At this year's fully digital TennoCon, Digital Extremes announced the Heart of Deimos expansion, coming to Warframe August 25th (on all platforms at the same time, a first for the game).
Heart of Deimos adds the third open world zone to Warframe after Plains of Eidolon and Fortuna, though that's just the tip of the iceberg. On the surface of Deimos, players will get to move around quickly with either their hoverboards or the native Dragonflies. Additionally, Digital Extremes added the opportunity to actually fight while on the hoverboard, though only with a sidearm.
Beneath the surface, fans will find a procedurally generated underground tileset that should hopefully keep the exploration of Deimos' tunnels interesting for quite some time. And for the first time, Operators will get to pilot the so-called 'Necromechs', which will prove to be invaluable in order to survive the infested environment.
Perhaps even more exciting for veteran players is the Helminth Chrysalis System, which will allow them to essentially 'sacrifice' a non-Prime Warframe to extract one of its core abilities and then transfer it to another Warframe of their choosing.
Last but not least, the developers presented the community-designed Xaku, the game's gender neutral 44th Warframe which wields the power of the Void.
We were able to participate in a press briefing for Heart of Deimos, where Live Operations and Community Director Rebecca Ford kindly replied to a slew of questions.
- Necromechs are the brainchild of the Entrati family. Each one has a series of powers, and they are customizable through a separate section on the menu. The plan is to make them available on all three open world zones, not just Deimos, when the expansion launches.
- Newer players that haven't unlocked Operator mode yet will still get to explore the feeling of using a Necromech, but to own and upgrade one you'll need to complete The Second Dream quest first.
- With the Helminth Chrysalis System, the developers are adding 'real stakes' to Warframe, which is why players are required to actually sacrifice a Warframe to extract a desired ability for another. The 'subsume' process takes 24 hours, but you do get the slot back.
- There's more mining in Heart of Deimos, they're making it look like more 'Infested' this time around to go with the setting.
- Heart of Deimos features a much more densely packed open world compared to previous zones (Plains of Eidolon and Fortuna). There's a lot more broad story content than those two updates in comparison. The quest will add quite a bit of story content to Warframe and should teach players a lot more about the Void, which is a place players have known for quite some time but didn't really know the origins of.
- There's a fast travel system based on the previous Esophage system, which had been removed from the game. If it works, there's a chance that a similar system could be added for the other open world zones.
- The Heart of Deimos quest also has the Blueprint for a new Broken Frame.
- In terms of story, it's going to be very much about family, the pursuit of knowledge, and the expense of it.
- No update yet on cross-progression, but it is still something the team is very much interested in eventually adding to Warframe.
