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Warframe now has fully functional guitars, and it slaps

There’s also Guitar Hero!

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Warframe - a red and blue mecha poses with a black and gold guitar Digital Extremes
Cass Marshall is a news writer focusing on gaming and culture coverage, taking a particular interest in the human stories of the wild world of online games.

Warframe is a third-person action looter shooter that’s all about flipping through randomly generated missions, shooting down baddies, and building new and lethal weapons. Or at least, that’s what Warframe is about at first. The more you dig into the game, the more you discover. There’s a PvP arena, which is pretty typical, and there’s also ... an arcade fighter minigame? And if you own the Zephyr Warframe, you can play Flappy Bird. (Framey Bird?)

The latest addition to the game goes ahead and amps up the ante even further: There’s now Guitar Hero in Warframe. Players can purchase the shawzin from the market for 40 platinum, and then they’re free to play whatever they like.

That’s right: The shawzin is a functional musical instrument. There’s a Guitar Hero minigame, which allows players to go through some Warframe tracks or import another player’s song ... or simply make their own song. Check out an example from Ian R on YouTube, who went ahead and recreated the entire DragonForce song “Through the Fire and Flames.”

Warframe fans were ready to roll with musical instruments, as there’s already a system in the game. The Warframe Octavia has a kit based entirely around music. Not only do her allies get benefits from attacking to the beat, but Octavia can customize her song to be ... basically anything. Community member Buff00n has created nearly 3,000 mandachord songs based off pop, rock, anime, video games, and electronic music. If you ever felt like loot shooters just didn’t have enough of the 1960s Spider-Man theme for your liking, Octavia’s mandachord provides a solution.

The shawzin is a little more accessible; it’s easier to visually parse than the mandachord, and it doesn’t need to be fit into a short and catchy loop. Since the shawzin went live, Warframe players have been creating tons of songs to play. YouTuber DNexus has posted plenty of examples in the last three days, including everything from Rasputin to “Old Town Road.”

There’s now a community subreddit based entirely around the mandachord and shawzin where players share their songs, ask for advice, and post their sweet Guitar Hero-style high scores. Players who have both Octavia and a shawzin can combine their instruments by having the mandachord provide a backbeat to the shawzin.

Warframe is a game that rewards the player for sticking around. At the hundred-hour mark, I feel like this has cracked my top games of all time list. At times, the sheer amount of stuff in Warframe is intimidating. It has taken me a while to find my feet. Now that I’m properly settled in and able to process new updates as they come in, I’m absolutely in love. If you need to find me, I’m on Fortuna, trying (and failing) to play beautiful songs for my friends.

The next level of puzzles.

Take a break from your day by playing a puzzle or two! We’ve got SpellTower, Typeshift, crosswords, and more.

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