People are doing wonderful things with it
Like any good online game, Warframe excels at letting players show off their creativity and individuality. Beyond the customizable frames and decorations you can use to spruce up your ship, it’s also given those with musical talents a chance to create some tunes. Update 20.0 introduced the Octavia frame, which brought with it the Mandachord and it’s Apple Loops-like music creation tools to the game. There are many great Mandachord tracks on YouTube, like this pretty spot-on cover of Haddaway’s “What is Love.”
With its most recent update, Warframe has expanded the music-creature nature of the game by giving players access to their own sitar-sounding Shawzin emote which briefly turns the looter shooter into a Guitar Hero-like rhythm game. Much like the Mandachord, players are able to create their own compositions and already we’re getting some great content out of it.
Most of the songs that actually use the scrolling notes I’ve found have been pretty short, but long enough that the song is recognizable. Ditties like “Auld lang Syne” and “Sweet Dreams” are perfect for it. Far more impressive, and something likely to be lost when this update hits consoles, is the use of scripts to create incredibly intricate songs. In a short time, players have already cobbled together Shawzin covers of “Through the Fire and Flames,” “A Cruel Angel’s Thesis,” “Gourmet Race,” and a personal favorite of mine, “Bloody Tears.”
There’s really no telling how far this will go when you consider the Shawzin can be used in conjunction with the Mandachord. I have no doubt the creativity of the Warframe community will only continue to produce amazing covers as Digital Extremes continues to update the feature. Here’s to hoping we get a bass Shawzin, a drum Shawzin, and a saxophone Shawzin so we can get some really great Dave Matthews Band songs out of it.
Anyway, here’s “Wonderwall.”
