The PlayStation 4 is set to launch this holiday season, and by the looks of things new owners will have a bunch of games available for free right off the bat. Warframe, a free-to-play third-person shooter currently available for Windows computers, was recently announced as a launch title for the PS4 (console exclusive), and will of course stay free-to-play. We went hands-on with the PS4 version, and have our preview ready for you right here.
For those unfamiliar with the game, you play as a Tenno, who is awakened from cryosleep in the middle of a war with a race of militarized humans called the Grineer, and a corporation of other humans known as the Corpus, who have robots that aren’t too far removed from something you’d see in Metal Gear Solid. Your goal is to overwhelm these forces on various planets and moons throughout this solar system, in groups of up to four players in co-op.
At our demo, there were four PS4 stations set up, each with a different Warframe. We played a Defense mission, where the Infested, a third, zombie-like type of enemies which have been taken over by a “Technocyte” plague, attempt to destroy an artifact near the center of the map. The map took place in a cold, ice-covered world. Enemies came in five waves of increasing difficulty while the four of us paired up to vanquish them. The game looked great, and the framerate stayed consistently high. If this was early code, it was hardly showing it.
Since this is normally a mouse-and-keyboard setup, a few tweaks had to be made to the control scheme, but the game works very nicely on the PS4. It basically controls like any other third-person shooter – analog sticks move and look, L2 brings up the sights, R2 shoots, Cross jumps, etc. But since we’re on the PS4, there’s a new touchpad in the center of the controller. This works perfectly for Warframe, since you have four abilities that are normally mapped to the 1, 2, 3 and 4 keys on the keyboard. On the PS4 version, this is mapped to simply swiping up, down, left and right. The DualShock 4’s touchpad is extremely easy to get to from either analog stick, so the movement comes naturally.
While playing the demo, the representative at the booth told us what we already confirmed – that the game will be free-to-play on the PS4 at launch. However, he could not confirm that players would be able to log in to their existing accounts. Developer Digital Extremes is hard at work at seeing if this is possible, so fingers crossed for that. So, who’s ready to see Ninja moves on their new PS4 this winter?
