A Terrifying Infested Revamp, A Common Enemy Of All Enemies

[SgtFlex]

So, judging by the title, you know where im headed. I played Warframe when I came across it a long time ago, and I remember when I started playing the game, one of my first missions involved me encountering the infested. I... am a complete wimp when it comes to seeing something malformed, or a body that has been taken over, from my past experiences when I first encountered the necromorphs in DeadSpace or the Flood in Halo. Anyways, I continued wandering throughout the mission in warframe, only to encounter a charger. I wasn't terrified at all, unfortuantely, I just though "Oh, a generic melee enemy". I don't know WHY it didn't horrify me, I simply didn't...

 

Years later, and we've got new tilesets, new infested enemies on their way (at least 3 or so), and new sounds, but one thing has bugged me... The old enemies should probably get a Art revamp. They're just don't fit with the infested vibe that most games have potrayed. They stick this mushy crap around ships and people just transform. I was thinking, why not give players a reason to hate them. Surely something in the universe that causes most enemies to ally with each other must be horrifying, but at the moment, it's not really.

 

Im going to try to delve into the reason why, and how perhaps the models on these enemies can be better redone, and not to necessarily make this some type of horror game, but give us enemies that we may fear to encounter in hordes.

 

 

 

 

OUR CURRENT ENEMIES

 

Currently, one of the big reasons im not really terrified is because of how often the same models are re-used for different enemies and they just have abnormally colored skins. It just doesn't feel right. WE NEED VARIETY. Here, I'll show ya, these are all different enemies.

 

I feel a lack of variety, the colors of the skins don't look natural at all(Not only that but the black crawler bothers me so much, looks like a black car that had a neon green paint job)

 

 

Now, like I said, we don't need any sort of horror game, but take these artistic visions into mind from the images below (these are Halo and DeadSpace Enemies), this is what makes me feel sorry for all of the people that have been turned into these sort of monsters

 

 

There's a drastic difference I feel between these sort of enemies, and it's one thing I notice. Im very physcological about myself, and it's always one thing I notice about why it terrifies me. I can see what they once were. The warframe infested... well I can't really see anything under the brightly colored skins, it's just not that immersive to see the same model over and over, with just different copy-pasted skins. Not only that, but the infested are no challenge either. Im sticking to art here though, so that's something different.

 

 

TRANSFORMATIONS

 

This is a big thing. Everyone's fear in each of these games is getting turned into some sort of murderous monster. It's horrifying to see it as well. I really hope this makes itself into warframe at one point. Here's some examples

 

 

Here's a second one of deadspace, quite gruesome indeed

 

 

And perhaps one thing that both games have, random resurrections? That's really an iffy for me, but it sounds like an interesting mechanic either way.

 

Once again, im not trying to make it seem like it should be like either of those games, but it should be something creepy or terrifying that would make sense for these any 3 of the factions to ally with each other just to save each other from the horrifying deaths, with a small battlepay reward. Even the lotus states that no one should fall to the infection. Make it a faction that we would truly despise, and pity those for whom they fought.

Edited August 20, 2014 by SgtFlex

[Jahadaya]

Didn't even read but +1'd.

[Senketsu_]

It would be cool, but personally I would rather have them look like the infested from Dark Sector.

[TrinityPrime]

I do love me some Dead Space and would love to see infested go from rainbow colors and glowy bits to something that clawed its way out of a nightmare/hell dimension.

[CY13ERPUNK]

+1 OP

 

personally i have always been underwhelmed by the infested in Warframe, not scary/monsterous/terrifying enough IMHO

 

we need more The THING, Dead Space, Tyrannid, Zerg, Giger's Aliens, The Engineers, Halo's Flood, etc

 

but let me caveat, I don't think Warframe should be trying to COPY those things, but to channel the terrifying horror and power that they conveyed, that the infested in Warframe do not

Edited August 19, 2014 by CY13ERPUNK

[SgtFlex]

+1 OP

 

personally i have always been underwhelmed by the infested in Warframe, not scary/monsterous/terrifying enough IMHO

 

we need more The THING, Dead Space, Tyrannid, Zerg, Giger's Aliens, The Engineers, Halo's Flood, etc

 

but let me caveat, I don't think Warframe should be trying to COPY those things, but to channel the terrifying horror and power that they conveyed, that the infested in Warframe do not

Exactly what im trying to get across, it should be trying to come up with it's own sort of horror, the infested are just another faction that are weak compared to all the others. They should feel unique, terrifying, and something we can pity for all the victims of said infection. Right now I had to go back to the wiki to be reminded that chargers were once grineer, and the leapers or volatile runners were once corpus crewman. It just doesn't give of that vibe like necromorphs and the Flood do, and I really hope in the future, as part of the infested revamps that they've been getting a lot lately, comes.

[Trenggiling]

You do realize that the infested (as stated by lotus) can convert entire colonies in SECONDS

or minutes I can't remember... but either way...

That is pretty darn scary... just not to us cause we are immune XD

Edited August 19, 2014 by Trenggiling

[(PSN)SofeSNBR]

+1 OP

 

personally i have always been underwhelmed by the infested in Warframe, not scary/monsterous/terrifying enough IMHO

 

we need more The THING, Dead Space, Tyrannid, Zerg, Giger's Aliens, The Engineers, Halo's Flood, etc

 

but let me caveat, I don't think Warframe should be trying to COPY those things, but to channel the terrifying horror and power that they conveyed, that the infested in Warframe do not

Tyranids are just lol, especially  after their new codex wich is fail.... Anyways i agree with OP. Add some dark maps with them then we are good to go.

[vaugahn]

Tyranids are just lol, especially  after their new codex wich is fail.... Anyways i agree with OP. Add some dark maps with them then we are good to go.

 

Their codexes have always been fail. The synapse unit rules are terrible and make their whole army bad.

 

Anyways, on topic. I really like this idea, but I don't think it goes far enough. The whole game could use a little more grimdark.

[unknow99]

...And I also noticed that tilesets are no longer as dark as before : remember when you used your personal torchlight? Yeah, me neither (perhaps after 2 or 3 sabotage missions, but nowadays it's much rarer)

 

At first they were terrifying, but now they look like different color swaps. However, the new infested units are coming (and I hope that the other community submissions are taken into account too : some were really frightening!)

[Jahadaya]

They need to stop making Infested bright blue and orange, and start making them actually drip blood, and skin-toned. And actually resemble Grineer or Corpus faces. Also, they need to get the ability to like crawl on walls and such, and hide in dark corners and JUMP out at you.

[SgtFlex]

Perhaps those are some more points. We need darker maps (like near pitch black), and make it so we have to use our flashlights(limiting our awareness), but i think that having model reworks for each enemy and making their looks more diverse should be prioritized

Edited August 20, 2014 by SgtFlex

[vaugahn]

Perhaps those are some more points. We need darker maps (like near pitch black), and make it so we have to use our flashlights(limiting our awareness), but i think that having model reworks for each enemy and making their looks more diverse should be prioritized

 

The infested are in most serious need of a model rework. I'd like to see a bit of darkness from the other factions as well though. 

[(PSN)Hooligonzo]

It would be nice if there were some slight mesh differences instead of straight palette swaps.

 

How many kinds of Runner we got?  Crawler?

 

 

I think the Ideal Infested would have a few slightly different models per Infested type to reflect that they're mutations.  Right now, we just have to accept that all of these Infested guys evidently all mutate the exact same way, but with a different coat of paint.

 

 

It's more acceptable with the Corpus and the Grineer, since they're uniformed, military forces, but it doesn't really fit the Infested.

 

I kinda think they should get their own pseudo Armor system, where random extra bits can spawn on them in specific locations.  Do that for the Crawlers, Runners, Chargers, and you'll get some great visual variety with a relatively simple system.

Edited August 20, 2014 by (PS4)Hooligantuan

[SgtFlex]

It would be nice if there were some slight mesh differences instead of straight palette swaps.

 

How many kinds of Runner we got?  Crawler?

 

 

I think the Ideal Infested would have a few slightly different models per Infested type to reflect that they're mutations.  Right now, we just have to accept that all of these Infested guys evidently all mutate the exact same way, but with a different coat of paint.

 

 

It's more acceptable with the Corpus and the Grineer, since they're uniformed, military forces, but it doesn't really fit the Infested.

 

I kinda think they should get their own pseudo Armor system, where random extra bits can spawn on them in specific locations.  Do that for the Crawlers, Runners, Chargers, and you'll get some great visual variety with a relatively simple system.

It's simple things like that that sound awesome (the armor system), and you have a good point too about the corpus and grineer, wheras everything organic should be unique in it's own way (not saying like we should have a organic generating system, but rather the diversity of the infested faction needs to be worked on greatly.

 

 

They need to stop making Infested bright blue and orange, and start making them actually drip blood, and skin-toned. And actually resemble Grineer or Corpus faces. Also, they need to get the ability to like crawl on walls and such, and hide in dark corners and JUMP out at you.

This what i was talking about in the original post, and why the Flood or Necromorphs terrified me. Such colors that warframe uses don't convey any sense of horror at all, and are way too colorful. Whereas the flood and Necromorphs both have a sort of darkened, fleshy skin, 

[(PSN)SofeSNBR]

Their codexes have always been fail. The synapse unit rules are terrible and make their whole army bad.

 

Anyways, on topic. I really like this idea, but I don't think it goes far enough. The whole game could use a little more grimdark.

Well new one was lowest of low, any solid player can out table them in turn 2... by just killing few units. Anyways... I would like to see freshly transformed infested, you know it would have still clearly visible mutating parts from their hosts.... While we are on the subject, what happened juggernaut? did they just scrapped it?

[SgtFlex]

Well new one was lowest of low, any solid player can out table them in turn 2... by just killing few units. Anyways... I would like to see freshly transformed infested, you know it would have still clearly visible mutating parts from their hosts.... While we are on the subject, what happened juggernaut? did they just scrapped it?

No, all community submissions are being worked on (im pretty sure), it just takes a while to model and code those things, and figure out how they'll fit into tile sets (one issue people kept noting is that it wouldn't be able to fit through doorways)

[(PSN)SofeSNBR]

No, all community submissions are being worked on (im pretty sure), it just takes a while to model and code those things, and figure out how they'll fit into tile sets (one issue people kept noting is that it wouldn't be able to fit through doorways)

Hopefully they are. I quess juggernaut will be new boss for eris if nothing else works out.

[SgtFlex]

I just want to say now that the new infested units are absolutely terrifying and disgusting to look at, but that's exactly what I wanted. They grasp as the certain horror of disgust, I think the DE artists have really nailed the new infested units down, and I absolutely can't wait to see them in-game. So far, I think the first one showcased looks the best. Very biological and horrifying to look at.

 

If anyone hasn't watched the most recent devstream, this link will link you to the time they started showcasing all the infested units.

 

I am absolutely hyped to encounter these guys, just don't mess up the color scheme and put weird blues/greens on it! It just makes infested units look odd. Stick to oranges or something that's in the color scheme of skin tones.\

 

Hopefully we can still get the existing infested units to be reworked a bit in terms of art :P

Edited September 6, 2014 by SgtFlex