While Bungie’s game hasn’t been able to bounce back, Digital Extremes’ game is trending upward.

Now that Destiny 2 is over, we can’t help but wonder: How did this happen? An interview by Game Business with Sheldon Carter, president of Digital Extremes and developer of Warframe, provides more insight into this question. It turns out that while Destiny 2 was struggling, its main rival experienced continuous, massive growth for several years. Carter explained that the release of the original Destiny in 2014—well over a year after the 2013 launch of Warframe—was a major blow to Digital Extremes. His initial instinct was to compete aggressively with Bungie. However, his view has changed over the years, and like the rest of the Digital Extremes team, he does not welcome the end of Destiny 2’s development.

While the number of Destiny 2 players dropped significantly before Sony shut down the game, Warframe appeared to be heading in the opposite direction. Carter explained that, four or five years ago, Digital Extremes began worrying that Warframe had reached its peak and that it was time to start thinking about next steps. This sparked the development of Soulframe, the studio’s second project, and brought about changes in how the studio managed Warframe. While Bungie has invested valuable time and resources into numerous unsuccessful incubation projects, Digital Extremes is proceeding cautiously with Soulframe. Four years after its announcement, Soulframe is still in the pre-release phase and unavailable on Steam. Although Soulframe may be the future, Digital Extremes has no intention of turning their backs on Warframe. In fact, according to Carter, the price surge caused by the “RAMpocalypse” may help Warframe remain relevant in the coming years.

“Over time, developers from their team join yours. The new people you hired learned what looter shooters are and how they work because they put thousands of hours into Destiny. At our studio, there was a sense of mourning when that news was released. The mood in our studio was pretty dour because of all the connections you end up having. We changed how we developed and promoted the game, and now we’ve had a few years of massive growth. We’re now in a happy position where Warframe is thriving, which gives us the ability to give Soulframe time and space to try new things and connect with players.

One of the things you learn when developing a second game with the same scope as Warframe is that expertise doesn’t mean you won’t make the same mistakes as before. It just means you can recover from them a little faster. That’s been the journey of Soulframe—relearning things we forgot after so many years while using our core audience to establish communication and build trust. We’re taking our time to ensure there’s enough content, story, and gameplay so that, when we release it to a wider audience, it will have its core.

You can play Warframe on your PlayStation 5 Pro, and it looks cutting edge. You can also play it on a four-generation-old Android phone. For me, I hope that if console demands can’t be met, or if people need to use older hardware because new hardware is expensive, they’ll still have Warframe, because it’s a game that will always be updated”, Carter said.

Have they found their place, but Destiny 2 hasn’t?

Source: PCGamer