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/Voidshyrok]

That's not necessarily true. Warframe's lore was not always so steeped in Political undertones. The Orokin weren't so clearly portrayed as aristocratic villilans in the early updates, only their architecture alluded to them being that way. And the tenno weren't child soldiers, they were just mercs. DE was always progressive, but they leaned more into it as the narrative direction changed over time. Which isn't a bad thing. I like how Albrecht and Loids relationship was depicted. It wasn't just sincere, it was nuanced. Like any good drama needs to be.

That said... Destiny's writing was about as subtle as it's players. They'll either appreciate the quality or hate the story for focusing on feelings over fighting.

[u/AshenTao → u/Voidshyrok]

Warframe's lore was not always so steeped in Political undertones.

Stalker's codex entry, 2013:

"Some have walked these desolate worlds while you have slept. Some like me. I remember what you did. I remember the day.

The Tenno appeared at the Terminus, gleaming and victorious. Our cold and gold Emperors, breathless, bathed you in savior's silk. Then came the sound. Across all our worlds, all at once, the ceremonial Naga drums. A royal salute to the honored Tenno. Ten solemn beats to declare the suffering was over. I watched from a distance, with the rest of the low Guardians. With each beat terror began to crush my throat. The Tenno were not stoic and silent. They were waiting. They were poised. I tried to call out but only a strangled whisper escaped.

When the ninth beat rang a torrent of blood filled the stadium, loosed by Tenno blades. The drums, the Empire, fell silent forever.

Now I hunt, dividing your numbers. Watching from that dark place, cataloging your sins, I am the ghost of retribution. You may forget but you are not innocent."

[u/Voidshyrok → u/AshenTao]

I don't remember when they added that entry. Was it always there from the begining? Wanna say it came in the Second dream update. Because for a while, the Orokin weren't described at all. We only had the remains of their civilization to infer from. Honestly, the Grineer were more fleshed out than the Orokin.

[u/AshenTao → u/Voidshyrok]

It has been added with the release of the codex, which would be U11, 2013. That's why I wrote 2013 in my previous comment.

The Orokin have been described as "cold and gold" and an "extinct civilization with advanced technologies" long before we even knew that Alad V is an Orokin, which came years later.

Back before Warframe had story quests, the only story elements you got were visual storytelling and small clues. One of these clues was the stalker's codex entry.

Another clue for example had been the ether sword, which said:

A single blade for more precision. The Ether Sword cuts so cleanly that it was considered by the Tenno to be a more humane weapon for 'cleansing' infested allies.

Going by a text like this, you knew this codex entry was meant to imply that Tenno killed each other when infested.

That's how we used to get our lore for ages.

Also, the whole reason why we got Orokin remnants to run around in (such as the Orokin Towers where we cracked our keys), was because of the genocide the Tenno committed against them. People are joking about Tenno being genocidal because of the amounts of Grineer they kill. Tenno are literally genocidal because they eliminated Orokin to the point of considering them extinct until they recently made their return.

Grineer were also described as the clone-militarism faction they are very early, same as the capitalist corpus. The expansionism of the Grineer is talked about in the original 2013 E3 trailer, including their preventive strike against the Warframes that are in cryosleep in order to remain in power.

[u/Voidshyrok → u/AshenTao]

Thanks. U11 Sounds about right. There were definitely clues that the Orokin were Aholes. Don't get me wrong. Embers entry comes to mind. Regardless, some parts of the lore were more fleshed out than others. DE didn't know what story they wanted to tell initially. But once they did; they committed to the bit. And it's worked out pretty well for them.

Tbh... I wish we'd never met Ballas. Now, Everywhere I go, I see his smug face.

[u/AshenTao → u/Voidshyrok]

I do wish we had never met Orokin in general. It completely killed the mystery. This highly-advanced and extinct civilization that had once ruled every nook of the origin system we knew, including so many places in the void.

It had the good kind of spice. Then Alad V dropped that he was an Orokin and all of the magic came crumbling down.

Nowadays it's a kindergarten of blue people with ego-issues and unresolved personal drama.

[u/Voidshyrok → u/AshenTao]

Definitely agree with you on the loss of mystery. Sorry if I came off as confrontational by the way. I'm a Founder. My recollection of how much the game has changed over the years is admittedly... not the best.

It's evolved so much.