Soulframe keeps growing with new RPG customisation, a dungeon inspired by Blue Prince and a wizard's staff
10th major update for Preludes version due this month
"Soulframe has the bones of a great action-RPG," I wrote last November. Developers Digital Extremes continue to graft flesh to those bones, plumping the world-building's marrow and cranking the sinews of the combat. The game's Preludes edition - a sort of relentlessly expanding limited-access beta - continues to be updated with new weapons, faction features, player Pacts (classes, essentially), areas, and enemies. They've also made some revisions, which include turning the Idol system into a distinct set of weapons so as to give it "a more focused purpose in your arsenal".
Despite promising myself that I would try to keep up with Soulframe's development, after flopping out of the FOMO boat with Warframe, I managed to overlook the original edition of the Idol system. Digital Extremes have certainly been busy, and more is in the offing: the 10th Preludes update, due this month, will further expand upon the new Motes and Runes upgrades system while adding some throwable secondary weapons and a wizard's staff with respectable Dragon's Dogma energy.
Here's a trailer to show off the Preludes build as it currently stands, plus a few of the aforementioned new trinkets.
So how do Motes (which already exist to some extent in-game) work as upgrades? As detailed at PAX East, they're tiny Ghibli-ass critters you'll find around the game's open world. Once caught, they can be ordered to take up possession inside a weapon to provide a new ability - freezing enemies solid, for example.
You can also release them if you have a duplicate Mote to acquire feeding materials for your remaining Motes, strengthening them. Or, you can have your weapon's Mote feast on the soul of an enemy. In the dev stream, Digital Extremes jocularly observe that none of this is anything like Pokemon. They've clearly been keeping up with current events.
Runes, meanwhile, are modifiers for Motes, placed in sockets on your inventory. They grant boons such as more staggering power after you nail a perfect dodge. There are 20 new Motes coming in Preludes 10, and the hope is to let players start properly build-crafting in a simulation that has hitherto been more about levelling up and acquiring more potent gear.
Upcoming new enemies, meanwhile, include a boss, the Tired King, whom the devs liken to the Ringwraiths in LOTR. He doesn't seem tired so much as great at delegation, summoning minions to attack you. They're also working on the second Soulframe in-game event, the Festival of the Circade. Where the first was Halloween-flavoured, this one takes inspiration from recent house-wrangling doozie Blue Prince with a new puzzle location, the Crypt of Circade.
All these bits and pieces notwithstanding, I still find Soulframe appealing for approximately the same reasons I did in 2024. It casts you as a lonely roving paladin in a realm of enchanted animals that is being steadily ruined by pollutant-spewing oiks in metal hats. It blends sword and sorcery into a graceful procession of combos, parries, buffs, projectiles and finishers. I wouldn't say the combat is very difficult or complex but it has fluidity and charisma. I enjoy inhabiting a body that can do stuff like this.
The dungeon ambience is fairly absorbing as procgen creations go, and the lore writing has a gnarled, fey intensity that sometimes comes across as garnish for a nothingburger, but is often quite fun. The weapon and equipment art is as handsome as you'd find in Warframe, but not as 'extra', you know? A little easier to behold without developing a migraine. Forgive me, Warframers - I am old, and brighter colours upset me. I like my tapestries faded, my armour dusty and my blades notched and blunted... but not broken.