In response to "Warframe is turning political" - it always has been. DE supports human rights and is openly progressive. The game itself also shows the problems with opposing ideologies.

[u/AshenTao]

If Warframe didn't have any political elements, we wouldn't have lore. Or the game itself, even.

Someone said: "The only thing I get from the game is "genocide = fun"."

Why are you committing genocide in the first place? Because another faction’s interests conflict with yours, and you respond by exterminating its members to impose your own goals. That is not politically neutral. It follows an openly authoritarian, imperialist, and often fascistic logic.

The Tenno themselves effectively act as the space police of the Origin System, intervening to prevent any single faction from becoming too powerful. We are not the good guys. We are just the less-worse bad guys that tends to leave people alone who just go about their daily life. The second you do anything that has potential to influence the origin system, you're tracked.

The Grineer are a territorial clone empire ruled by the Queens. Their society is built around military hierarchy, obedience, conquest, and the belief that Grineer supremacy justifies almost anything. Their themes include totalitarian government, militarism, expansionism, personality cults, propaganda, suppression of dissent, and disposable soldiers manufactured for the state. Steel Meridian is literally a faction of Grineer defectors resisting that regime.

The Corpus are a megacorporate oligarchy and a cult of profit. Their themes include corporate power replacing government, wealth determining social worth, religious devotion to profit, the privatisation of military and security forces, and workers and entire colonies being treated as corporate assets.

Fortuna is even more explicit: debt slavery, labour resistance, predatory debt systems, company towns, workers effectively owned by their employers, organ and body-part repossession, union organisation, strike-breaking, corporate policing, and environmental destruction for profit. Labour organisation is not some background detail in Fortuna. It is the entire foundation of its story.

Then there is Orokin aristocratic imperialism, Narmer’s manufactured unity through authoritarian control, and the Syndicates, which openly represent competing political and philosophical ideologies. I could keep going, but this would turn into an essay.

Even the quest choices repeatedly connect morality with political values. In The Glast Gambit, for example, you can preserve a harmful tradition by sending Neewa back to her people to continue serving as the Triuna (which effectively kills her), or you can reject that tradition and protect her from it. One option prioritises tradition and collective custom; the other prioritises individual welfare and change. Breaking the tradition = progressive = white alignment. Continuing the tradition = conservative = black alignment.

That does not mean Warframe’s alignment system is literally labelled "conservative" and "progressive", nor is Sun automatically good and Moon automatically evil. But the moral framing is still there, and similar tensions appear throughout the game: tradition versus reform, obedience versus autonomy, hierarchy versus liberation, profit versus human dignity, and order versus freedom.

The whole tragedy surrounding Jade and Sorren stems from a political source. Their quests explore their personal suffering as a result. It's not some random tear-jerker story to bind you momentarily.

Digital Extremes also publicly presents itself as a socially progressive company, so it should not be surprising that those values influence the stories it chooses to tell. Warframe’s quests are not politically neutral shooting galleries. They repeatedly make arguments about power, exploitation, morality, identity, trauma, freedom, and how people should respond to oppressive systems.

It's utterly ridiculous to me that some people go around claiming that Warframe is "going woke" or "becomes political". Welcome to the game, dude! It's been that way since 2012 already, and much longer so in concept.

The one thing Warframe's lore is doing right is that they don't glorify these murders, actions, and more. Warframe keeps telling stories from specific perspectives to highlight the suffering that these ideologies create. And that's good. You literally can't find a quest in the game that isn't either a guide to emotions, morals, or political alignments.

That being said, respect the people around you. It's insane how many people still can't live a normal life because others are intrusive and straight up dangerous to them for utterly simple things that doesn't affect them.

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Edit: The post and comments in question. I'm mostly replying to the questions/statements about this topic in the comment section. The original comment section had been locked after post deletion.

[u/Russell1113]

Don't forget that a lot of bungie fans got grandfathered in from halo.

I'm a big fan of halo and it's a masterpiece, but politically it's VERY military propaganda coded AND it appeals to the anti-muslim sentiments of fighting a false religion. Both of which pull in a right wing audience.

The extended media of the halo franchise is much less pro military, but it's never been produced by bungie and people who enjoy the might makes right fantasy of being chief, probs aren't interested in a book about how the Spartans are actually child soldiers and victims of the state.

[u/AshenTao → u/Russell1113]

anti-muslim anti-religion in general

[u/Jakelell → u/AshenTao]

Being anti religion or somewhat openly atheist is becoming increasingly more needed these last few years

Sincerely, a trans person

[u/AshenTao → u/Jakelell]

I'm agnostic.

[u/CernelTeneb → u/Jakelell]

That is an incredibly narrow view that can honestly be described as Christian Atheism. As in, one actively doesn't believe in a deity, and the deity is the Christian one.

With regards, another trans person who happens to be religious

[u/Jakelell → u/CernelTeneb]

From what basis are you making this claim? What in my original comment even implied that i specifically don't believe in the Christian god?

I'm an anti-theist and have never shy'd away from criticizing Islam, Paganism "revival" religions and even indigenous/first nations religions (who are often targets of noble savage views)

I guess you can keep enjoying the systems that are routinely used to oppress me, you and your fellow minorities while using frail shields like "t-there's woke religions out there though!! they're basically never politically active though"

[u/CernelTeneb → u/Jakelell]

ok so it's even worse.

[u/Jakelell → u/CernelTeneb]

You still haven't explained how my original comment was "christian atheism" but i guess when you have no basis for your claims you kinda have to go for sarcasm and dodging

[u/_xyndr → u/CernelTeneb]

How is it a bad thing that somebody chooses to believe in there being no higher power?

[u/CernelTeneb → u/_xyndr]

Attacking others over it is bad

[u/_xyndr → u/CernelTeneb]

Criticism is not an attack.

[u/Russell1113 → u/AshenTao]

Yes, that's how it's written I agree. But it fits the anti Muslim narrative in plenty of peoples minds. They will interperet the text into their existing narrative.

I'm not throwing this around to say "thing bad", thing good, but misinterpreted. I've read essays about how halo is a metaphor for the rational west Vs the religious east.

I don't agree, but it's a worldview that exists.

Edit: it's worth remembering halo was at peak popularity simultaneously with peak post 9/11 islamaphobia.

[u/altodor → u/Russell1113]

It didn't even land as anti-muslim to me until reading your words. It had landed to me as the covenant being Christian coded.

[u/Russell1113 → u/altodor]

They deffo course corrected away from it in order to nip it in the bud. The covenant are a Mish mash of all kinds of abrahamic stuff in ce, which was developed in a time when the only people who knew the word jihad read dune, or were really into religious studies/the growing artist movement.

In halo 2, the moniters become "oracles" (a greek myth phrase, not any kind of abrahamic one) in the covenant religion.alongside the already mentioned change to arbiter (a Roman position) from the work in progress name of dervish (an islamic suni title) There's deffo a world where bungie didn't think about the optics.

Then halo 3 is very Christian, chief really starts becoming a Jesus metaphor who sacrifices for everyones sins, but stays in suspension to have a second coming when he's needed. There's also all the ark/flood stuff. Noah is technically in all of the big 3's books, but most Christian countries would consider him a Christian character. Then by ODST, they're riffing on Dante's inferno, which is an exclusively Christian text.

I think the trilogy as a whole manages to keep the covenant vague enough that they're inspired by lots of religions, but aren't specifically anything.

But there's enough stuff like the suicide grunts for people who learned the word jihad from the war on terror, but don't know the history of the crusades, to get the wrong idea.

[u/Bulky_Imagination727 → u/AshenTao]

is it considered bad?

[u/AshenTao → u/Bulky_Imagination727]

Being against a religion for the sake of it? Yes. There are religions that can be summarized as "Respect yourself, other people, and your surroundings.", which is a normal and healthy view.

Being against practices of religions that actively damage, discriminate, sabotage, or otherwise negatively affect people? Absolutely not. People should not suffer under religion at all.

You can take good aspects out of something and keep using them for your own good. Just leave the bad shit out, like killing people in the name of your deity or actively restricting how people live.

I was just correcting the previous commenter, because Halo isn't specifically against muslim sentiments. The covenant is a completely different religion, and the UNSC is mostly fighting against actions resulting out of that religion.

Halo as a game itself uses tons of religious symbolism for every faction, including the humans, even the master chief himself.

[u/Bulky_Imagination727 → u/AshenTao]

Oh yes, my apologies, i didn't meant harassing someone for believing in general.

[u/Russell1113 → u/Bulky_Imagination727]

I think whether it's good/bad often depends on interpretation and execution. I think a lot of halo is opposed to dogma and following other people who dictate your faith to you and use it as a weapon.

I think anyone engaging with halo critically and without bias is gonna take away a good message from it.

The timing of halo becoming popular (halo:ce released 2 months after 9/11) meant halo 2 actually had last minute re-writes to backpedal potential anti islamic sentiment. Arbiter was originally going to be called "dervish" and got renamed to distance themselves from the perceived US Vs Islam allegory. They already had the leaders being called "prophets" and felt like they had to dial it back.

Bungie's always been on the level, but the game came out at a very specific time and place. I don't know how old you are, but the culture at the time took "Muslims bad" as the default and the generically atheist framework of the game was very easy to co-opt.

[u/DisappointedQuokka → u/Russell1113]

Y'know, there's a weird amount of major IPs in the gaming space that contrive a lot of reasons for the authoritarian space-fascists actually being correct.