Author: Game Infliction

Digital Extremes just brought its TennoCon 2025 livestream to a close after revealing a smorgasbord of information about the future of Warframe and Soulframe.

The studio behind the popular multiplayer space ninja action game and its free-to-play fantasy follow-up treated in-person and remote fans to hours of announcements, including a fresh look at never-before-seen gameplay, new cosmetics, and some of the major updates still yet to come in 2025. It was yet another jam-packed showing for the Digital Extremes team as it careens toward the launch of more story expansions for Warframe and the eventual launch of Soulframe.

From Warframe’s new The Old Peace Narrative Chapter and the devil-frame Uriel to Soulframe’s fresh gameplay updates, we’ve gathered all of the highlights from today’s TennoCon 2025 livestream presentation for you to check out right here. Plus, whether you’re seeing everything for the first time or just looking for a refresher, we’ve also included information Digital Extremes shared with press during a TennoCon preview event IGN attended earlier this month.

Soulframe

Soulframe is still very much in development, but that didn’t stop Digital Extremes from providing attendees with a new gameplay deep dive. Just like TennoCon 2024, this year’s Soulframe presentation gives fans a live look at the team’s progress, highlighting all of the improvements, big and small.

Extensive customization options are one element Digital Extremes plans to carry from Warframe to Soulframe, with the team doubling down on that idea during TennoCon today. Additionally, while Soulframe Preludes, a private early access build that is open for all this weekend, has largely seen players focus on up-close, methodical combat with swords and shields, the team has been experimenting with other options, including sidearms. More love for fans of two-handed weapons is also something Digital Extremes says is “absolutely” in the works.

“You’ll see that, now, the game now supports casting playstyles and archery playstyles,” Digital Extremes CEO Steve Sinclair said during the preview event. “So, there’s a lot of choice now in the game, not just that up-close, sweaty, parry stuff… and because you now have a sidearm, you can mix and match those if you want as well.”

The TennoCon 2025 Soulframe gameplay showcase kicked off with a conversation with quest-giver and customization NPC Verminia. After trailing her winged rat friend, fans were able to catch a glimpse an Envoy ability that allows players to transform into a blue butterfly, opening up a window to become closer with nature in the land of Alca while also sneaking up on unsuspecting enemies. As the demo continued, audiences were able to catch glimpse of the Neath’uns underground as well as a fight against a three-headed, corrupted foe known as The Waste Bear.

The player featured in today’s build can also be seen casting green magic at their enemies from a distance. The Soulframe team says the combat shown in the TennoCon demo is “more casual” than what’s been offered so far, as players will have the freedom to hurl energy at their foes by using a staff and potentially other tools, too.

“Over a year now of players going hands-on with Soulframe in our Preludes pre-alpha builds, we’ve learned so many lessons and built a lot of new features for us as a studio,” Soulframe Creative Director Geoff Crookes said in a statement. “After last TennoCon, we put a huge amount of effort into improving combat fluidity and continued that passionate work into exploring brand new features like player social hubs, asynchronous player messaging with World Trees, among so many other additions. Today, we shared what the latest additions to our next Preludes build would be and beyond. We promise to all existing and future players to keep trying new things outside our comfort zone and work with you to create something we’ve all been looking for.”

You can see how things are shaping up, along with a first look at combat against the Bromius Omen Beast and the Wazzard of Wastes, in the TennoCon 2025 Soulframe gameplay trailer below.

During a press Q&A session, Digital Extremes shared more about what players can expect to see come to Soulframe in the future. For those hoping to see some version of an extended open Preludes period, the team says it needs more time before committing to any plans, but it at least sounds like the idea isn’t off the table should development progress smoothly.

Warframe: The Old Peace

Following a week of teasers and excitement from the community, Digital Extremes has revealed that the next major Warframe narrative chapter is an Operator-focused story titled The Old Peace. Centered around a peaceful time in the past, this new chapter is expected to launch later this year.

Gameplay footage for The Old Peace reveals a remastered look for players’ Tenno Operators as they bounce between the present and the past. It’s a lot to take in, with one lengthy segment revealing a mission that features a crucial bit of fan service: a playable version of Excalibur Prime. This specific Warframe, previously made available only to early Warframe adopters, won’t become available ever again, but The Old Peace will at least allow players to finally step into his shoes for a few cinematic, story-driven sequences.

Digital Extremes released a brief teaser for the content alongside its demo debut: “Think far back and remember the long-forgotten tale of Tau, a childhood Sentient friend named Adis, as well as the war-scarring conflict between the Orokin, their creations, and a coalition of Dax Anarch Warriors upon the Perita moon.”

The Old Peace will also feature a side story known as The Devil’s Triad. How exactly its contents fit into Warframe lore remains somewhat of a mystery, but we do know that it will introduce two new Protoframes into the mix. Despite fears that Digital Extremes would refrain from releasing more of these human-infused Warframe styles, fans can rest easy knowing that the story content features Protoframes for both Harrow and Wisp.

The Devil’s Triad will also serve as a welcome mat for Uriel, the next new Warframe. This Frame is said to be inspired by the devil, featuring glowing red highlights that cover his tar-like design. Details about Uriel’s abilities have yet to be revealed.

Alongside some of The Old Peace’s most notable additions comes the promise of a mysterious new faction and a Tauros Focus expansion, which comes with a new Operator ultimate ability. Digital Extremes is also maintaining its commitment to providing Warframe fans with a solid listening experience by publishing its new song, Lullaby of the Manifold, for free on YouTube. The track was featured in today’s The Old Peace gameplay demo and will become available on most music platforms starting July 21, 2025.

Digital Extremes Has More Warframe Content in the Works

The Old Peace is no doubt the biggest card Digital Extremes has up its sleeve for 2025, but there is so much more in store, too. The swift and sharp Valkyr will receive her Heirloom cosmetic bundle July 21, giving longtime fans of the clawed warrior a collection created in collaboration with community artist Pertti Bahaa. The Warframe team is also partnering with tabletop RPG developer Paizo to create Warframe x Starfinder: Operation Orias, which is set to arrive for tabletop fans this October.

Also set to arrive at an unspecified point this fall is what Digital Extremes is calling its “Untitled Fall Update.” It’s set to be one of the most substantial additions to Warframe ever, promising content that includes a ground-up rework for the nature-themed Oberon, a Lavos deluxe skin, and the 62nd Warframe.

This new content, along with a host of quality-of-life features, sounds promising, but the real reason to get excited is a new tutorial Quest called The Teacher. The mission will finally introduce a streamlined introduction to how Warframe’s Mod system works as Digital Extremes works to address criticisms regarding its game’s steep learning curve for new players.

More about the Untitled Fall Update will be revealed during the September Devstream. In the meantime, players can also look forward to a Warframe Android closed beta in the fall (sign up here), as well as Caliban Prime access. The latter was briefly featured during today’s The Old Peace gameplay showcase and is set to be released before the new Narrative Chapter launches.

As for a proper Nintendo Switch 2 Warframe port, Sinclair shared during the Q&A session that the Digital Extremes tech team is “so excited” to utilize the power of Nintendo’s sequel hybrid console, teasing potential upgrades like faster load times. There’s just one problem: they need dev kits.

“Our tech team is so excited to take advantage of the high-speed cores and the other really cool features of it,” Sinclair said. “There’s just such a backlog for dev kits. So, yeah, if you know anyone… just one, that’s all it would take. I know our programmers are just, like, ‘Oh, I can’t wait.’ We definitely have plans. When we get a dev kit, we will be doing a custom build for Warframe. Absolutely.”

Warframe content for 2025 is locked in, with much of it shown off during all of the TennoCon 2025 festivities. For 2026, meanwhile, Digital Extremes is teasing a full-on Tau Narrative Chapter. Information on how it will pick up from where The Old Peace leaves off remains tightly under wraps for now, with no release date or window given, outside of the promise that it will launch next year.

10 Years of TennoCon in the Books

Soulframe looks like another ambitious online experience from Digital Extremes, but TennoCon would be nothing without the game that started it all. Warframe Creative Director Rebecca Ford touched on the journey so far when speaking about the 10-year TennoCon anniversary.

“10 years of TennoCon is such a mind-boggling thing to say out loud,” Ford said. “When we first started this celebration event back in 2016, we had no idea it would grow to what it is today. Our community is everything to us; we wouldn’t be here without them. To be able to continue TennoCon and bring together more players in person from around the world and treat them to the latest announcements, hijinks, and simply celebrate the world of Warframe is a privilege we don’t take for granted.”

She continued: “The 10th TennoCon has been a deeply special, unforgettable journey. We want to thank our community to Tau and back for joining us on this monumental milestone. See you all next year!”

For more on TennoCon, you can read our interview with the Soulframe team from TennoCon 2024, where we learned more about how the fantasy RPG came to life and what its future holds. You can also watch a trailer for the new Duviri game mode update, Isleweaver, which launched for Warframe last month.

Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

Warning: this article contains spoilers for Donkey Kong Bananza.

Donkey Kong Bananza is now out in the wild, and one of the biggest burning questions ahead of launch centered on DK’s new best friend: Pauline. She’s a teenager in Bananza – 13 years old, to be precise – and this has led to rampant speculation that Bananza is a prequel to Super Mario Odyssey, which features an adult Pauline living in New Donk City.

We’ve played through the main story of Bananza and completed most of its major post-game beats, which means we now have the answers to that question and more. But be warned, we’re about to spoil the entirety of Donkey Kong Bananza’s finale. So if you’re still working your way to the Planet Core, turn back now, and join us once you’ve seen Bananza through to the end yourself.

Bananza eventually reveals that 13-year-old Pauline does, in fact, call New Donk City home, just like her Odyssey counterpart, and the story’s grand finale takes place in the metropolis after it’s been completely overrun by the returning King K. Rool. When DK and Pauline break through to the surface, Pauline exclaims “This is MY city!”, confirming the fan theory that Bananza would end by returning Pauline home to Odyssey’s most iconic location. But is this city connection enough to confirm that Bananza is a prequel to Super Mario Odyssey?

First, some background on Pauline, who is central to this mystery. In Odyssey, Pauline (who’s a full-grown adult) is the Mayor of New Donk City, perhaps most memorable for her performance of Jump Up, Super Star! at the New Donk City Festival. Teenage Pauline and Mayor Pauline share a lot in common: Beyond their shared name, they are both singers and performers, with much of Teenage Pauline’s character arc revolving around gaining enough confidence to perform in front of her hometown. She also sings the Bananza Transformation songs, and Void Kong is obsessed with the power of her voice… at least until King K. Rool boots him out of the story entirely.

Based on Pauline’s age, most expected Bananza would be a prequel to Odyssey, and potentially an origin story for New Donk City itself. It would make sense that DK, acting as Pauline’s hero and best friend, would prompt the people to name the town after her savior once she was safely returned. But in Bananza, New Donk City is already established before DK and Pauline arrive, and during one of Teenage Pauline’s monologues at a Getaway, she references New Donk City’s nickname “The Big Banana”, a Kong-inspired parody of New York’s “The Big Apple.” It’s a nickname we’ve heard before, first uttered in Mario Odyssey by a New Donker.

Using all that as a starting point, it seems that there’s actually more evidence to suggest that Bananza is a sequel to Odyssey, and that Teenage Pauline is Mayor Pauline’s daughter, and the granddaughter of original Pauline (who we’ll call Arcade Pauline). Let us explain.

Teenage Pauline regularly references her grandmother throughout Bananza, including one time directly in the main story. After the pair run into Diddy and Dixie Kong in the Racing Layer, Pauline says to DK during the dive to the next layer, “I’m glad you got to see your friends again! But if I don’t get home, Grandma will worry.” Teenage Pauline’s Grandma is the only family member she directly mentions in Bananza, so Nintendo clearly wants us to think about who her grandma is.

The most likely answer becomes clear when we consider Donkey Kong’s grandfather: Cranky Kong. It is well-established that Cranky Kong is the original Arcade Donkey Kong that kidnapped Arcade Pauline way back in the day. Bananza reinforces this lore, as Cranky rants about his old rival who wore overalls, clearly referencing Mario… or Jumpman, as our favorite plumber was originally known. Cranky and Wrinkly Kong’s son is Donkey Kong Jr., who – despite what the Super Mario Bros. Movie may have tried to tell you – is not actually our current Donkey Kong. Junior starred in the Donkey Kong Jr. arcade game and made various other playable appearances before being essentially wiped from the face of the earth. The tie-wearing Donkey Kong we know and love – first introduced in Rare’s Donkey Kong Country – is actually Donkey Kong the Third, son of Donkey Kong Jr. and an unknown Kong mother.

So, we’ve established three generations of DK, which brings us back to Pauline. Arcade Pauline and Mayor Pauline don’t look like the same person. Arcade Pauline has blonde hair, while the Mayor is a brunette. You could argue this is just a character redesign, but a billboard in Odyssey’s New Donk City shows a blonde version of Pauline. Perhaps that’s just a fun easter egg, but perhaps it’s a clue to canon, and we have to use all the evidence we can. The New Donk City Festival – which sees Mario recreating gameplay from the Arcade Donkey Kong game – is held to “tell the story of our city’s beginnings,” according to Pauline. This implies that New Donk City was founded after the events of the arcade game, built on the foundation of the girders Jumpman climbed up towards Donkey Kong.

New Donk City is a sprawling metropolis, and it likely took the course of at least a human generation to build it up to such an enormous size. That, combined with the different appearances, leads us to believe that Arcade Pauline and Mayor Pauline are two different people. Perhaps, dare we say, they are mother and daughter?

I suppose it’s possible that Bananza could still be a prequel, that Mayor and Teenage Pauline are one and the same, and that Arcade Pauline is her grandmother with a missing generational link between them, but it feels cleaner to suggest that there are three generations of Pauline: Arcade, Mayor, and Teenage, just like there are three generations of DK: Arcade/Cranky, Jr., and the main DK of today.

We really hope our theory that Teenage Pauline is the granddaughter of Arcade Pauline is true, because it’s absolutely adorable that the grandchildren of two of the oldest Nintendo characters have now teamed up and become best friends in Bananza. It’s very cool to think that Nintendo has found a clever way to redefine one of its oldest character dynamics over 40 years later. Unfortunately, completing the bulk of Bananza’s postgame content – which are called Bananza Rehearsals and leads to Bananza’s true final platforming challenge – doesn’t really shed any more light on this. Pauline returns to the surface to perform a song for her city, but all we see of that is a new piece of art that appears after the credits have rolled.

So while Bananza’s position as a prequel may make a lot of sense, it ultimately can never be more than a theory. There’s just not enough concrete evidence from Nintendo. This theory does raise some concerning, perhaps even supernatural questions about Mario, though. If he has really interacted with multiple generations of Paulines and Donkey Kongs… does this mean Mario never ages, while those around him do? Or are there multiple generations of Mario? Is Nintendo implying that Mario and Jumpman are two different characters? It’s probably best not to think about it too much.

Finally, and perhaps most crucially, it’s important to remember that Nintendo historically doesn’t care about lore and continuity across its games. Even The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – a direct sequel to Breath of the Wild – has lore inconsistencies that are ultra-hand-waved away. So it’s quite possible Nintendo doesn’t even have a truly established timeline between the original Donkey Kong, Odyssey, and Bananza, and just loves to keep fans guessing.

What do you think is going on in Donkey Kong Bananza? Is Teenage Pauline the daughter of Mayor Pauline and granddaughter of the original Pauline Cranky Kong kidnapped all those years ago, or are we being completely ri-Donk-ulous? Let us know in the comments!

Logan Plant is the host of Nintendo Voice Chat and IGN’s Database Manager & Playlist Editor. The Legend of Zelda is his favorite video game franchise of all time, and he is patiently awaiting the day Nintendo announces a brand new F-Zero. You can find him online @LoganJPlant.