To borrow Digital Extremes’ own words, they’ve certainly pushed the boat out with Warframe 1999. The Metal Gear Solid-inspired questline has exploding motorcycles, the game’s first-ever dating sim, and a pounding, industrial metal soundtrack that’s absolute perfection. But none of that means anything without a solid cast of characters – in this instance, The Hex, our merry, Guardians of the Galaxy-esque band of protoframe misfits. It’s a star-studded cast both in and outside of the game, with Final Fantasy 16 and Expedition 33’s Ben Starr captaining the squad as the rough-and-ready Arthur, and Cyberpunk 2077’s Alpha Takahashi causing chaos as Aoi. They’re pitted against Resident Evil’s Nick Apostolides, the seemingly harmless frontman of boy band On-Lyne who, it turns out, isn’t just a pretty face.
It’s odd sitting on a couch with all of them in front of a cozy, digital fireplace in Digital Extremes’ head office. As the flames flicker and my fourth coffee of the day kicks in, we start to chat all things Warframe 1999 – the clear highlight of Tennocon 2024. As we settle in, the 1999 trailer flickers to life on a television in the background; somewhat fitting given that Starr and Takahashi’s characters are both looking down at us.
I ask each in turn what inspires their characters in the multiplayer game – after all, we’ve got Excalibur, Mag, and a boy band frontman turned infested lich sitting around a table (that feels like the start of a bad joke).
“When Rebb [Rebecca Ford, Warframe’s creative director] was talking to me about this role, I was smiling ear-to-ear,” Apostolides tells me. “We were reminiscing about ‘90s music, so she was like ‘think grunge, meets boy band, meets everything in between in that era, and I said ‘sign me up; I don’t even have any questions, sign me up.’
“Really we just wanted to have some fun with it. I drew inspiration from when I was growing up, when I was in my early teens watching MTV – all these bands in ‘99 when I was 15 years old. I was reminiscing about that time in my life, watching all of these interviews and everything. We didn’t take it too seriously, and that was kind of the point.”
Takahashi’s answer is equally as playful. Her smile widens when I ask her why she chose the role, and she tells me “At the beginning of last year, I had a hope that I would play a superhero! And that I would have colored hair!” she tells me emphatically. “And then boom! This comes along. I wasn’t a Warframe player before, so I wasn’t familiar with the story and the world – now I am, very much so. But [Digital Extremes] was able to feed me all of the information I needed for my character.”
When I ask if she drew upon any of her previous work coming into 1999, she tells me that she’s “never even thought about past characters” despite the visual similarities between Aoi and Cyberpunk 2077’s ever-iconic Hanako Arasaka. “The roles I’ve been getting are quite different, and very different from myself – every time I have to go and find something new.
“Quite honestly, whenever I send out an audition I ask ‘am I sounding the exact same on each one?’ but then when I hear the end result I’m like ‘no! I sound completely different in all of these things. It’s very, very fun for me to see myself in totally different forms.”
For her, Aoi is “cool,” something she considers herself to, well, not be. “I’m not a very cool person,” she giggles. “I’m just like, bubbly and out there, and ‘cast me Disney!’” Don’t worry, Alpha, I think you’re cool.
Starr, however, oozes cool – especially when I listen back to the recording and he greets my mobile phone with a smooth “hello, how are you?” Yes, I ask people to introduce themselves to my phone whenever I record, and this has to be one of my favorites.
He notes that Ford wanted Arthur to “‘sound like he’s ground gears into the dirt. Can you find something really earthy, but boy scout-like?’ I was like ‘that’s a really interesting thing to play with.’” Echoing Alpha, he notes that Digital Extremes didn’t “over-prescribe what we can and can’t do,” saying that “we are accidentally bringing ourselves to these roles because they trust us enough to be the custodians of whatever these characters are going to be.”
Speaking of what characters are going to be, I probe Apostolides for a little more insight into Zeke, who remains mysterious compared to Aoi and Arthur. I ask how he had to change up the Resident Evil monster hunter mindset to become the monster himself, and he says he didn’t have “play the villain angle at all,” noting that he’ll “keep this a bit ambiguous to avoid spoilers.
“I simply had to play the moment, the personality, the archetype of a young break-out celebrity who has to deal with the arc of fame. The way he’ll be presented at the end will be done in a very creative and interesting way – even I’m curious to experience the final product!” With a little wink he closes out with “you’re just gonna have to play it.”
Color me intrigued. Given Ford told me that one of 1999’s romance options is “kind of disgusting,” I’m wondering if you do, in fact, wind up entangling yourself (literally) with our starry-eyed starlet. It’s giving me Baldur’s Gate 3 Mind Flayer vibes, but then again, Larian’s RPG was, to borrow Ford’s words, “the push over the cliff” for DE, so you never know, things might get… icky.
If you’re intrigued by icky kisses and infested liches, the Warframe 1999 release date window is set for later this year, so you’ve got plenty of time to grind through all of the existing content first. As you do so, though, make sure you check out our list of all of the currently available Warframe codes for some free Glyphs.