Warframe launched a year before Destiny 2 and kicked off what would become one of the most vibrant and consistent MMO shooters around, especially on console. And despite spending many years in the shadow of Bungie’s live service blockbuster, Digital Extremes’ sci-fi odyssey now continues to thrive even as Destiny 2 comes to a sudden and anti-climactic end. Creative director Rebecca Ford was asked about the downfall of Warframe‘s longtime rival at this weekend’s TennoCon 2026.
“It’s horrible news, because it shows that even if you care so much, the business side of this industry always gets the last remark,” Ford told GamesRadar. “Those are the types of stories and experiences that, when you’re in a position where you have your own game, your own IP, and you work as hard as you do on it…”
She continued, “That’s not the first time it’s happened, and it’ll happen again, where the business aspect of the video game economy makes the decision for you, and it is existentially threatening at every level, because the idea that we aren’t in charge of our own goodbye is something I wake up thinking about every single day.”
The unexpected sunsetting of Destiny 2 this summer shows what that nightmare scenario can look like. Work on a planned expansion instead shifts to a final update that leaves untold threads in the game dangling in the wind and the game itself in a state that’s far from ideal for a multiplayer shooter that will now be locked in amber for as long as its servers remain online. While it’s impossible to know what the game’s fate may have been if Bungie had remained independent instead of selling to Sony, it’s hard to imagine it wrapping up like this.
“I’m speaking personally, but I know people would echo it as well. No one is celebrating the fact that this has happened to Destiny, and its players and that story,” Warframe live ops lead Megan Everett told Eurogamer last month. “I know that people have obviously compared us in terms of being ‘direct competitors’ and stuff like that. But I think a game is healthy when you have competitors, and [Destiny‘s developers] have done such an amazing job at trying to grow that story regardless of whatever situation they were in.”
Digital Extremes is not completely independent either. Chinese games holding company Leyou owns a majority stake and was previously purchased by Tencent. The Canadian studio has also faced its own setbacks. It set out to publish Airship Syndicate’s MMO Wayfinder in 2023 before eventually having to cut it loose later that same year. Even as Digital Extremes prepares to launch a fantasy MMO companion to Warframe, its original sci-fi shooter continues to be as relevant as ever.
