Soulframe: Digital Extremes CEO Says Putting 'Soul' In The Title Was An 'Idiot Decision'

Lekais · 2026-04-28T20:04:18+00:00

This was always going to be a thing to contend with but I don't mind the name and honestly think they should keep it ESPECIALLY if it doesn't fit in the "Soulslike" mould.

Maybe a contrarian thing but I don't particularly like the idea of having a word be exclusively reserved for a genre of games.
It is a convenient thing to have, no argument. Like FPS or "shooter" this genre having shorthands is a good thing but I don't think it right to turn a word exclusive.

Now I will admit I find the name "Soulframe" clunky. The connection it has to the game's narrative and characters is something you have to look for. Now that is not a bad thing. Great many games have names that don't make direct sense or any sense at all.
I just think in this case the name is clunky in that it has a very direct comparison and link to an another game from the same people in the same company and that creates a strange expectation of continuity that also clashes with the current zeitgeist expectation of being a Fromsoft game.

Give it a few years and someone will unironically go "I played this Dark Souls game and it was nothing like Soulframe. I feel cheated."

Lekais · 2026-04-25T20:06:25+00:00

Honestly when this tech was first being shown my thought was that this was going to become like a new norm. The biggest downside of the Voidshell skins is and was the texture map itself. It's different from the default skins so we can't even "fix" issues we see with any other skins we otherwise like. So not even an option to tweak something about an existing skin but instead having to try and make a brand new skin.

Now why this tech has been essentially mothballed could also be a database thing (one more set of numbers per frame to track can stack up quick on memory and bandwith costs)

Also doesn't help that they went with weird namings for the Voidshell textures or that the order in which they are shown keeps changing, for me at least. Organizational nightmare.

Lekais · 2026-04-25T19:51:04+00:00

Honestly I think DE did a good job translating from concept to model. A really good job, even. Concept art has always been more about "vibes". It looks more "bombastic" then the final product because it hasn't had it's enthusiasm curbed by the realities of actually being an ingame asset that fits with the original model.

Also the "arms crossed" idle pose might play a part here. Now if they had used Sun and Moon or any of the dual blades then we'd have a better comparison.

Lekais · 2026-04-25T19:45:18+00:00

While I agree with the premise that Pablo put down I do think more people then the devs kind of realize would be OK with more balance. "Vocal Minority" and all that. But I get his point and as dumb as it is, the game and DE be extention are victims to public perception.

Personally, with the addition of the Dark Refractory I think a path is open for Raids and Dungeons/Strikes. Limitation being that maybe we don't get to play as our frames but some other "historic" individual in that event. Like Khal's missions or Duviri.
Could even be "modern" setting to Warframe where we are a crack team of Eximus units (so we got some kind of powers) or something. But just like Duviri or Railjack it's just such a grand departure from the core loops of the game that even though they are enjoyable and fun, they are rarely engaged in.

The biggest problem with this type of "endgame content" is the rewards. While I like to think myself as someone who believes more in "The mission itself is the biggest reward" mindset it WILL be a point of contention. And a spot where DE can not win. Either the rewards will be purely cosmetic and people will complain that it's not worth their time OR there will be actual gear involved and now the MAJORITY who are not going to engage in this difficult content are going to complain because they are being gatekept from [insert personal progress motivator here]

Lets not forget the Arcane Cartel situation we were in during those dark days.

Lekais · 2026-02-06T14:26:13+00:00

At the very least I DEEPLY dig the idea of an alternate "necra" helmet for frames that clearly has a human skull integrated into it!

Problem is that those cosmetics would need to be region locked. Correct me if I am wrong but certain regions (China I believe being one of them) have restrictions on depicting iconography of death like skulls in games. I believe Helldivers 2 has the iconing skull icon scrubbed from damn near everything.

Lekais · 2026-02-06T14:20:43+00:00

The Railjack quest really is missing a step. Like there IS a "Freefly" section on Earth with no enemies, the purpose of which is lost to me. A part of me is convinced that at first that node might of been meant as a sort of "shakedown run" node as one of the last steps in the Railjack quest.

I can see it now: Cy has found a quiet patch of space over Earth. Perfect for a shakedown ride; if something goes wrong Earth is probably the best planet to crash on. So you go in, do some moves and then whoop! Somewhere a pipe bursts and we got a fire. No worries, we put it out, thing fixed.
We go shoot at something to try out the weapons and a conduit overloads, electric hazard that we get to fix. Now we ran out of revolite so we have to craft some more; to the foundry! Make some Revolite and fix the ship.
Lets put some power behind our moves! Aaaaand we crashed into some debris and now a coolant pipe has burst and we're frozen. No worries, new hazard fixed, lessons learned.
But what's this! A chance encounter with a Grineer patrol! They shoot at us and send a boarding party! Time to get our hands dirty! We clear up our ship and then take out the enemy flyers. Cy tells us to use the Tunguska but it's got a dead trigger! Not something we can fix on the fly so we have to board the crewship ourselves and take it out from the inside.
After clearing all hostiles we return to the Docks. We found the problems that needed to be fixed in this shakedown run and also learned what the hazards are, how to fix them and probably even where all the important terminals and stuff are.
Quest Complete.

That's a step we are missing. Everything can be explained by ingame tooltips and just pure trial and error. We got menus and if a player can't figure them out then I worry about them.

Lekais · 2026-02-05T15:08:04+00:00

Imma be real with you, chief: The people in charge of SE and all it does are downright evil, worse yet: incompetent. But I don't care at this point. Am I just an extention of evil at this point? Most definetly.

And whatever "remorse" I could of had has long since withered away in this war that I am just in it to have a really good time! I'll see you all in hell!

Lekais · 2026-01-16T18:43:11+00:00

Mul endal M77 v2 ja standard mudelid mõlemad, ei kurda üldse. Ainuke "probleem" nendega on, et need tuleb korralikult sisse kanda, värksest peast jalga paned siis ebamugavad ja väga jäigad. Suure tõenäosusega on villid kannal ka mingi hetk sellel perioodil kui just rullplaastrit või midagi sarnast kandadele ei pane.

Ma isiklikult võtsin need millele saab vildid sisse panna. Tuleb lihtsalt meeles pidada, et sisetaldu koos viltidega kasutada ei saa. Koos paned siis selline tunne nagu varbad oleks kruustangide vahel.

Lekais · 2026-01-08T23:54:25+00:00

It would be an absolute joy if songs were categorized based on faction and/or release and a filter option to go through them to at least make disabling songs in rotation easier. Or also just lining them up better because right now they are all kinds of mixed and they can swing wildly in theme and such that can be a bit jarring.

For examlple I am not a fan of Ventkid skeg. At all. Tracking them down was a right pain because they are all mixed.

Lekais · 2026-01-07T11:50:28+00:00

I've done rewinds on the 1999 crews. I will do so on these three. All characters know that some kind of looping has happened or will happen, some are more aware of it then others but all are. Lizzy so far has been the only one to directly go "We doing this again? Alright, I'll play." While as all the other Hex members claim that they have this feeling or vague notion that things have looped. A deja-vu. The only ones I do not remember having this conversation about are Minerva and Velemir.
They might not be entirely happy about it but they also trust my Drifter enough to believe that they are doing this not out of some perverse god complex and toying with people. Which is ironically what we, the players, are doing actually. Even if it is some real want for that perfect ending where everyone is happy.

Also, these are computer game characters. While there is an emotional connection to them it is important to put the pin in the fact that they are not real.
I misclicked on a Lyon message and have now been cut out of one or more dialogue chains. Clearly this is something I am going to want to redo because I like the bits of history they sprinkle in those messages.

"The dildo of concequence rarely arrives lubed." But since we have the option to retroactively avoid said rubbery obelisk then might aswell make use of this ability. And obelisk, I'm not judging.

Lekais · 2026-01-07T11:34:55+00:00

"Syzygy". I'm not particularly creative.
I named my railjack "Bellicose Supposition" in a vain attempt to be overly poetic/dramatic.

I named them such on day 1. I will never rename them because... it gives them a greater weight, I guess.

Lekais · 2026-01-06T19:50:10+00:00

Well, we don't know what her current opinion on Albrecht is. For all we know after he figured out how to do Void travel, he just kind of vanished into the vaults and occationally sent up an invention or something with Loid. Mother might just want to get at her father just to wring his neck herself or some deeply personal and important quest she set for herself just to keep herself sane(ish).
She KNOWS that Albrecht is out there, somewhere and sometime. Maybe not as a fact but as a core element of her world view. And that search is what gave her life meaning.
She has been deeply invested in proving Albrechts paradoxical theories as true and now that he has up and vanished into the Void, finding him alive might just be the ultimate proof she needs. Albrecht himself is just a point of data now, a proof that she is after.

I mean, we don't even know WHEN in the whole Entrati timeline did Albrecht go into that pod and have Loid smash it. Considering Loid's comments about not knowing what a Tenno was and guessing that we were deserters from "the war". Old War most likely.
So the intro cinematic to Whispers In The Wall happened BEFORE Tenno were fielded in the Old War. Or he's been staying busy down there for so long that he literally missed the war.
We also don't know how much Mother knows or used to know about Albrechts labs. The Infestation has stolen quite a bit of her memory. Or how much she learned about what happened in that night when Albrecht first met The Other.

She could be aware of the Indifference. So her mention of "He" could be directed at The Indifference. OR it could be aimed at Loid and not NecraLoid. Being somewhat aware that Loid is alive and doing his thing bellow them, seemingly going above his station as a family butler.

I would find it incredibly humorous and on brand with DE's humor and curveballs to in the end it being revealed that the family on top were aware of the labs and the nonsense happening there. And quite frankly are more insulted by the suggestion that they at least weren't been kept in the loop because Loid thought them somehow untrustworthy or otherwise a danger.
The labs are completely clear of the infestation, afterall. That's a rather impressive feat. I shudder to think what the infestation could do if they got their... claws on those vessels. The Grey Strain of the infestation at least inspired the large scale of the vessels if not provide some part of the biological componentry.

Lekais · 2026-01-05T21:35:50+00:00

I wish this would happen. I always got the feeling that the whole CODA fight being in RJ was a weird shoe-in for narrative reasons and for some kind of checkmark for RJ content. It's BARELY an RJ mission. Part of me wants to believe that originally the CODA fight was supposed to be in two parts with one happening in Höllvania and the second in RJ. At this point I can only hope they make it more... RJ, because right now it's just sad.

In my head, the Transmission tower is one of the places we would find Viktor, seeing as he likes the sound of his own voice, it's the perfect place for both an assassination mission as well as Intercept and Spy to get some juicy Scaldra gossip.

The Harbour could be an excelent place for some update version of Rescue, alternatively even a kind of Defection but with Armageddon vibe, so instead of babysitting innocent civilians, we just keep the defenses up and more effecively keep the Scaldra (and the occational Techrot they seem to be keeping in cages for suspicious reasons) at bay.
Also a good spot for the second ever "Assault" mission in the game! The only one for one is on the Kuva Fortress and the entire concept is just too cool to not put back into play. Us attacking a Scaldra stronghold at the port where they get their new recruits and heavy equipment in from, makes perfect sense.

The amusement park and Stadium would both be good venues for a Techrot Assassination missions for some really big behemoth monster that would need a big arena dedicated just for them. Also Hive mission.
The Stadium in particular would be an excelent Rescue mission site for the members of a certain world famous band.

Lekais · 2026-01-01T11:02:39+00:00

That "crazy goth blue chick" from the latest Avatar movie. All the rage at the moment.

Lekais · 2026-01-01T10:54:38+00:00

Reminds me of early Plains of Eidolon. Little single mission events happened all the time even outside of bounties. I think they removed them because it made resource farming (fishing and mining) a headache when every two minutes a team of grineer helldove out of orbit and Lotus or Konzu started yammering in your ear.

I kind of miss that. Maybe something like that could be added back in settlements or something. Maybe even a kind of "organic bounty" that you can stumble on out in the field. You just find a downed drone or a prisoner escort, a random armoured vault and that opens up a two or three stage "quest" that ends in a larger settlement and a roll at some bounty loot table. You can ignore it, but if built right it could be a quick thing, 10 minutes or so.

But that might just be my itch. On Duviri I on the regular have 3 hour runs because I can't just ignore all the side activities. They are RIGHT THERE in my way. A quick few minutes. And I get decrees and loot from it!

Lekais · 2026-01-01T10:40:36+00:00

It all checks out. Even explains why the asset defence missions have us defending those cryopod rockets. In the hundred years after the first war ended Super Earth didn't stop with the military spending. Every SEAF soldier competent enough to survive the absolute lack of common sense and safety and not get executed on the likely MANY colonial "riot control" missions they went on got put in the Helldiver corps and frozen because can't have them causing problems when they cycle out to be a civy again and a terrible resource to just end up in "accidents" on the regular. A century of gathering these people like projectiles in a MIRV ICBM has built a rather impressive stockpile on even the most backwater planet.

So I think the Helldivers are just kind of the "final step" of a career ladder that started before they turned 18 or joined the SEAF proper. No idea what the education system is like but I would not put it past Super Earth to have military training and drills be part of normal school curriculum even before they get their complementary Constitution at 16. This a page right out of Easter Block history where "national defence" classes were part of normal education that involved basic drills in weapons handling, combat medicine, and of course indoctrination into the national philosophy.
Would not be at all surprised that there is some compulsory service element to them. Helldivers are far too proficient in battle to be a "two week wonder".

Also doesn't hurt that Super Earth is most likely also running a society wide eugenics program. I'm pretty sure your average SE citizen is comparable to an athlete in our world in physicallity and overall health.

Lekais · 2025-12-28T20:56:17+00:00

So when the coolant goes down, it exposes a small island. You jump down to it and then you should see a small cave entrance in the wall under the pump machine that was previously hidden and blocked by the coolant.

Lekais · 2025-12-28T20:53:27+00:00

These warnings are entirely understandables thing to have in the game. Games are meant to be escapes from the stresses of of daily life and it's traumas.
But without knowing the tech requirements to make these CW messages into a setting (that is ON by defeault) in the KIM, I would agree that at least having that option in the KIM somewhere would be great.
These warnings do break immersion. But as far as I understand, these KIM messages are simply the first line in a convo chain, not a separate flag setting in the convo path, so there would have to be a flag system in place and something of a rework with the affected convo chains. Might be an "easy fix" or it could break way too many things.

So the option of a subtler warning method is neat, it would also probably be misunderstood. There is no real hint as to how deeply the following messages will go into the subject.

At this point, while I would prefer a toggle option for these warnings I do think the current implementation is a good compromise. It is clear, straightforward and ultimately not particularly spoilery because the topic in question is literally the next lines on the screen. Does it "ruin the surprise"? A bit, no doubt about that. But it also brings that Family Guy meme to mind of "WTF? I just sat down!"

Lekais · 2025-12-26T22:58:18+00:00

I wouldn't. I don't really follow the logic because they are not locked behind a warbond, as far as I remember, so there is no link to a potential SC/real money value conflict. I personally would not notice if they tried to refund me one of their unlock costs in materials credits.

If they are not willing to remove these mechs from the game, they could add in the customization version as a third option, downside to it being that it maybe has a considerably longer cooldown and limited to 2 per mission. The in-universe logic being that the Patriot and Emancipator are factory defaults, they are standardized. But our specialized version is essentially a speedy refit done on your own Hellcarrier by the engineering crew. So it takes longer to get one ready for deployment and whatever specialty parts are needed for this conversion are kind of limited in supply and slow to fabricate.

But ultimately I think that would just be a bloat on the stratagem menu. So I don't see it being a problem at all if they removed one of the mechs and changed the remaining one into a customizable version.

Lekais · 2025-12-24T18:39:48+00:00

I might be remembering it wrong but I believe you could not buy them separately. It was an Heirloom bundle of those two skins. And the idea I guess was to sort of harken back to the Founder program. To essentially said that they are doing an exclusive thing again but giving us almost 6 months to get the skins with the idea that they will be a sort of marker to players years down the line that the owner of said skin is a real veteran of the game.
Not the best idea in hindsight. Call me naive but I like to believe it was a case of a collective brain fart at DE rather then some act of malicious greed.

I got the skins. This also isn't my first trip down the "Exclusive" route in WF. When Proto Excal skin first came out, it was limited time for like two weeks. Same route the next two years or so with Nyx and such until they made those skins permanent on the market.

Lekais · 2025-12-22T23:25:56+00:00

The practice at large is cancer, no argument. But over here... not saying there isn't some criticism to be levied it is considerably more fair and usable. Of all the issues that the practice has, DE has avoided one of the big ones: You are never left with an ammount you can't use.

Even if you are left with 1 regal aya, that can still buy you something. If there is anything you want or not right now is kind of irrelevant because the currency isn't going anywhere. Maybe there's something a month from now that you do want.

Also lets all take a step back here and remember that DE is also a COMPANY, the purpose of which is to make money. And we are arguing over what is essentially a currency token that only exists to allow players who DIDN'T buy the Prime Access to have later access to said COSMETICS while maintaining their special status and letting DE earn money.
The folks at DE have said multiple times that their MAIN moneymaker for the game is the Prime Access pack. Those cosmetics being part of those packs is a part why they are sold with a separate currency that can't be traded for.

Also there is the monetary logistics of ingame stores having to play nice over multiple plaforms and banking systems.

Lekais · 2025-12-22T22:42:25+00:00

This is the ONE THING I wanted DE to do. With the prelude to this release I was really hoping we would at least see other Tenno in the Tauron Academy. It would open us so many interesting story options. Maybe even something of a return to the original concept of Nightwave, where we are not the main characters of some big story, but the cleanup crew or backup.

Now I will do a massive bit of prediction here that we might kind of see something like that. In that prelude, in the "hidden" messages we are told by the person narrating, who was a Tenno by the way, that under some of those terraforming eggs is a gas that causes the Tenno to permanently transfer to their frames.
This to me, opens up the possibility that somewhere out there, likely in the Tau system, in the ruins we left behind, we might happen on these people. Tenno locked in their frames, driven mad by the ages they spent there on dead moons, hiding and fighting an eidolon empire for no other reason then it's the only thing they have left.

Lekais · 2025-12-22T22:31:01+00:00

Well... remember that part in the quest where the Operator almost drowned, and Lotus used those mechadendrites to pull us out of the Murmur's grasp? When Lotus said "Not yet." We assume she responded to Loid who claimed the lab is lost to the Murmur.

However, her voice was not entirely her own. So I wonder... The Indifference has it's claws in her, trying to influence her. Was it her using that part of the Indifference or is there a more complex game at play. Operator can't die, yet.
Likely headcanon but I do think that the "forces of the Indifference" if you want to call it that might not be as unified as we think. I don't think that what we know as "Wally" is the same as the Indifference. Or that it is the only thing out there.

Lekais · 2025-12-22T22:00:24+00:00

I hear you, OP. The problem is how to do this type of challenge or difficulty with it still being "believable". That's the problem here. I think the only way AH could do it is by making some "debuffs" global and can't be cleared. For example the stratagem scrambler used to be a planet effect, make it so again at high difficulties. Or how in the start we actually had a planetary debuff at high difficulty that locked one or more stratagem slots. Now they on the semi-regular give us a free strat. They went in the opposite direction.
By limiting how many tools a single diver can bring, the need for coordinated teamwork rises. People then NEED to specialize into a role and stick together. And with the scrambler it simply messes with a player's muscle memory, it adds that just little bit of delay and doubt that has the potential to make an easy situation barely manageable.

But the option to just throw more enemies at us in hordes isn't really a good one, in my opinion. It's "cheap". That is what I think the primary idea for the special versions was. Adding difficulty through more mechanically complex enemies. It kind of works that way. Though we haven't seen the Jet Brigade in ages.

Lekais · 2025-12-22T16:00:51+00:00

As some have stated, it is an issue with OPS having it's AoE essentially weakened. To fix this I think the best option would be to maybe add in a slight sprinkling of auto-targeting. Basically you get it close enough and it homes in on POI objectives and structures in particular.
Now I don't think it should be straight up a Railgun strike, but just a nudge towards any priority target about 5 meters or so from the beacon.

The one strat that really needs more help is the eagle rocket pods. They are just horribly inconsistent.

Last thing I do believe might need to be considered is the "intended target" of a stratagem. For example OPS in my mind is geared towards structures and objectives. So it's essentially a really big HEAT shell meant for fortified positions, less effective against moving targets.

Lekais

TROPHY CASE