as an open world roguelike story within the Warframe world with new players in mind it’s a

Very fun romp that’s very different to the traditional Warframe but if you’re looking for a story it to scratch at any point I suggest jumping into the DUI Paradox from your menu once you’ve beaten the tutorial unlocked all the planets and finished the DUI Paradox you’re in the end game which is all

About Min maxing your characters and weapons through mods and to do that you’re going to need guides it really is a guide game if you’re one of those people that feel like they’re cheating if you look up a guide or tips on what to do then you won’t get the most out of

Warframe as well as the standard Googling next steps there’s a fantastic bunch of YouTubers making great content about what you can do in Warframe people like the keneer and the nightmare frame who I’ve talked to for this video are great at breaking down the insane things that are possible and amazing builds you

Could play around with broim I always love to see what uh he what his opinions are on like the dev stream will end and then we’ll see what the reactions are and I really like the keng engineers work I cover the more statistical matthy topics that no one

Wants to address in the first place break it down into the simplest terms so that everyone can get the most out of the game without having to break out the calculator I’ll do that bit yeah I’m kind of old school so I like I still visit the Warframe Wiki cuz the wiki is

The best source of all you know it’s and it and it’s not you know it’s not our Wiki it’s uh it’s something the community has created which is amazing original Wicked fun does some great videos each week on the tweaks and changes to the meta game modes and the

Like Mr Warframe guide does some funny videos all about Warframe MH Blacky has some great guides for you beginners out there broim has done a comprehensive video on the whole Warframe story and is one of the biggest Warframe YouTubers out there so if in doubt check out brozine uh returning players should come

Back because I feel like we’re just getting started we have 10 years of Warframe that’s been built and we’re about to take it all and just enhance go deeper make it feel like this one connected sci-fi weird MMO that finally and you know readily is a about to get a

Lot weirder if you’re away from Warframe for a year you’re always going to feel like you’re coming back to kind of a new game I think the ability to hop back in is probably one of the coolest things that the new team has been working on is

That making it a way so that anybody who has been away from the game for any amount of time can come in jump in understand where they are in the story and get back into it Warframe has changed a lot for a lot of reasons so

For the past 3 years we added more open worlds harder content with steel path Rog light systems in do vary and that is because we wanted to make Warframe as densely packed with genre as possible while still making sure the core gameplay is supported in every one of

These areas and eventually you will become the best that’s okay you’ll be able to clear steel path no problem you’ll be able to do DUI with your eyes closed and that’s okay because maybe in a couple months we’ll have one more thing for you so for me watching The

Meta evolve year-over-year we have made some changes we’ve touched a lot of different things to try and always ride the line between power fantasy and and not making the game unfun for other people or an automated experience you know you can really see players still using Wukong a lot AOE is really popular

Still so it’s not as though we’ve created some kind of Reckoning for these things we’ve just kind of tamed the beasts so to speak Warframe is always being tweaked hell the matter has probably changed in the time I’ve taken to edit this video so instead I’d suggest you check out places like the

Overframe website which is great for updates and tier lists broim does a full comprehensive review every year which is great and as I mentioned before original Wicked fun does some great videos each week on the tweaks and changes to the meta that week oh I’m so glad I started this

Journey with Warframe like I say there there’s nothing like it in games it is is truly one of a kind it is very very special sounds right Warframe is a very very special game and I hope I’ve managed to get across to you how unique

This game is if you enjoy a Sci-Fi game or a shooter or a looting based game you really need to give Warframe a try with it being completely free on so many platforms I guarantee you will get something out of this game okay so the story might take a while to get going

And you’re going to have to rely on guides for it but is it too late to play Warframe absolutely not just don’t blame me if you can’t stop playing it