Soul Frame has got a wazard. No, not a wizard, but a wazard.
What is a wazard? Same friend. I think I asked them when I had the opportunity to talk to Geoff Crookes and Sarah Asselin, still creative director and senior community manager of Digital Extremes’ Alpha Fantasy Mmorph. Is there a difference between the waste wazards that players fight in the game demos shown at this year’s Tenocon and your regular neighborhood wizard?
“I don’t know how much we enjoyed ourselves over the months, that Wazard says so much,” replied Crueks. “To be honest, in the extreme digital way, I think it’s just a case of how to make familiar things fun in Dorky. Honestly, I don’t remember if it was a typo.
While the studio may be a little closer to inspiration than it normally would, the director said Wazard was “too fun to deny.” The inside joke that waste, a new quest set up to add to soul frames, is a bear f story, is a bit “Wiz vs Wash.” At the request of a very French witch who can fly mice, he investigated embracing a Urshin tree called Bromius, and Crueks said it exists primarily for one reason.
“The inspiration started honestly, ‘Hey, we want a bear in the game,’ which is just as easy,” he revealed. So when we wanted a bear, we gave Sydney (Hills) a complete credibility to the designer of our story, and (she) leaned against calling him an arberist.
“After we did that role for him and he protected the tree, we slowly built up the idea that there was a risk to these things he would protect.
While it fits the collection of themes that Crookes, Asselin, and Co have been building soul frames through the previous “Preludes” alpha tests (nature, romanticism, red), this fresh f story continues to add new wrinkles to their fledgling games.
“Obviously, the world’s buildings are just expanding in the roles of trees in the world,” the director said. They also have new enemies, new procedurally generated dungeons called Neath’uns, and “planting seeds for future problems.” “This is a really great way to predict future quests players are trying to acquire, so everything you do with these story beats is to set up a table for more adventures in the future,” Crookes concluded.
When showing off this quest as part of this Tenanocon demo, the developers of Soulframe hope that fans will get a glimpse into the game that will help ease Crookes’ acceptance of being “our fault.” It’s called SoulFrame, but it’s not just about appealing to people who like Souls Games. Like Wazzard, the name was “a little too hard to deny” in terms of how well it suited the Mmorphg story.
“The impression people get, of course, is that the game is pretty hardcore from the comparison,” the director admitted. I would like to invite a wide range of playstyles that come to this game as I don’t want to be punished.
“If you want to be a hardcore swordsman, you’ll want to do that, and at the same time encourage the animals that will work, encourage, hang out, hang out and rescue in the world of soul frames, just as they are the best swordsman in the world.”
Digital extremes are not ready to commit to the date that brings back MMORPGs in the 2022 Tennocon edition. However, at the annual Warframe gathering of 2025, everyone sees signing up for an account at Soulframe’s Prelude over the weekend of the convention. The final full release, which is expected to be closer than last year, does not appear to be on the horizon anytime soon, reflects the digital extremes approaching the Soul Frame debut.
“We use everything we learned from launching Warframes, except we know that the industry will be different in 13 years,” Crueks told me. It grew bigger as I went down the hill.
“When we find a place where the snowman is ready to keep up the momentum, it’s going to be when (it’s) really wide open. So we’re probably getting closer to being a little more decisive when we have a good content loop and a good progression loop out there, because we probably know we’re there now, rather than paying a little more attention than when we started the game.”
The good thing is that while the snowman still needs some rolling, it sounds like the developers working on it have neglected a strong vision of how they want it to look, at least from a narrative and theme perspective. One new addition that SoulFrame reaches the skill system is a medieval style martial arts manual that allows you to learn skills such as Parrying and Perfect Dodging. I got a glimpse into the art for some of them, and while it looks really cool, given that I played soul frames in the Prelude felt like it was leaning towards more whimsical fantasy elements than realistic medieval inspiration, I asked how they managed that dichotomy.
“It’s balance, we’re definitely conscious of that,” replied Crueks.
That’s far from the only balanced ACT by Soulframe developers, but when the team encounters these on the non-writing aspect of the game, they seem a little more open and adaptable. I mentioned in Current about the fact that Soulframe can run and roam freely the moment the game’s short intro cinematic concludes. It’s wonderfully freed, but there’s a lack of overtly clear purpose that could lead you to wandering around for a while until you encounter a quest or dungeon.
“Yeah, there aren’t a lot of handheld early games right now. Finding that sweet spot among people who lack exploration and important aspects of the game is something we are constantly working on and is really important for a new player experience that feels good.
“It’s funny, there were actually plans and we set them up. We were working on it at first to shake hands very much,” continued Crookes. Use the method, Prelude, stop this (plan) and keep stuffing in.
Soulframe’s procedurally generated dungeons are another area where teams need to adjust for established plans or preconceptions, and Crookes acknowledges that it is difficult to control structures, and the dungeon allows. “Even with warframes, there’s something about the language of the spaceship. It makes sense to play a little with the layout, but when you dig into the trench naturally, you need to justify it a bit.
These will have to be thought of further by teams under the line. It impacts the challenges the world offers, such as how players employ more and more soul frame ancestors’ allies into the Spirit Dimension Home Base (called Night Folds). Furthermore, the challenge of adding the sparrow-centric bird race mini-game adopted by Soulframe will guide you objectively and help you return to the corpse when you need respawn. Well, the last one might be the idea that came to my mind for Crookes and Asselin.
Currently, Souframe developers hope that they have created a MMO that is quite different from Warframe, where they can build “my pathway, their niche” while sharing familiar DNA. Crookes is “moderately” concerned that SoulFrame could cannibalize Warframe’s established audiences, while Asselin is a little more half full of glass.
“As someone who’s played many of both games, it feels like they have a similar spirit, but they have a different pace and tempo,” she said.
Whenever the soul frame reaches the point that emerges from Prelude Cockun, you need to check if there is a bit of war against the boss battle of Waz. Warframe has firepower on its side, but I don’t want to bet on wazards.
(TagStoTRASSLATE) SOULFRAME(T) Digital Extremes(T) PC(T) RPG
