Video Game / Soulframe

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Soulframe is an upcoming High Fantasy Massively Multiplayer Online action game from Digital Extremes, the creators of Warframe. While the title similarities are intentional, Soulframe is a separate game and story, not a Warframe Spin-Off.

In the world of Alca, the gods in the sky have cast a spell over the people, making them forget their history and their culture, making them more pliable to their rule. You play as an Envoy, capable of communing with spirits of your ancestors. It is up to you to reconnect with the past and stop the sky's servants, the Ode, from destroying your people's land.

The game's reveal trailer was released at Tennocon 2022. At Tennocon 2023, the gameplay trailer teasing the "pre-Alpha" phase, Soulframe Preludes, was showcased. Preludes is currently available for new players in a limited invite-only release.

This video game provides examples of:

• Alien Sky: Whether this is an alternate Earth or another similar planet, Alca has three major celestial bodies in its sky: the red and blue binary suns Mora and Saphene; and the green moon, Iridis.
• Amazon Brigade: The Knightmaidens were an all-female group of knights that lead Midrath's army before being enthralled by the Ode's Spellsong.
• Ambiguously Human: The Sinecure. While the Ode are confirmed to be not native to Alca - and likely are a case of Human Aliens themselves - the status of the Sinecure, whether they're human, Ode, or something separate entirely, remains unclear. They're described as mercenaries serving the Ode, but they're often seen around Ichor spewers which are noted to be toxic to humans, but integral to Ode'n life. Not helping is their overall stature, which is fairly larger than the obviously human peasants that can be found in the villages the Sinecure can be seen guarding. Additionally, the Ode appoint Regents to control their conquered territories, which are noted to be humans and separate from Sinecure themselves. Certain Sinecure, such as Nimrod or Hunters, have visible 'human' faces, which match the human faces of Sinecure helmets; but they often can be heard complaining about the suns of Alca.
• Artificial Limbs: Envoys' right arms are made of a stone-like blue material, with the chosen Pact worn on it as a singular sleeve.
  • On closer inspection, the Sinecure mercenaries are shown to have artificial limbs as well in some cases.
• The Atoner: King Fenn Jotar sees opposing to the Ode via the Kith of Kings as penance for his transgressions towards Mora and his former subjects.
• Back Stab: Attacking an unaware enemy from behind lets you stab them for great damage.
• Beary Friendly: Bromius, protector of the Wevetwood. His pact is a Courage-focused pact that revolves around tanking and crowd control.
• Body Horror: Oh boy. Ichor is described as essentially being the Ode'n equivalent of water, but when it comes into contact with Alca life...
  • What Ichor does to Garren Rood, even before he transforms into the Torment Stag. His face appears to be melting, leaving his teeth exposed and his jaw dangling unsettlingly. After the transformation is complete, it's difficult to see how much of Garren Rood remains after his bones have completely rearranged themselves.
  • The Arbearer Bromius is turned into the Waste Bear by Ichor after being brainwashed to eat the Voicing Seed; two heads grow out of his shoulders, while his main head turns into a misshapen silvery trunk with bells growing from what used to be a mouth.
• Canis Major: The shewolf Orengall and her pups, with said pups being nearly as tall as the Envoy.
• Character Customization: Played With. Initially, only the Envoy's gender could be decided on by the player. Digital Extremes later added the opportunity to customize the Envoy's mother, indirectly altering the Envoy themselves.
• Cool Mask: One of the first headgears the Envoy can find or start with is a large golden mask. According to it's description, it doubles as a respirator to help non-Ode people breathe in Ode cities.
• The Corruption: Ichor, a grey shimmering mud that The Ode spreads from creepy-looking statues called Ode'n Moaners to make the land and water suitable for them, can corrupt living creatures into monsters with bells growing out of their bodies; it notably turns Garren Rood into the hostile Torment Stag and Bromius the Arbearer into the Waste Bear.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Lady Deora, Garren Rood and Bromius both go from bosses to allies once defeated.
• Defector from Decadence: The Envoy was once a member of the Ode before switching sides and fighting against them.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: The shewolf Orengall is initially curt and dismissive with the Envoy, thinking they're no better than the Sinecure who captured her pups. She becomes more formal and talkative as the Envoy proves that they're not the same as the Ode, even letting the Envoy take one of her pups as a companion.
• Digital Tabletop Game Adaptation: A Mini-Game has you play Regatta against Avakot. Regatta is a reskinned version of the Royal Game of Ur, an ancient Mesopotamian board game where you flip coins to move your tokens across the board.
• The Eeyore: Steelsinger Tuvalkane always sounds riddled with self-doubt and shocked when her work doesn't end up in complete failure, since her clumsiness makes her feel unworthy to carry the legacy of her Ultimate Blacksmith ancestor.
• The Empire: The Ode, an industrial civilization of flying cities that has destroyed all of humankind's cultural memory outside of their reign, hunts sacred Omen Beasts, and spreads The Corruption to cement their rule.
• Enemy Chatter: Ode soldiers can be heard talking to their friends or themselves, either mocking the locals, itching for a fight or asking who's up for a few dice games.
• Faceless Mooks: Ode troops wear face-obscuring helmets.
• Fantastic Slurs: "Gruul", the Ode word for a non-Ode human, is thrown around at every occasion by the Sinecure troops.
• Feathered Fiend: The Fey Pact grants the Envoy the ability to summon a swarm of birds to continuously Zerg Rush an enemy. When Fey Pact was removed, this ability was transferred to the Oscelda Pact.
• Fisher King: The Glades of Andurin, home to the Torment Stag, are diseased and barren with all trees reduced to bare trunks and Ichor covering everything; once the Envoy purifies the Stag back into Garren Rood, the glade returns to life, the trees blooming and the grass filling the empty space.
• Friend to All Living Things: The Envoy has a particular connection to animals; they have a familiar that helps them in battle and guides them towards their objective, they rescue animals from the Ode, and the login screen shows the Envoy sleeping in a pile of small woodland creatures. While early Preludes had them kill Sinecure's attack dogs, this was eventually changed so they only break their helmet and let them run away unharmed. The developers even stated that Disney movies were one of the inspirations for the game.
• Genius Loci: The land of Alca is described as being "a little angry" at what has been done to it, causing it to move and shift around, explaining the game's Randomly Generated Levels. In fact, in some sections of the undercity of Dermak, the player can watch the earth above them split open in real-time to reveal the sky beyond.
• Gold and White Are Divine: Played with the Ode weapons ; while they are made of matte white metal with golden accents, the Ode is anything but divine.
• Golem: Mockeries are empty scarecrow-like husks made of knotted wood that become possessed by a wandering spirit. Killing them requires the Envoy to damage them enough to force the spirit out of the body, then smite it lest the spirit will simply re-enter the body after a while.
• Heel Realization: Whatever the Envoy does to Lady Deora after defeating her makes her realize just what she has done in service of the Ode. When Garren Rood expresses anger at the Ode, thinking the Envoy is one of them, it is Deora who wordlessly stops and reassures him that the Envoy is a friend.
• Home Base: The Nightfold serves as the home to the Envoy, like the Orbiter in Warframe.
• Identity Amnesia: Played with; the Ode's Spellsong erased the cultural memory of the people rather than their individual memories. As a result, said "histories" float around the world's locations as spirit fragments that the Envoy can absorb.
• Industrialized Evil: A big thematic for the Ode is demolishing natural areas and building their Steampunk Magitek on top of it, with the implication that they cannot live on a non-terraformed by Ichor land.
• Intelligent Forest: The Wevetwood is described as being the home of the Elder Voicing Trees, which are not only older than Bromius himself, but also said to be wiser as well. They possess their own language known as Tree Tongue.
• Large and in Charge: Lord Synod, the Ode leader, is gigantic compared to regular Ode citizens and soldiers, towering at least one head above Nimrod and twice as wide than a Banneret.
• La Résistance: The Silent Rose is made of Alca citizens who oppose Ode conquest, even if Lady Deora claims they're more a bunch of drunk youngsters eager for a fight than anything.
• Literally Shattered Lives: Enemies that have been Taken for Granite by the Oscelda Pact can be further smashed into pieces, or at the very least lose a great deal of health.
• Magic Knight: Every Envoy is this by virtue of using both weapons and Pact powers.
• Magic Music:
  • Envoys use some manner of musical magic ; all Pacts include a flute which can be used on broken statues in the wild to, among other things, see Flashbacks of Deora and Garren Rood or a younger Envoy, and later use a song to pull Deora's soul out of the Silvern Sea and facilitate her Heel–Face Turn.
  • The Ode's trump card when conquering Alca is the Spellsong that make non-Ode citizens and soldiers compliant, while forgetting their history except for service to the Ode. It even figures into Ichor corruption, as bells grow out of corrupted bodies.
• Meaningful Name: "The Collector" mentionned in background chatter by Sinecure is literally a transport ship sent down to "collect" resources pilfered by the Ode back to their cities.
• Motifs: Many things in the world of Soulframe are described like songs, not just the Magic Music that the Envoy can use. For example, blacksmiths are also called "steelsingers".
• Naked First Impression: The Envoy spends most of the reveal trailer in the nude, save for a mask over their face. The in-game version has them wear a loincloth instead.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The boss version of Garren Rood is titled the "Torment Stag". Judging by its state, along with the spear run through its torso, the "Torment" in its name could just as easily refer to itself as it would anyone unfortunate enough to fight it.
• Plant Person: Sproutfolk are beings who resemble small plant-like humanoids.
• Playing with Fire: The Mora's Hand pact you can acquire from Fenn Jotar (who is, of course, the Fire King) through the Kith of Kings faction specializes in dealing area fire damage.
• Poirot Speak: Verminia speaks with a heavy French accent and peppers her dialogue with untranslated French words.
• Prestigious Player Title: The player character is titled "the Envoy".
• Punny Name: Sproutfolk's names are either a vegetable-related pun or play on words.
• Repressive, but Efficient: During the boss fight against Lady Deora, she angrily tells the player that for all their faults, the Ode have eradicated famine and war, and brought warmth to every home. This being said, they are still destroying the world with The Corruption, and after being cleansed of it herself, she suddenly seems far less eager to serve them. That said, she maintains her position in order to sabotage the Ode, with the Envoy's help.
• Roaming Enemy: Bannerets are large, powerful Sinecure soldiers who will periodically show up alongside minor troops. Some of them act as a Mini-Boss, complete with a Boss Subtitle and are the target of a Sparrow's Fable.
• Scenery Gorn: Areas under the control of the Ode are sites of severe environmental degradation, either torn apart for raw resources or afflicted with Ichor and turned alien and metallic.
• Screw You, Elves!: Nobody who’s not working for the primary Ode empire likes them, not even rebel Ode.
• Shock and Awe: The Ode specialize in Voltaic damage. The Nimrod boss (and the Discharged Nimrod world boss) you can encounter in the Hark, The Collector! world event dishes out lightning damage like nobody's business, Sinecure foot soldiers can sometimes go out in a Voltaic kamikaze explosion, and Ode War Casters use the Odiac (which can be obtained from Nimrods) which deals voltaic damage.
  • The Ode Tempest pact has a lightning them and allows players to summon an Astra Sphere to deal extra voltaic damage to enemies in its area. The only exception to this is Seismor, a ball which shoves back all enemies in its path before exploding.
• Skill Scores and Perks: Deafeating enemies and finishing quests will grant points that can be spent to upgrade Pacts via a skill tree. Weapon classes have their own skill tree, needing to max out several weapons to fill it up.
• Socketed Equipment: Weapons can be enhanced by putting stat-boosting Runes and Totems in it, the former being dropped by Agari enemies and the latter being harversted by enchanting or freeing wild animals.
• Space Elves: The original Ode are literally advanced Human Aliens from a different planet, with distinct Dark Elf (xenophobic, arrogant, alien) thematics in a Light Is Not Good High Elf skin (flying cities and association with music and stars).
• Summon to Hand: After throwing your melee weapon, you can recall it to your hand.
• Tagalong Chronicler: One of the spirits you can meet is Orlick, a wizened scribe who looks the part, save for the infant perched on his shoulder, dubbed "Little Genius".
• Taken for Granite: One of the Fey Pact's magicks allows the Envoy to turn all surrounding enemies into easily-smashed stone. This ability was given to Oscelda after Fey Pact was removed from the game and its abilities got split across the three starter pacts.
• Taking You with Me: Regular Ode soldiers on the brink of death will sometimes summon a lightning bolt from the skies on themselves as a last ditch attack.
• Talking Animal: The Omen Beasts.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Performing a heavy attack while blocking will throw your weapon. The damage from this isn't particularly strong unless you use the Perfect Throw blade art, which adds an Action Command with a small window to deal greatly increased damage. Another heavy attack will recall the weapon back to your hand.
• The Undead: The Mendicants are long dead warriors and wizards brought back to life due to their resting places being soaked with Ichor, who now try to turn all of Alca into an undead waste like them.
• Underground City: The aptly-named Dermak Undercity dungeon.
• Virtuous Character Copy: The Envoy's arm is this to the infected arm of Hayden Tenno of darkSector. Both player characters use their abilities through their unusual limb, but whereas Hayden was infected with a virus that grants him lethal abilities, the Envoy was born with their arm in this state and the abilities they channel are part of the world's magicks.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: The Envoy has the ability to rip out souls from their enemies, sometimes doing enough damage to the victim to kill them outright.