Today, Warframe is one of the most successful, content-rich free-to-play games on the market, with a huge and passionate community of players. Ten years is a long time for a developer to keep one game going, and there’s no sign of this one slowing down any time soon. Had Warframe struggled to find an audience, however, it could easily have been Digital Extremes’ last. The company found itself in a tight spot in the months leading up to the initial release. When we ask how the game first came to be, former Warframe art director Geoff Crookes’ instant, wry answer is “Desperation”.
“We had lost a publishing contract,” explains Digital Extremes’ chief creative officer Steve Sinclair. “We had laid off 50 people, I think.” (“Pretty painful for the size of the company back then,” adds Geoff.)
“We were running on fumes. [Warframe] was kind of a Hail Mary. We were really desperate to try to save the studio, and we were lucky that it caught on. ‘Left 4 Dead in space’ was probably the way we explained it to people.” Failing to find a publisher – one of the biggest f2p publishers in the world immediately lost interest upon seeing that it was a science-fiction game – Digital Extremes had to go it alone, with fewer than 20 developers to ship its new game.
The pressure to complete and ship a game led to a rapid development, helped by the use of unused assets from the studio’s 2008
