Opening up fantasy MMO Soulframe to more players is now “a 2025 endeavor”

Despite recent promises of bringing Soulframe's Preludes to more players in 2024, the MMORPG is "not quite ready" to make that jump yet.

While Warframe continues to draw in tens of thousands of players each day and has a big expansion on the horizon too, there is palpable excitement for its fantasy cousin Soulframe. While playtests have been ongoing for months now, the ambitious MMORPG was set to open its doors to all players this year. However, despite recently being shown off at TennoCon, a new livestream from developer Digital Extremes has confirmed that Soulframe will not be coming out or opening up its pre-alpha Preludes in 2024 after all.

It isn’t massively surprising that this Soulframe release date has been hit with a delay – while it has enjoyed some stunning gameplay showcases, I never got the sense that it was anywhere close to a full launch, early access launch, or even a wide-scale open beta. Couple that with the fact that Digital Extremes has Warframe 1999 dropping before the end of this year too, and a pushback for the fantasy game seemed inevitable.

While Digital Extremes had previously said that it was also looking to make its Preludes (which are Soulframe‘s pre-alpha builds that are being playtested and updated regularly) more open before the end of 2024, that is now taking a back seat as community director Megan Everett says that this will be a “2025 endeavor”

“We’re not going to open it up for a little bit, and the reason is it’s just not quite ready for that in terms of the long-term progression stuff we have to get to,” explains Digital Extremes CEO Steve Sinclair.

He also says that the “huge push” at the studio to get Warframe 1999 out the door requires some resources to be moved around – I certainly wouldn’t like to launch a giant expansion and an open alpha or beta version for an MMO at the same time, that sounds too much like hard work.

Even though DE is spending a little more time on Soulframe, that doesn’t mean that you have no chance of playing it now. During the stream, the team reveals that 2,000 keys to Preludes are being given out each week and that very soon it will start allowing invited players to also bring four friends along with them. If you want to be in with a chance of playing Soulframe Preludes, you can sign up here.

The hour-long stream also contains lots of new gameplay and updates on various in-game systems including pacts, combat and movement, and much more.

While you wait for Soulframe to arrive (or for a Prelude key to land in your inbox) check out some other amazing MMORPGs that you can play right now. These brilliant co-op games will also give you and your friends plenty of adventures.

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