With Destiny 2 now fully embalmed, I find myself wondering—as do a great many others—‘how did this happen?’ A new Game Business interview with Sheldon Carter, president of Warframe developer Digital Extremes, has me pondering that question even harder: It turns out that while Destiny 2 was floundering, its foremost rival was enjoying “a few years of straight massive growth.”
Sheldon said that the original Destiny “really hit us” when it launched in 2014, well over a year after Warframe’s 2013 release, and his initial instinct was to “aggressively” compete with Bungie. But that changed over the years, and like others at Digital Extremes, Carter doesn’t see the end of Destiny 2 development as a welcome development.
“Over time, what happens is developers from their team come on to your team. New people who you started, they learned what looter shooters are and how that works because they put thousands of hours into Destiny,” Carter said. “And so, at our studio, it was kind of a bit of mourning when they released that news. The mood in our studio was pretty dour because of all the connections that you end up having.”
But while Destiny 2’s player numbers were in significant decline before Sony pulled the plug, Warframe has apparently been headed in the opposite direction. Carter said that “four or five years ago,” Digital Extremes began to worry that Warframe had peaked, and it was time to start thinking about what’s next. That kicked off development of Soulframe, the studio’s second project—but at the same time it also brought about some changes on how the studio handlined Warframe.