Warframe Interview: Drew Pennycook and Corey Van Den Hoogenband discuss Warframe Mobile and Digital Extreme’s charity partnerships

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a closed beta scheduled for later this year. I had the opportunity to speak with Digital Extreme’s Mobile Warframe Associate Producer, Drew Pennycock, and Associate Community Manager, Corey Van Den Hoogenband, regarding the upcoming mobile adaptation.

Thanks, everyone, for joining. Let’s start with introducing yourselves.

Drew: I’m Drew. I’m the mobile producer for Warframe at Digital Extremes.

Hello! I’m Corey, an associate community manager at Digital Extremes. Among my duties are overseeing projects such as TennoGen and charitable endeavors, and leading the community aspect on mobile platforms.

How has working with Nitro Games on the development of the mobile version been?

As a Digital Extremes fan, I must say that diving into the world of mobile gaming has been quite an enlightening journey for me, seeing as we’ve never ventured into this realm before. It’s all fresh and exciting territory!

When we integrated them into our team, it was primarily to gain insights about the mobile industry and utilize their proficiency. Consequently, this entire journey over the last few years has essentially served as a fast-track course in mobile gaming, teaching us the dos and don’ts, as well as numerous strategies for enhancement.

Corey: Essentially, our idea for Warframe on mobile was to replicate the PC/console version directly onto smartphones. With Nitro’s input, they’ve offered numerous ideas and insights about making the game successful on mobile devices. It’s fascinating learning from them.


What has been the biggest hurdle in getting something as action-packed as Warframe onto mobile?

Drew: Random Access Memory (RAM). Translating from specialized gaming platforms to a more general-purpose system can be quite challenging due to differences in design.

Overcoming the issue of running Warframe smoothly on older phones with limited memory resources has proven quite difficult. In terms of maintaining the gameplay experience, our focus has been on preserving the essence of Warframe. The game offers a sophisticated movement system and gunplay that we’ve aimed to retain, all while making it compatible with touch controls.

In terms of cross-play, how do you run a game like Warframe on both mobile and computers that have 30 GB of RAM at the same time?

As a gamer, I want to ensure that your gaming experience is smooth and enjoyable. To achieve this, we implement measures on our backend to minimize any potential issues you might encounter. Ideally, we prefer games not to be hosted by an iPhone user, as we often find the performance can be suboptimal compared to a PC with 32 GB RAM. Therefore, whenever possible, we aim to have the high-performance PC gamer host the game instead.

As a gamer, I prefer an experience where artificial intelligence limitations are skillfully managed, ensuring top-notch gameplay that feels just as immersive as playing on my PC. The game should still run smoothly even on my mobile device, offering an enjoyable gaming experience wherever I go.

Are there any phone-specific features that you are developing right now, or are we at a point where it’s like-for-like between all versions?

Corey: A handful of mobile-only systems, such as Aim Assist, have been released and are currently available. We’ve also shared our intentions to release additional features following TennoCon, including enhancements to the HUD navigation.

Earlier, Drew mentioned a key objective and aspiration: creating an exceptional mobile experience for movement and parkour, ensuring it’s just as smooth on touch screens as it is with controllers or keyboards.

Initially, we believed our interaction would be a straightforward one-on-one encounter. However, as we progressed, it became evident that we needed to tailor it explicitly for touch controls, catering to mobile gamers. This included features like Aim Assist and ensuring the User Interface (UI) scaling appeared just as good on a smartphone as it does on a large screen monitor.

In simpler terms, we’re working on making the game controls more intuitive. Instead of having separate buttons for jumping, double jumping, and rolling, we plan to combine these actions into one. So if you press the jump button twice quickly, it will count as a double jump, and if you roll immediately after landing from a jump, it will be considered a roll. This feature is currently under development.

Warframe Mobile has been iOS-exclusive for a while. Why start with Apple and not Android?

Drew: In terms of devices, Apple has fewer options compared to Android. Since there are countless varieties of Android devices, our task becomes more complex. The main reason for this preference is simplicity. As a relatively small production studio, our mobile team is quite small in comparison.


The primary benefit of mobile gaming is being about to quickly dive in whenever you have a minute. Has this influenced the development of the game itself in any way?

Drew: These days, we’re finding ourselves contemplating questions about new features more internally. Earlier, we used to create new features for the iOS version after development. However, now we’re adopting a broader strategy that involves considering whether we might need to reorganize some of these levels.

Perhaps we could shorten them slightly and optimize them for mobile devices, particularly at the start of the game. This is a discussion going on within our team about how to adapt for the mobile gaming environment.

Corey: During our initial iOS closed beta testing, there were early defense missions that typically consisted of ten waves. Initially, we felt this might be challenging on mobile devices, considering these missions could last up to 20 minutes. However, we’ve recently adjusted older missions like that by reducing the number of waves in the defense phase.

Obviously, Warframe has a massive community. How have you found adding new mobile players to that?

As a gamer, I see two distinct groups when it comes to mobile gamers:

1. Newbies, fresh off the App Store, diving into the gaming world for the first time with us.
2. Seasoned Warframe veterans, who’ve been battling on PC or console for years, now joining our mobile ranks thanks to cross-platform play.

Interacting with these two distinct groups calls for different approaches. Our current cross-save users are well-versed in navigating to our Discord channel, mobile forums, or even submitting bug reports and crash logs there. This has been incredibly beneficial because they actively engage in providing us with such information.

The issue seems to be with the novice gamers; they are unsure about where to voice their feedback effectively. Most of the time, we receive feedback through App Store reviews, which is our primary means of communication with new players. However, on the App Store, we can only respond once, so the dialogue tends to be brief. I encourage you to engage with us on our forums or discuss any mobile bugs in Warframe, and I hope they decide to participate there as well.

It’s great how Warframe encourages camaraderie in a friendly manner. Unlike many games, it primarily offers cooperative play (PvE) instead of competitive play (PvP), which often results in players working together in squads, communicating through chat, and interacting via in-game regional chats.

Our community spaces have proven to be a bit more difficult to adapt to than some other platforms, but it’s clear that users are successfully making the switch.


Let’s talk about Charity for a bit. DE have been very active in helping charities, especially with TennoCon. How do you decide who will be the recipients each year?

At the beginning of the year, we examine situations in countries like Canada and London, and we initially focus on identifying common themes. For example, last year (2021) was my first time getting involved with TennoCon, and we noticed that homelessness had significantly increased following the first year of the pandemic. We decided to take action and find ways to help. Afterward, we narrowed our focus and collaborated with a charity project called Unity. This year, we’re working with Make-A-Wish Canada and the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA). In essence, we choose a theme, such as homelessness or mental health, and then select a suitable charity to partner with.

With Make-A-Wish Foundation, it adds an exceptional twist to our narrative. They joined TennoCon last year, alongside James Conlin whose wish was to become a voice actor. Interestingly enough, they entered the scene after we had already chosen our two charities for that year. While Make-A-Wish is an essential part of TennoCon, they weren’t the charity chosen for that particular year. However, their connection with Ollie and James has made a lasting impression on us. That’s why we have selected them as one of our charities this year.

The Make-A-Wish is perhaps the most visible impact DE has had charitably. How did it feel to be able to grant that?

Corey: It’s fantastic! I recall returning from a trip in March 2024 when Rebecca Ford and Megan contacted me. They said, “Hi, a representative from Make-A-Wish reached out to us. There’s this wonderful child who dreams of becoming a voice actor.” After that, we created this character together.

To get a feel for James and the character he desired, we reached out to him. Based on our conversation, we designed an edgy trickster skater persona for the 1999 arcade game. Since then, we’ve kept in contact with him, and he’s set to appear at TennoCon. If he’s interested, we have additional autograph prints ready for him to sign. This experience with James is, without a doubt, one of the most memorable moments in my career, if not the absolute best.

Prior to my role in production, I worked within the community, and I was fortunate enough to be part of our initial Make-A-Wish grant, which took place with Eli around 2018. This ties back to 2018. So, both Corey and I have had the good fortune, and it’s been a rewarding experience.

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2025-07-22 20:19