I had originally planned a very different column to run today, and it would have been part of Vague Patch Notes, but then Microsoft happened. It was a more serious column, and for a moment I considered writing a column about that, but I found that it just kept devolving into articulate but not terribly interesting rage. I don’t need to tell you that Microsoft is bad and has mismanaged its core business in a way that results in people losing their jobs, and I don’t need to explain to you that the people who are harmed by these decisions aren’t the people making them. Either you know all this or you are actively resistant to the realization.

No, what I want to talk about this week is something different because as we’re gearing up for TennoCon and as I thought about the sort of media that’s actually a palliative response to this kind of awfulness, yes, I thought about Warframe. It’s a game about saving the galaxy… except it’s not about that because you already start too late for the galaxy to be saved in any meaningful fashion, and there’s an almost terrifying hope and love that flows from that.

You might think that I’m just doing a bit because one of the reveals of 1999 was that the universe of Warframe was never really our universe. But that’s honestly not what I meant. In fact, the reveal that this was never the same as our timeline is actually an important point underscoring the positivity I just mentioned. Because as soon as the game starts up, from the moment you are granted control over your first frame, you are taught one thing: The Origin System is a mess.

The Tenno killed the Orokin, and that was good, but in the intervening time, things haven’t gotten better but worse. The Grineer are a giant, thrashing beast that exists just to make war against people who can barely fight back. The Corpus are an omnicorporation with no purpose, chasing credits as a means to an end. The Infestation rages, it isn’t being controlled, and the closest thing anyone has to a seal on the Infestation is barely held together by a bickering family.

But when you peel back the layers on all of that, you find out that… actually, it’s all much worse than any of that implies.

Sitting beneath everything is the Void, with the Man in the Wall sitting at the heart and very clearly manipulating events for some purpose we don’t know. And that the heart of what happened to our player character and informs so many indescribable hells that have been manufactured. The Hex are literally trapped in a time loop that they are aware of only enough to know that it exists and that we can reset it as many times as we want, and the Hex are our allies.

That’s kind of the recurring theme in Warframe. It’s all bad. And once you learn how bad it is, it gets worse. And far more importantly? You can’t fix it.

I mean, sure, you can do something. You’re a Tenno; you are personally more than a match for entire platoons of Grineer. But the thing is that the Grineer have, functionally, infinite platoons. You can stop this one and maybe the next dozen, but you can’t stop all of them. You cannot institutionally wreck the Grineer. The Tenno, as a faction, do not have the numbers or strength to really cause a full-scale revolution that would take out the most material threats to life in the Origin System… and that’s just the basic stuff, never mind the Sentients still roaming.

This is part of why 1999 specifically makes it clear how different the world was even then because it’s part of the point. The Origin System is very screwed up and in need of saving, but the thing is that even if you could somehow reverse time, you would not be faced with a familiar world that you, the player, recognize. Even in 1999, the problems were there. The Techrot had happened, and it would spread, and further problems would arise.

Welcome to Warframe. The world is fucked up, and it is well beyond the point when any of your actions are going to make it not fucked up. It’s all chaotic, everything is broken and messy, and you cannot turn it back into a version of the world you recognize. All of the damage has been done and cannot be undone. The end of the world happened, and then after it was done pulverizing things into dust, it came back around for seconds. You are not going to make this all right.

How can I call this uplifting? Because the game doesn’t end there. The game starts there. It tells you that the world is like this, and then it hands you a gun and asks, “So what are you going to do, Tenno?”

Video games like to tell you to save the world. Warframe does not. You cannot save the world. But you can save something right here. It’s why Duviri’s story ends with the Drifter deciding that saving a life is more important than escape. It’s why Deimos has you pulling a fractured, angry family back together at great cost. It’s why Onkko sits just behind Konzu and Saya, his ex-wife and his best friend, willing to let her think he’s dead and for the two of them to be together because he’d rather have her be happy than do what might make him happiest.

Because sometimes the world is like that. It breaks and you can’t fix it. Something changes beneath your feet, and now you have to find a path forward you never expected to deal with. It sucks, and the temptation is always there to lie down… but the game’s narrative goes the next step.

You can’t undo this. But you can manage it.

You can make the world a better place. You can have a tangible impact, even if it’s not a big enough impact to fix the world. You can hammer one corner of the galaxy into a better shape. Even if you can’t pull the Hex out of the loop, you can be a friend to the members trapped, and you can hope that you’ll find a way eventually. Roathe cannot make up for the things he did that he knows were wrong, but he can bring Loid up to reconnect with the family.

Most importantly, love can win. Love does win. Over and over, in thousands of little ways throughout the system, this game about bizarre space ninja antics is about love winning out over hate no matter how bleak it might seem. And that is the one thing, the only thing that the Man in the Wall can’t touch. You can be crushed by so much, but love – caring for other people – is something that cannot be taken from you unless you allow it to be.

That is the optimistic nihilism of this game. It is a game that says maybe everything will break and fall apart and hurt, yet you can still do something in that broken space. And sometimes, we all need to hear that message.

Pick a ‘Frame, any ‘Frame! The Warframe galaxy is in danger, Tenno, and Space Mom needs help to combat it. Are you in the right Warframe of Mind to join in? The MOP writers have enlisted, suiting up in their favorite ‘Frames to fight the good fight, blasting the Grineer and Infected into smithereens.