Pride month is almost here and Warframe and Digital Extremes are rolling out the festivities early with today’s Pride Time and the launch of a variety of new and returning in game items. This year we get a brand new Mesa Prime and Kaithe display by community artist Ritens! To mark the occasion this Pride month, I thought it would be a good idea to look into how the queer community views their experience as members of the Warframe community. I asked members of the Spectrum Syndicate community several questions about their experience as Tenno and heard from baby Tenno and veterans and everything in between about how their experience in Warframe has been. 

We had 55 people respond and all of them are people that have found a welcoming and supportive community in Spectrum Syndicate so that probably skews the results some compared to a survey of all Warframe players, but I think the results are interesting anyway. Let’s dive in!

• Openness: When asked on a scale from 1 to 5 (5 being completely open) how open they are about their queer identity with complete strangers in game respondents came back with an average of 3.69
• Welcoming: Also on a scale from 1 to 5, when  asked how welcome they felt within the broader Warframe community as a queer Tenno respondents gave an average rating of 4.15

The scores for both questions are well above the halfway mark so more often than not Tenno feel they can be open about being themselves in game and still feel welcome. The difference between the numbers I think could be indicative of how we as queer people are often conditioned to mask our identities in uncertain environments, even when it’s one that we feel fairly safe in.

When looking at the self-identified demographics from the survey, one interesting point that stood out was that 54.5% of respondents were trans compared to 29.2% of the Discord community identifying as trans. This says to me that not only are trans Tenno here and in need of this representation, but they’re also active and engaged members of the community looking to have their voices heard.

I also asked where within the game itself did the Tenno responding feel most seen or represented. Unsurprisingly more than half (36) of the people that took the survey said that the annual Pride content that Digital Extremes produces was among the ways they feel represented. Slightly behind that (32 respondents) was the Warframes or protoframes themselves. A group of canon pansexual romance options, poly inclusion between the datable groups, and a non-binary protoframe certainly goes a long way toward allowing people to feel seen.

“I started playing during Pride Month. Saw the rainbow wings and instantly relaxed. The Drifter/Operator not having restrictive gender choices is awesome. The fact that they use they/them by default means I don’t have to choose to be misgendered every single day.” – hemlicc

The amount of customization allowed in game was another highlight that made people feel represented in game with 27 people saying fashionframe was among the things that help them feel represented.

“The level of customization lets me feel more like myself compared to other games. Spending time making my first main Warframe feel like part of me was a big moment.” – A trans Tenno

21 queer Tenno said that a specific NPC helped them to feel more seen within the Warframe community. With characters like Ticker and Varzia in the common spaces and Loid and Albrecht being a major part of the questline, it’s not hard to see where that could come from.

“It was when I learned about Ticker from my friend when I came back to the game. Not just that Ticker is supposed to be a trans woman, but a non-passing trans woman as well. That’s a level of representation I haven’t come across in any game until now. I actually started crying over it and I’m tearing up now writing about it… To have the struggles to pass acknowledged, however small, means the world to me.”
– Feinu

The representation in Warframe has depth within the queer community and representation outside of it too.

“I’m a fat queer and there is a certain feeling you get when you’re fat. An otherness. No matter what identity I have or community I should belong to, I am bothered because I’m fat. But with the addition of Follie, it included me! Warframes are powerful, badass, and sexy beings of destruction. Finally, I was represented in a playable character. In most games, you have to use mods to make a character look like me, but Warframe changed that.” – A Trans, Fat, Drifter

“Warframe in general is the first game where I’ve seen myself truly represented by a mainstream developer in a way that does not feel performative. It’s not rainbow capitalism, and it’s not representation for the sake of representation. Chains of Harrow and Whispers in the Wall both introduce characters that are not just autism or gay personified; those aspects of their characters are just there. That is more meaningful to me than any overt focus on a character trait would ever be.” – YeOldeFurryBard, Asexual Spectrum Trans/Genderfluid Tenno

The authentic representation within Warframe beyond just the rainbow capitalism that frequently comes with Pride month clearly means a lot to the queer Tenno in the community. Not only are the Pride items available for a single credit and not for platinum, Digital Extremes also donated CAD 20,000 to Rainbow Railroad again this year.

“…I appreciate [DE] seeing the LGBTQ+ community as an actual community to support, not a commodity to exploit.” – WhiskeyTick, Pansexual Tenno

While usually the experience within the Warframe community at least above average for queer Tenno, there are some exceptions. Bigotry showing up in game is rare but does happen. It’s often the connected community spaces that are host to the hatred queer people receive within the Warframe community.

“I was running missions with an IRL friend and two randoms. I was a host so they came to the clan dojo; one of them called me the f-slur and left. In the same session, another random filled the fourth spot and also called me the f-slur and left.”
– six-six-eight

“The forums. Good god, the Forums. Whenever Pride Month would roll around, I’d feel giddy enough to write up a forum post, asking people the same questions you’re asking now. Without fail, the post would be devoured piecemeal by angry responses. My final yearly attempt ended with me having to DM a moderator, begging them to take down the post, because of the maelstrom I had spurned.”
– Librus_107

That’s part of why I still run Spectrum Syndicate. For all of the amazing work that the Warframe team has done, there will likely always be people looking to exclude those that aren’t like them and make them feel lesser. Having a place like Spectrum Syndicate for myself and those in the community allows us to just focus on enjoying the game and let those with hatred in their hearts find their place elsewhere.

“Interacting with the general community is always scary and a gamble. You can form bonds with random strangers in a game, only to realize that they have hateful views on queerness. Being in a queer-focused Warframe community eliminates that extra burden and stress that general Warframe spaces perpetuate. Being with other queer gamers, I don’t have to worry about hate or bigotry and just play the game.”
– LibertySausage

“It’s nice just having a clan chat honestly. Cozy little place for build discussions, mission recruiting, the occasional animal noises or :3 spam, all while still being a safe space for queer discussion without being laughed off or called hurtful things. I think everyone has some solidarity for each other that I don’t imagine is easy to find in other clans.”
– An anonymous Tenno

All of these perspectives from the survey show that the work that Digital Extremes has done on building this amazing community really has made a difference. While I doubt the world will ever be a paradise for all members of the queer community, we at least have a space in Warframe that is trying and further spaces within the Warframe community that are able to provide a more curated experience to the game. The Pride campaign every year always brings out members of the community that seem to have had their head down the rest of the year during the story and NPC interactions, but it also provides needed representation and visibility to the queer Tenno that have made a home within the Warframe community.