If you’ve been enjoying the ongoing developments in Warframe as much as we have, you’re in store for some fun for our PC brethren who’re just slightly ahead of consoles as far as updates go. While we know Update 18.5 has been out for a few days, we know not all of you have gotten your hands on it, so lets take a look at the patch notes.
The patch includes the following:
New Warframe: Inaros
Desiccation – Blast enemies with a wave of cursed sand that blinds them and steals their health.
Devour- Hold power to trap target in quicksand and draw them in for devouring; this steals health and ultimately creates a friendly Sand Shadow.
Sandstorm – Become a whirling spiral of sand that sends enemies flying and devours those trapped in quicksand.
Scarab Swarm – Charge to transform health into hardened scarab armor. Discharge to blast enemies with a scarab swarm; survivors have their health drained and bestowed on allies.
Sands of Inaros Quest Line:
Baro Ki’Teer is searching for riches under the sands of Phobos, but he needs Tenno help in order to find his fortune.
New Enemies
Kavat – A feral Kavat. Feral Kavats can be found in all Derelict Missions except Defense.
Hyekka – Trained to hunt down Infestation.
Hyekka Master – Summons a Hyekka to fight for it. Hyekka Masters will replace Drahk Masters in the following Missions: Phobos (Grineer Settlement tileset) and Moon Defense. They will also appear in any Grineer Mission that features Infested, and may also appear in other Missions that spawn Grineer enemies.
New Weapons
Lesion – An instrument of unrelenting harm in close combat.
Mutalist Cernos – Overcome with Infestation, this bow’s arrows now spread poisonous contagion to any surface they hit.
Dual Toxocyst – Brain-strikes excite this bioweapon, causing it to rapidly release toxic munitions
New Cosmetics
New Landing Craft – XIPHOS – Featuring Sentry Gun air-support, this stylish Landing Craft is an asset in any battle.
Abrasys Syandana – Evokes stone scarred but not destroyed by the sea’s tireless onslaught.
Celestia Syandana – Displays Daily Conclave Challenge progress, with a beam of light for each completed challenge.
New General Features:
The Randomizer is here! Players can now customize their loadout and appearance using the ‘Randomize’ button in the Arsenal!
New Arsenal hierarchy/organization
New ‘Dojo’ Warframe colour picker.
Reactor Sabotage 2.0
Grineer and Corpus Ship Reactor Sabotage missions have been given a total overhaul, complete with diverse mission objectives and a new set of Sabotage-unique tiles. Reactor Sabotage 2.0 includes:
Interactive Mission objectives that will change depending on the squad playstyle. These objectives will create unique environmental hazards and varying extraction goals depending on the Squads choice.
4 new Grineer tiles.
4 new Corpus tiles.
Tileset Expansion – Orokin Moon
The Orokin Moon tileset has been expanded to include new game modes. These additions include:
20 new environmental tiles.
Defense, Capture, and Warframe’s most difficult Spy Missions yet!
Overall improvements to older tileset rooms, including graphical and lighting adjustments.
Chat Changes
Warframe’s chat UI has been given a complete overhaul, including new features and more intuitive settings for private conversations and player searching. We will continue to expand upon the chat UI in the coming updates. The following changes have been made to the chat UI:
Chat has received a visual reskin.
Tabs are now icons for default channels and text for private messages, separating chat channels from conversations you’re having with other players.
An Emojis tab has been added to the chat UI! Share your feelings without words using Emoji’s you know and love, in addition to Warframe exclusive Emojis. Enjoy! 😀
Emoji’s can also be auto-completed with the : command.
Emoji color settings have been added to the Chat Options menu.
Auto-complete player name functionality has been added. This tab will open when typing @, and will only show players recently spoken to.
Chat channel notifications will now appear in the chat tab when a player’s name has been mentioned in a channel. This effect will be brief for channels you are currently speaking in, but more prominent for channels you are not currently focused on.
Pressing up and down while in a chat channel will display previous messages you’ve sent.
Maximum character count in the Trade channel is 180.
A whisper button has been added to the player Profile screen.
Lighting Improvements
Warframe’s lighting system has received a complete overhaul, putting an extra layer of detail on every single graphical element of the game. Players should notice a substantial increase in detail across all of Warframe’s game modes, weapons, characters and tilesets.
Interception AI Improvements
Enemies in Interception Missions have been overhauled to help improve the flow of combat over the course of the Mission. These improvements include:
Superior objective finding and hacking agent selection.
Better player tracking and more intuitive movement to Squad location.
Enemies unable to hack (such as MOAs) will no longer move to engage hacking consoles.
You can play for free through the Warframe Website for PC or download for free through the Xbox Live Marketplace or PlayStation Store.
Our Thoughts:
Warframe is one of those games that Digital Extemes has shown a lot of love for, fans have shown a lot of love for, and even new comers have begun showing a lot of love for. Luckily the game as it grows, has gotten bigger, more beautiful and even more-refined as it goes. To be honest? This is probably the best free-to-play title I’ve played in a long time. With the game now having a giant central hub, it truly feels like a non-isolated game, but with these subtle changes? We’re going to see the game grow even more and get even more stories behind each frame. Now if only we could see a Chang’e or even a Kali frame.
About the Writer:
Dustin is our native console gamer, PlayStation and Nintendo reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the boarders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. His elitist attitude gives him direction, want, and a need for the hardest difficulties in games, which is fun to watch, and hilarity at its finest. You can find him over on Twitter, Google+, and or you can find him on PSN with RaivynLyken.