Playlist of stuff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqlicgmjFUE&list=PLPwV3HidsVXgGun0ZuKgltY0syG8QVThQ&index=1

Review

New War Teardown

I've thought a lot about the New War quest since playing it. Which I suppose is a good thing overall. Better to be something that is pondered over than to be a nothing that immediately leaves the mind after experiencing it. And I do genuinely mean that. Even though I'm about to complain a ton, I am truly glad that it was a notable quest after all this time. I would say I'm conflicted. At a high level, I enjoyed it. But I also have a number of problems with it. Both gameplay-related and plot-related.

My first big problem with it is that, despite being far and away the longest quest in the game to date (coming in at like afternoon's worth of playtime), I felt like the "New War" wasn't really much of a war. I would break the quest down in to 4 stages/sections.

1. Intro (Kahl, Veso, Operator Railjack)
2. Teshin/Operator On-Foot
3. Drifter
4. Drifter/Operator Ending

Drifting On By

The 4th section being the biggest section of the quest, where you're playing as drifter. So let's talk about ol' drifty boy. What exactly is their purpose? I mean narratively. Warframe's not new to some weirdo concepts. But if you're going to get into parallel universes/selves, the typical and primary use case for that is a way of playing with regret and what-ifs. What if I went to medical school and got my doctorate? Well, let's see by introducing Dr. Protagonist from a couple universe over. Parallel universes are a very heavy-handed way of demonstrating a character's regrets and what they wish they would have done differently. I don't mean to sound dismissive to the concept entirely. Everything, Everywhere, All At Once is one of my favorite movies from the last few years and that's it's central concept. But I just say all that because that's just what their purpose is narratively. That is what they're for. They're a tool and not a subtle one.

So how do Drifter and Operator differ? Well Drifter is older. That's really about it. In New War, we learn that the Operator made a deal with the Man in the Wall, got the void powers going, became a Tenno and so on. Drifter however stayed stuck in the Void and eventually created/became trapped in Duviri. But like what is the actual difference between the two? What can you do with Drifter narratively that you couldn't have done with the Operator character? What does opening up this wormhole do for you?

Originally it seems Drifter is more of a down-to-Earth fella. Can't do the void nonsense and comes across as more "I bet you're wondering how I ended up like this" in the Duviri dialogue. So perhaps the idea would be that he serves as an everyman we could explain plot stuff to, that main character Operator would have no reason to exposit on. That could be a reason to have Drifter around. I don't think you really need to have a whole parallel self in order to accomplish that, but it could be fun. But here's the thing. In New War, we do give him void powers because we've decided he needs to be able to Warframe. So even in the quest where he's first introduced, you've removed one of the biggest differences between the Operator and Drifter characters. So why is he here? It feels like what they really wanted is for Operator character to survive big stab and come back older and more grizzled. Perhaps? He stops serving a narrative purpose in the same quest that he's introduced in.

No Friends

My 2nd big thing is that glaring plothole that I feel repeatedly comes up in the game. It's not an issue that is unique to New War, nor to Warframe, but is endemic to nearly all MMOs. Why does the Origin system fall to Ballas/Sentients when our Operator gets got? Where are the other Tenno during that gap in time? Why did they all decide to stop doing anything and immediately let the sentients in? There canonically is at least more than one. The concept of there being plural Tenno comes up way too often to suggest there is actually only one and that the MMO aspect is just a gameplay conceit and should be hand-waved away when we talk about story. So what were they doing when my Tenno was incapacitated? Seemingly nothing given they never get a mention in the quest at all. Moreover, how many Tenno are there? I'd be willing to say there's only 4 (max squad size), but even if I granted that, I still question where those other 3 bozos were.

Everything in Order, Ordis?

Next, we have Ordis. I'm genuinely confused on why he's in a body now. I mean I can presume the issue is they wanted to have Ordis physically in cutscenes to emote, and didn't know how to do that with his current model. Thus, the physical form. But I genuinely was confused when he showed up. I was certain that I had missed some other quest or cutscene. I guess Drifter made it for him? Why not show that though? As it is, I still feel sure I must have missed some dialogue relating to him. And also, what was that nonsense death? He seemingly does a whole little silly sacrifice. And then...he is back in the next cutscene. Again, no explanation as to why he is there. Genuinely what is going on with him? Was there some massive rewrites with him that just got shoved under the rug and they didn't bother to fix at all? I don't know.

Let's Wrap This Up

Lastly, Lotus and Ballas (and the War in general). I don't understand their motivations. Now, I'm willing to admit that this may be partially the great gap in time between playing the previous quests/cinematics that were leading into New War and New War itself. But I don't really understand what happened with each of them. If I have not just forgotten the details, again I strongly suspect that there was either some rewriting to cut things down.

My biggest issue with the quest The New War, is that...it's really not much of a war. The vast majority of the quest is post-War. My suspicion is DE was a victim of its own ambitions, whose eyes were orders of magnitude larger than its stomach. Which is better than having no ambition at all. But it still remains somewhat disappointing, I was hoping for some big battles that could be done with allies against the Sentient invasion. Given they had been played up for several prior quests as the big thing on the horizon. No such luck. It's not that I didn't like what we were doing in New War as Drifter. I kinda enjoyed the feeling of my shiny toys being taken away from me and having to be all undercover. But I think that feeling would have come across better if it was prepended with a number of multiplayer battle sequences. Battles that, as time goes on, steadily get worse and worse and you can fill in the blanks of the war not going well. That way once you get to the down low on the ground sections, you feel like you properly put in the effort before losing. In addition, doing so would close the gap on the other Tenno. They were there, they just weren't enough. And your Operator getting got wasn't some big thing, it was just a tipping point where things went from bad to worse and then snowballed from there. After that, I'd be happy with a throwaway line of there being other Tenno resistance out there that are just fighting a losing battle. Could've come from Norah in her little French resistance updates.