Warframe is about to do something it has never attempted before. When Jade Shadows: Constellations launches on June 17, players will encounter the 65th Warframe as a dual-character system, a design choice that creative director Rebecca Ford credits to a surprising source: the roster mechanics of Super Smash Bros.
The new frame houses two distinct characters, Sirius and Orion, who function as switchable personas within a single loadout. Sirius wields a boomerang-style scythe that collects orbs, while Orion delivers heavy horizontal slashes that weaken enemy defenses. The inspiration struck Ford when the team needed direction on how to present these two as a unified option.
"There is a Super Smash Bros. reference for all of our choices because originally we did not know what to do with Sirius and Orion," Ford explained. "I was like, okay, this is going to kind of be like having Pit or Dark Pit or Samus and Dark Samus in the Smash roster. They're two different characters, but they're a very similar flavor."
The comparison resonated enough that players began drawing parallels to Ice Climbers, another dual-character fighting game icon. Ford embraced the direction while steering toward something uniquely Warframe, grounding the concept in cosmic mythology. "We want Cain and Abel. We want biblical and heavenly levels of cosmic violence," she said.
Mechanically, the switching system operates through what Ford calls a constellation-building mechanic. Players start missions with an empty constellation and populate it with stars each time they swap between the brothers. Once fully built, they unlock their most devastating ability: a synchronized attack where the characters fight together as a unified cosmic force.
"Imagine you enter a Warframe mission and you have an empty constellation," Ford described. "Every time you actively choose to swap, you're starting to build out the constellation. Once it's built, you can do the most effective cosmic clash, which is the brothers fighting." She compared the rhythm of managing these charges to a "Simon Says" game played across the map itself.
The narrative chapter itself spans roughly 35 minutes and introduces player choice mechanics that will reshape how the story unfolds. Digital Extremes plans to add quest restart functionality post-launch, allowing players to revisit their decisions and experience alternate dialogue, cinematics, and thematic variations. Ford stressed that these variations are meaningful flavor shifts rather than fundamentally different stories.
"Your choices matter, but like all things Warframe, we want you to experience everything," she explained. "It's the difference between strawberry and chocolate and not the difference between a hotdog and a hamburger. It's flavor."
Among the update's most unexpected inclusions is an Incarnon evolution for the Stug, a weapon infamous among the community for being underpowered. Incarnons are rare upgrades, with only five introduced this year, making the Stug's inclusion a deliberate statement.
"The name alone is kind of absurd. The way it works, equally absurd," Ford said. "Giving it one of those five spots is a very intentional choice of saying, 'We're committing to this bit and you're going to like it. And if you like the Stug, this is your day.'"
She framed the decision through agricultural metaphor, describing it as crop rotation within the game's design pipeline. "If you're overdrawing from the same fantasy every update, your crops will fail to thrive. So in this case, it's very much a crop rotation of us picking fresh things."
The expansion also features an exclusive look at Ryoku's Railjack, which serves as far more than a transport vessel. According to Ford, the ship itself functions as a boss arena, incorporating environmental hazards, puzzles, and traps that make the entire structure a combatant in one of Warframe's most ambitious environmental encounters.
Jade Shadows: Constellations represents closure on an unfinished narrative arc. The first Jade Shadows left threads that Ford and her team felt compelled to resolve. "We needed our place to accept that the story wasn't finished," she said, noting that community response to earlier material had validated the team's instinct that the saga demanded continuation.
The chapter marks a significant leap in scope and maturity compared to its predecessor. "If Jade Shadows was preschool, this is high school," Ford remarked, emphasizing the elevated character development and personal stakes woven throughout.
Author Emily Chen: "Splitting a frame into two characters is the kind of bold design swing that either bombs spectacularly or becomes the blueprint for future Warframe legends. Ford and her team seem genuinely convinced they nailed it, and the Smash Bros parallel actually makes the mechanic click in a way that typical 'switching systems' don't."
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