At the TennoCon 2024 fan event earlier today, Digital Extremes revealed a new look at Soulframe, a medieval fantasy game that will be released as a “sister title” to Warframe. like Warframe, Soulframe is an “action RPG, MMO-lite” free-to-play game, but it will feature more melee combat and a slower pace compared to Warframe's space ninja acrobatic combat. And you can make a mother out of this game.

In an advance press preview of this year's TennoCon demo, DE showed off an early chapter of the game's opening story quest. The cutscene shows a bird flying in the rain over a vast fantasy battle at night, with troops besieging a castle with catapults and battle magic. As the narrator recites the story of the battle in skaldic poetry and the bird flies in through the castle window, showing a woman with a baby in her arms, the game enters the first stage of character customization, mamacraft.

In the soul frame, it appears that the character's appearance is first determined by choosing the faces of his or her parents. In today's TennoCon demo, we only got to see the mother part. As you select her features, the narrator's poem responds to reflect your choice, choosing appropriate metaphors for her hair and eye color. In theory, these decisions are reflected in the final character's appearance, but you cannot see the entire process. When your mother is trapped, she hands the baby (presumably you) over to the maid of honor, who carries her out of the fight.

Beyond the customizable mama, the look of the Soulframe at this TennoCon extends what we saw in previous previews rather than offering new details. After mama creation, the demo skips over the intro quest and the rest of character creation to give us a taste of the quest and combat, but it is a shorter sample than the 30-minute gameplay overview that took place at TennoCon 2023.

Soulframe features a vast, open overworld that you move through to access procedurally generated dungeons, much like Warframe's mission layouts are randomly pieced together from tilesets. Once away from the enemy, one can freely warp into a pocket dimension called the Night Fold, which is a personal hub area equivalent to Warframe's Orbiter.

While playing Soulframe, ancestral spirits will hang out in the Nightfold and respond to the player's progression, equipment, and most importantly, fashion options. In the preview demo, a new ancestor was revealed: the mouse witch Verminia, an alchemist who can help craft elixir consumables and provide unique cosmetic unlocks. The Night Fold also features a giant, friendly wolf as a mount.

In addition to heavy sword wielding, Soulframe combat uses the cursed arm of Pact and the Soulframe version of the character class; instead of swapping out Warframes, you swap out the limbs of a horrible nightmare. In the demo, characters were free to hurl halberds and call upon them in the style of Thor in order to provide shooting variety to Soulframe's fleshlight combat.

Soulframe Preludes, which DE calls “pre-pre-alpha,” began invitation-only testing in December 2023. During a press preview session, DE said it hopes to “get Soulframe into the hands of more people” this fall.