1999’s New Minigame Sells The Update’s Time Period

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home December 13, 2024 12 Views 5 Min Read
1999’s New Minigame Sells The Update’s Time Period



Warframe‘s about to get itself a big new update, one that will involve some time-travel antics. As part of this expansion’s 1999 setting, a new minigame is coming to Warframe to aid the update’s worldbuilding.




Warframe: 1999 will soon be upon fans, with its release window set for December. Set in the eponymous year of 1999, players will be able to access an aged 90s mall as a mission hub—an area that will include some arcade cabinets. One of these cabinets will feature a fully playable, retro-style run-and-gun game for fans to try out, a minigame titled Caliber Chicks 2. To learn more about how Caliber Chicks plays into the new update, Game Rant sat down with Warframe creative director Rebecca Ford and Caliber Chicks design director Nic Cusworth.

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How Caliber Chicks 2 Plays Into Warframe: 1999

How Caliber Chicks Came To Be

Caliber Chicks 2 was handled by Sumo Digital, as opposed to the main Warframe team, Digital Extremes. When talking about bringing in Sumo in the first place, Ford produced some details on the impetus behind the arcade game.


“The main mission hub for
Warframe: 1999
’s story is the Höllvania Central Mall, which of course as a ’90s-based mall, has to have an arcade. We’ve channeled one of our favorite decades in countless ways throughout this narrative chapter for
Warframe
: music, fashion, tech designs, online romance, and, of course, we had to do the same for gaming in some way.

Nic’s team at Sumo Digital is super talented at mastering a wide variety of gameplay design, they’ve been a fun partner to work with on Caliber Chicks and revisiting some of our favorite run-n’-gunners!”

Ford called run-and-gun “one of the biggest subgenres of the era,” with Cusworth comparing Caliber Chicks directly to the Contra and Gunstar Heroes franchises. Cusworth also mentioned that the minigame is “very much in the mold of classic arcade games in that the core loop is around 15 minutes long, spread over three pretty extensive and varied levels.” However, he also referenced a twist with “events that send you back to the beginning of the game—only things have changed”, adding a unique element.


Building Caliber Chicks For The Era

The team at Sumo Digital did a lot to make Caliber Chicks 2 fit in with Warframe 1999‘s era, taking cues from some of their aforementioned inspirations. Cusworth elaborated on how Sumo approached this matter, including the measures taken to faithfully recapture the era’s aesthetics.

“Honestly, we went a little crazy with the pitch. We built this whole backstory, not only for the game but also for the fictional company that created it. We wanted to make something that looked authentic to the period. We chose 1995 as the time period, even though the 1999 update is, well, in 1999. The thought was that 3D games were much more common in 1999 in the arcades, and we wanted to build this well-worn, well-loved classic. Something that four years on was still bringing in the quarters.”

Cusworth elaborated further on how the team made Caliber Chicks fitting for Warframe: 1999‘s setting. He mentioned that “the narrative really came from Rebecca being a self-confessed anglophile,” leading the team to investigate British culture of the late 90s when creating the minigame. Bands like The Prodigy, Meat Beat Manifesto, and Chemical Brothers were all referenced as influences by Cusworth.


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