Warframe crossplay on Nintendo Switch? Developer says it's ‘exploring all the options’

Nintendo Switch has been having a great few months - especially for its free-to-play players. Nintendo announced during E3 2018 that Epic Games would be bringing Fortnite to the console and Digital Extremes announced recently that it would do the same for its hit third-person shooter, Warframe.

The difference between the games - well, outside of the obvious differences in plot and gameplay - is that the former is available for crossplay while the latter isn’t ... at least not yet.

“Since announcing Warframe coming to the Switch, we've received an incredible amount of positive reception from both our community and Nintendo players,” says Digital Extremes Studio Manager Sheldon Carter in an email to TechRadar. “We’re exploring all options for people to play on and with the Nintendo Switch.”

While a PR representative at Digital Extremes couldn’t tell us when, exactly, that crossplay functionality might happen, they did ensure us that it was currently under investigation and said it's something the company would like to do.

If it happens, Warframe would join the likes of Minecraft which recently announced crossplay for its Xbox One and Nintendo Switch players.

Decisions, decisions

But crossplay is just one of the problems a developer faces when launching a hit free-to-play game on a new platform. The other is allowing players to use one account to login to multiple consoles - a feature that the gaming community is dubbing cross-progression. Without it, players might face a difficult decision of which platform to play on.

We reached out for clarification on this point and it sounds like, unfortunately, the way things are now, weapons and progress won’t transfer in between platforms.

While Digital Extremes doesn't have more to say on cross-progression right now, it has plans to make the transition to the Switch easier for its core players: “Previously, when we’ve launched on other consoles, we’ve supported 1-time account migrations so that would be our starting goals for Switch as well,” Carter said.

There's still a possibility that this will change before the game releases at some point down the road, however, so not all hope is lost.