As Destiny 2 is laid to rest, Warframe is experiencing 'massive growth,' studio boss says

Following news that Bungie is ending support for Destiny 2, Digital Extremes is experiencing a period of sustained expansion for its rival free-to-play looter-shooter Warframe. Speaking on the studio's momentum, Digital Extremes president Sheldon Carter shared that the developer has seen "a few years of straight, just massive growth" after previously fearing the game had reached its peak.

Despite operating in direct competition, Digital Extremes leadership described a solemn reaction internally following Bungie's decision to wind down Destiny 2.

Studio Reaction and Looter-Shooter Ties

Carter noted that the news regarding Destiny 2 cast a shadow over the Warframe development team due to years of shared history and personnel overlap between the studios. Former Bungie employees have moved to Digital Extremes over time, while many team members learned foundational mechanics of the looter-shooter genre by playing Destiny.

"Over time, what happens is developers from their team come on to your team. New people who you started, they learned what looter shooters are and how that works because they put thousands of hours into Destiny," Carter said in an interview reported by PC Gamer. "And so, at our studio, it was kind of a bit of mourning when they released that news. The mood in our studio was pretty dour because of all the connections that you end up having."

The end of Destiny 2 support comes after a turbulent multi-year stretch for Bungie, which was acquired by Sony for $3.6 billion in 2022 before undergoing subsequent financial re-evaluations and impairment losses.

Warframe's Turnaround and the Road to Soulframe

Digital Extremes faced its own uncertainty four to five years ago, with team members worrying Warframe had peaked. In response, the studio altered its approach to developing and promoting the title. The strategic shift reversed its trajectory, placing the game on a path of continuous growth.

"And now we've had a few years of straight, just massive growth ... Now we're in this happy position where Warframe's really thriving, and that gives us the ability to give Soulframe a ton of rope [and] time to really try stuff out and connect," Carter explained.

That success has funded the development of Soulframe, the studio's upcoming second major project. Rather than spreading resources across multiple incubation titles, Digital Extremes is focusing on giving Soulframe room to iterate before committing to a wide release.

"I think one of the things you learn as you do a second game that you're trying for the same scope as something like Warframe is that expertise doesn't necessarily mean you don't make the same mistakes as you did before. It just means you can recover from them a little bit faster," Carter added.

Positioning Warframe as a 'Forever Game'

Digital Extremes plans to support Warframe indefinitely, emphasizing broad hardware accessibility as consumer tech costs rise across the industry.

"You can play Warframe on your PS5 Pro and it looks sweet, cutting edge. And you can also play it on a four-generations-ago Android phone," Carter said. "And so for me, I hope that if console demands aren't able to be kept up with, or people need to look at older hardware because the new stuff is so expensive, they're still going to have Warframe to play, because it's a forever game that's always being updated."

---

• PC Gamer Hero image: https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/ndcZmFH5SqQLwkuNaLGzYE-1280-80.jpg