Soulframe Interview: Sarah Talks About Combat System, Speedrunning, And Console Release

A lot of the team has spent over a decade on Warframe, so stepping into a new project gave us the chance to start fresh – try different things, grow new skills at our own pace, and build something from the ground up. Many of us have always been drawn to fantasy, and Soulframe lets us explore that side of storytelling and world-building in a way that feels both exciting and a little terrifying!

We want the world of Alca to feel full – wherever you go, there is something to find and uncover. Warframe is a good example of our approach to narrative design. There is a story we put in front of you to create agency during missions, but there is so much more that can be found under the surface if you go digging. I’d say you can expect something similar, but not exactly the same, in Soulframe. That being said, the team hasn’t landed on anything solid just yet; we are still iterating and getting feedback from players in our closed Pre-Alpha test, which we call Preludes.

Our combat system is not solidified by any means; we are constantly making changes to it based on feedback from our Preludes players. We are exploring various combo systems and parry systems, but class skills are definitely in the game’s DNA with our Pacts. Each pact is not only tied intrinsically to the overall narrative and characters in the world, but they all have unique play styles from one another.

You can also see what inspirations the design team wears on their sleeves and have acknowledged them on our Devstreams too, like God of War (2018), Ghost of Tsushima, Elden Ring, etc. It’s hard to separate things we love when making something we love, but I think that, at the end of the day, that makes projects like this burst at the seams with passion.

We often talk about our inspirations on our monthly Devstreams! We’ve mentioned works like Team ICO’s games and Studio Ghibli films like Princess Mononoke and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, but we never want anyone to walk away from those comments thinking we are just trying to replicate those styles. They have been major inspirations for the team, but they are adamant they want to make something unique to Digital Extremes’ vision and voice with tiny glimpses of what came before us.

The most important things to us are the feelings those past works invoke, and the team is shooting for something akin to that with Soulframe, a game where it’s equally important to feel something emotionally as it is fun to play.

Progression is something we are experimenting with currently with our Preludes players and refining things slowly over time. We don’t expect it to be exactly the same as Warframe, but it’s a system we are familiar with and know works well. We want Soulframe to be more accessible for new players but still have the depth and longevity for long-term play if people want that.

If you have strong feelings about the fine-tuning of that progression, I highly recommend you join our Preludes playtest and share your thoughts after spending some time with the current build! We absolutely want to hear what people think as we build the game alongside them.

Again, we are working to fine-tune what this experience looks like, and it’s too early to say. Right now, our main focus is making a game that is fun to play and ensuring it feels satisfying to Preludes players.

To answer the other half of your question, Soulframe isn’t really a game we can see being “speedrun” right now. Warframe is the same way; the finish line to be caught up on content is always getting longer as more things are added. It would take approximately over 100 hours to speedrun Warframe’s story currently. Small pieces of content can be speedrun like a dungeon or a quest, but not the game as a whole.

That being said, we are huge advocates for players finding their own fun, so if a small speedrun community pops up around a certain boss fight or something, we love that so much. It lets us know what aspects of the game people are engaging with strongly and investing time into so we can reward that passion with investment from our side too and change the shape of the game. That’s what the community-first development approach is all about.

PvP is something we would think about in the far future; right now, we are focused on Preludes and refining the core experience. We will never say never, but the main game needs to be in a state that we and the players are happy with before we venture into extracurricular editions.

That’s something that’s really hard to put a definitive timetable on. We thought we were ready to open up the Preludes player test to the public in 2024, but we ended up waiting until later this year. That’s one facet of making a game alongside a community, especially when it’s a brand new title like this. That player feedback will dictate a lot of what we choose to focus on while we also build out new ideas behind the curtain.

Eventually, yes, absolutely. But again, it’s a long way out for specifics!

We knew that the ‘soulslike’ comparisons were bound to happen, just based on the name alone, but the name really invokes the themes of the project overall and just fit too well. We are confident that because of those themes and the identity Digital Extremes has built around our approach to game creation over the past decade plus, Soulframe can find a passionate and engaged playerbase.