No one can deny that Warframe is one of the most popular games nowadays. The smooth animations and intense fights make it so addictive, and that’s why players from around the world got hooked, which makes people ask the million-dollar question: Is Warframe cross-platform? In addition to all of this, Warframe is a free-to-play action role-playing third-person shooter multiplayer online game. It was developed and published by Digital Extremes.
The game was released on Windows in March 2013 and then on PlayStation 4 in November 2013, followed by the release on Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. Warframe has a lot of very positive reviews on Steam (more than 370k reviews), and most players are really loving the grinding some of them have even spent more than 1k hours playing this game alone. So, going back to our question; is Warframe cross-platform?
Is Warframe Cross-Platform | Crossplay Enabled?
Seeing the number of players grinding on this game daily, Warframe crossplay features should already be in place as many gamers tend to switch between platforms to play their favorite games using one single account. However, Warframe cross-platform is not supported YET!
Warframe is known to be one of those games that deliver new and fresh content monthly and they are not showing any slowing down. But still, Warframe cross-platform or crossplay is not supported. This goes even further. Updates and new contents are not equally distributed across platforms. If you’re playing on PC, you will notice a delay to download the latest updates or newest content. It might even reach months before downloading them, so no wonder cross-platform is not supported.
There’s a workaround though. This might not seem very practical, but for some players that invested a lot of hours into this game, it becomes a necessity to transfer their progress to another platform.
You can transfer a good chunk of your progress to another platform, but you can’t transfer your account, unfortunately.
Players on Steam, Reddit, and other forums are always asking the studio to enable this feature in the game. However, the response was always the same. The studio has a lot of “other stuff” to focus on right now, and cross-platform is nowhere near the first task on that list. And to be honest, I think that the studio is already doing a tremendous job with new content and always delivering fresh and new content on a monthly basis. Let us not forget that this game is also free to play on all platforms.
You can certainly pay for cosmetics and extra stuff in-game, but you can always play the entire game for free, and you won’t feel the disadvantage of not paying, unlike other free-to-play games.
Will Warframe get Cross-Platform | Crossplay? And When?
On Warframe Devstream #131, the Dev team mentioned that they are working on Cross-Save and no Crossplay. There’s a fine line between the two and people tend to get confused whenever they hear one of them.
In the video below, Steve mentioned that he asked his dev team to check what methods they could use to enable this feature (cross-saving). They responded with a couple of methods before stating that they are already working on it and it’s making progress, with the console holders agreeing to this as well.
“Cross-play requires all platforms to be updated simultaneously, which is not what our development schedule allows for at the moment. Given the extra balancing passes needed to make this functionality fair for all platforms and the delay in releasing content that would be necessary for simultaneous updates, I, unfortunately, don’t see Warframe cross-play existing in the foreseeable future,” Digital Extremes Studio Manager Sheldon Carter told WCCFTech in 2016.
Cross-Save is a feature that was implemented in Destiny 2 which enables the player to continue playing the game where it was left off when changing the platform.
If you’re playing on a console, cross-saving will not let you play against Windows players. I think that the main reason behind this is not the technical limitations, but Sony’s approval to enable the feature. Competition-wise, Sony does not tolerate any game being player-shared between other platforms.
On the other hand, there are a few games that support cross-play, but only a few. Fortnite, for example, managed to turn that on by “accident” and was tolerated by Sony, let it pass.
This feature will be enabled, but not as soon as you might think. But this announcement made a lot of Warframe enthusiasts feel rewarded after spending a huge amount of time on this game.
With so many games coming out and new technologies and hardware available, cross-platform play is slowly becoming the norm. We know that this is purely about market share, however, Sony needs to lower their ego a bit and start looking at the problem from another angle. Sony has approved cross-play for some games while opposing the request of others. This raises the question: Why does Sony favor some games over others even though they are equal, if not better, in terms of the fanbase?
We will have to wait for an official announcement about Warframe cross-platform, and this might take some time. However, if the community continues to push the Dev team to make it happen, then it will.
Warframe’s fanbase is so big and dedicated to this work of art. We can see this in a large number of positive reviews and lengthy discussions about the game on the internet, as well as in the specifics that people are discussing.
Warframe is also known for its gigantic map, where anyone can roam freely and easily spend a lot of time just running around. It would be better if the team added a cross-platform and cross-player feature to the game. This will definitely increase its fanbase, rather than leaving the player with only one option when playing Warframe.