How Excalibur Umbra Shook The Warframe Community 

EDIT: Error at 10:31 when I mention the Wiki, I show on screen the Wiki ALTERNATIVE, since this region has 2 wiki pages, apologies! First and foremost I want to thank Dystopia for providing insights on the China build of Warframe, link to his channel here: www.youtube.com/@HeatInherit Second, apologies for the low quality clips in the China Build (ChangYou) footage, it was pretty difficult trying to find any clips of old Warframe China footage as most videos are either on the Tencent Version or global build, so there was only a handful of regular footage that I can show. Third, this ones obvious but in case I'm not clear somehow... this isn't a "chinaframe bad" or "china player sux" video, I'm merely showcasing what the ChangYou build of the game was like, this isn't a hate video against a group of players or race, respect each other and we all get along good. As always thanks for watching, and I hope you enjoy! www.patreon.com/NovaUmbral And Join the Discord: discord.gg/RUKf8PVn2r

I feel having entire umbra frames released would kinda render primes obsolete. Instead, perhaps they should release 'umbra reactors' that you can implant into a warframe to unlock its will, and have that also unlock a lore piece of some kind on who the warframe used to be.

That Chinese build's monetization of warframe is straight out of my nightmares. What a dark path we could have gone down.

Scarfs make every frame better imo Edit: I am happy too see how much love this has got hope yall are taking care of yourselves out there

I’m the guy who asked on the reveal stream if the scarf would actually be a part of his frame, not just concept art. They said they believed they made it work, that yes, he would have a scarf. As you can tell, I had my priorities straight. I’m still to this day 100% able to say the scarf single-handedly makes him the coolest frame in the game. Combine that with his amazing look and lore, he’s easily my favorite frame.

Umbra was and will always be the frame that kept me loving this game, his lore, the Sacrifice, it was amazing, it was Excalibur again but it was a way cooler one, I still enjoy playing with him.

I just finished the Sacrifice quest, and the lore tied to him is insane. A vengeful man turned into a vessel for war and battle, trapped in a body that cannot call for help, only fight to try and hide the pain. Rage, sorrow, and guilt all pent up with no possible way to vent. The mission has made me love this game, I can't wait to see more of the story, as I plan to finish the store with Umbra. Kinda to have him see it through, to see Ballas dead and the remaining orokins crushed

I main umbra because it makes going into operator form not so worthless, since your warframe is just a free specter while you get to use your operator form for more than just abilities or movement

A little bit of context: most players were disappointed they will never get Excalibur Prime, since it was CBT exclusive, and wanted something instead. That's why all the hype. After all original Warframes got Prime versions, only Excalibur left, and all these Umbra drama started.

This was a very good video, I never knew that Umbra had so much hype that people were screaming of joy from the first second where he was in frame

You know what's sad? Umbra isn't included in the new war story umbra the one sentient Warframe who absolutely despise ballas like operator is not helping us at all or not included more, considering his trauma and grudge caused by ballas, he doesn't even help in the new war like shadow stalker helped us, umbra should've been looking for operator after they disappear or we encounter him as drifter and he kills one of the archons trying to look for ballas to avenge the operator or even better like ordis he knows the drifter is the operator and is going around the map killing enemies in our way as the drifter, basically taking the role of shadow stalker

A lot of people don't seem to understand. Umbra is the People's Excalibur Prime. other than getting some cool lore with him it wasn't supposed to go any deeper than that.

Chinas MtX is so dystopian (gear vanishing without platinum ) makes EA , Bungie,Ubisoft practices sound charitable, and philanthropic.

Here’s what people have to understand. Umbra is not a title like “prime,” Umbra is a character.

"We accept this memory, and move beyond its reach"

I really like the concept of umbral, they should add more similar concept warframes, like maybe the stalker?

I feel like Umbral frames should exist for certain frames. Tie it to lore like we were told primes, at one point, were rumored to be. Regular frames were supposed to be the copy of the original that the Orokin created right? Umbra sets up a counter playstyle potential and more story routes for so many frames.

I kinda wish they also give us Mag and Volt Umbra to complete the trio.

Still the coolest frame. I still occasionally bust him out. I don't think they will ever have a story this cool again.

I'm a huge nerd for the story in this game, so I love how Umbra's lore pretty much changed everything. I'm looking forward to when they release more about the Ur Frames, even if we only ever *get* Excalibur. (Nyx, maybe, for old time's sake?) Thank you for going into the troubled history of the Chinese build. I can't imagine how frustrating it is for devs to work with sets of requirements that are so different from each other. It's hard work and I salute them for it.

Ik this might sound weird but Excal Umbra was the reason I started playing the game. I was like, damn that looks cool and downloaded the game and started working towards the quest ASAP

An awesome video! Sadly this is one of these frames where I wasn't there for the history, since I joined after the Sacrifice dropped, but these documentaries are insanely well done. Plus, the music is always on top. You would not get how surprised I was to hear an old Omega Strikers theme 👌

I think if they do more Umbras: It should be the launch roster that gets that treatment. And add Frost because he was the first Prime non-founders got access too. And thats it. Umbra Forma for eveeyone else.

thanks for the video Nova. And i gotta say it's been 6y since excal umbra launched but i still get the chills with the sacrifice reveal teaser

God I can remember it. The Sacrifice was literally all over the internet on release. People pretty much lost their minds. You can have your complaints about the game but god DAMN does DE know how to make a cinematic quest. Still fucking do too it’s amazing

I think Umbra's biggest impact for me personally was how much it inflated my platinum wallet on my xbox account. Was on vacation in LA with a buddy and ended up selling SOOOOOOO many mods. Ended up having enough plat to buy the prime versions of over half my arsenal. The umbral mods are nice too of course.

currently on natah quest onw for umbra!

Most of the China exclusive items are available in global version. Things that still exclusive are mainly decorations and Primed Charged Chamber (Charged Chamber but having 110% damage buff addictive with Primed Chamber)

Excalibur umbra is the only one who kept me going i first played warframe 2 years ago my best friend got me into this game because my mate guided me through this game like a mentor and after my mate passed away I made a promise to him that I will reach legendary mastery rank with my excalibur umbra I will keep that promise to promise to the end

You know wha’s funny, you can replay this quest AS UMBRA and literally make Umbra fight himself

This video was really good man, the commentary and editing is on par with popular commentators that i was surprised you weren't more popular, you should expand your documentaries onto other games and pieces of media because the quality of your content is very high.

He really needs to stay exactly where he is and no further "umbra exclusives" need to be brought over. All it would do is devalue the current existence of every prime we currently have. And the fact he is statically exactly the same as regular Excalibur Prime, the founders can keep their worse version since they all love lording it over everyone but we effectively got it anyway. And the way I feel about him finally being released was DE saying, "we know we're contractually obligated not to allow anyone else to have Excalibur Prime, but here is the exact same thing but better. So will you please leave us alone about it." So its a good consolation over the fact there are hardly any founders left to fight back against DE should they ever release the Skana or Lato again and thats why Umbra needs to stay right where he is. Even though the likelihood of those weapons being rereleased is next to zero, at least we have him.

i never knew about this huge drama, for me the only thing excalibur umbra did not deliver, was something aside primes, i thought we would finaly stop having new frames and starting having umbras instead, so every new frame would have three forms, almost an entire year on a frame, having a little tweaked skills, like we could have umbra ember having her old kit with world on fire etc.

Ohhh it's here YES. I finished the sacrifice quest about two weeks ago and it's so good, now im curious how people who've played the game longer than me reacted at the time

When I first got Umbra which was recently a few days ago considering I'm a new Warframe player despite starting off with mag Umbra became one of my personal favorite warframes

This was a very interesting video. It was especially fascinating learning about the china build for warframe. Its absolutely wild even imagining having to pay plat just to keep your weapons.

A small thing to note with design intentions . . . DE has known for years that the new player experience is on shaky ground. DE fostered an amazing community and that community has propped up the game for a very long time. Umbra was the start of the internal move toward meeting their goal of making the NEW PLAYERS experience better. The entire storyline is no longer gated behind mastery progression, which was the primary driver for new and casual players "get stronger and more of the game opens up." Now new players can hop right in and quickly gain access to a top shelf, one of the best warframes in the game that can carry them through ALL of the content if they so choose too. It was a sacrifice in many ways, one of them being the old way of warframe which kept all the goodies locked down.

Didn’t know about 90% of the things in this video. Great work man 👏

Umbra story is still one of my favorites of the Lore of Warframe. Also He looks the most like a Ninja due to the Scarf he wears. Everything about Excalibur says NINJA. But Umbra pushes that ideal to it's Max. Also it cool to see how much HYPE he had.

The moral of the story; that DE *STILL* haven't grasped yet, is that content exclusivity is both unfair and makes people unhappy. Whether one is too young, can't afford, don't know, or aren't allowed, there are many factors that people can't help. It's my opinion that people should not be punished for being poor, but evidently DE disagrees.

Honestly having mag and volt umbra is the only thing i want because it just felt rightto have the startes have their light and shadow versions

0:56 Bad music stops, video starts.

Ever after The Sacrifice quest, I always do the main quests of Warframe (Prologues, New War, Whispers etc) with Umbra, because it just feels right. He's not my "main" frame, but he's my "lore accurate" frame.

If i had to pay to keep my gun or itd dissappear id lose my mind

The fact that umbra in Latin means shadow really does fit the fact he was hiding in the shadows for so long (out of all of the Warframes in my arsenal umbra comes second only to beaten by harrow prime in terms of favourites)

Wow. Imagine making it so you *HAD* to pay platinum (that was 10x more expensive) or your favourite gun would just vanish. What a scam.

Feels good to be an Umbra main :) EDIT: If you don’t wanna use the typical Gloom build for Umbra, try Tharros Strike instead!

umbras lore along with his design is amazing and he is my dad. hes grown on me so much and he is my main frame at this point, i love other frames but i keep coming back to umbra time and time and again.

It all started when my friend told me about an rpg looter shooter game that is completly different from other rpg games. He explained the game to me about 1hour literally im not joking. But still succeed to make me interested in game. So... i downloaded it. The beginning was insane. Never saw something like that in rpg games. Mechanincs,guns animations... İt all was perfect. Then the tutorial ended. And i find myself wondering what should i do next? That was not a complain. That was "starting of an addiction" i was learning game from different channels and guides. And lerned pretty much everything about game. Thats the moment i realized i have been playing game for 240 hours in 2 weeks. Thats equal to 120 each week. I never played any game like this. Never. İ dont know why im still playing it and how i still enjoying it... I hate you my friend

DE didn't initially announce Excal Umbra Prime. They took a trip to China and pretended it was a vacation. Then the China build leaked and with that leak, Excalibur Umbra Prime leaked. That caused controversy because 1) DE was getting around their Excal Prime exclusivity pledge and 2) this new prime version of Excal was exclusive to China. It took DE a while to even acknowledge the truth, and at that point, they announced Warframe China and promised to release Excal Umbra to the global build. They then waited 3 years to start working on Excal Umbra, because that's how much they didn't want to release it for the global build. They never wanted their non-Chinese players to even know about the China build or its exclusives. The leaks forced them to acknowledge it. That's also why there have been no new Umbras despite DE saying they would release more. They never wanted to.

God bless u & these amazing edits big dawg 🔥👊🏾

"galactic armor" pffft... we haven't taken a step out of the milky way yet

I love Umbra. Looks so sick. I'm not too fond of the Umbra helmet but the classic helmet with the umbra look? Amazing. Such a cool frame. That jumpscare he does when you build it is so much fun too.

That intro felt like an anime opening

We absolutely neeeeeeed a railjack video

the only thing i wanted for warframe 10 year anniversary was a surprise 10 year anniversary warframe umbra... like anyone, even loki would had been cool. but we are not getting it. but hey, we got some glyphs, right

I love these videos. I've been playing warframe a few weeks after Christmas it the year it released on Xbox one. So I remember rumors and discourse and joining different clans. It was an accident I was there. Just like it was an accident that I found out me and my partners favorite game as children was a game thier family called "shooty game" but it was a PC game made by DE! So watching these videos feel weird. Like I'm being acknowledged. I was there ! I remember

For future videos i suggest talking about the abilites when the frame launched and talk about how they changed instead of doing a overwiev at the end of the vid

We need another Umbra Warframe, new Umbra weapons and most of important Umbra Mobs. I wish that charge attack melee builds could get +220% status chance mod with double for Charge attacks. That way some melee weapons could not be forced to be specific weapon type to have forced slash status.

Now we need Umbral Lato and Skana.

I think and actually hope umbrals stay very exclusive. Still I hope we see the other 2 starter frames added to that roster. (Also Loki, as it WAS a starter frame. Also also it could be a cool story beat)

As someone who ditches games for months at a time and comes back every few months or so, If I lived in china, my WF account would be wiped everytime I came back, and that terrifies me.

The thing I love most about this Warframe is that he is sentient he is my everyday

I like how you have lightning returns music playing in the beginning

What follows is a rant. It is long. If you don't want to read it, I don't care that you don't want to read it. You don't need to tell me that you did not read it. Move on. The extremely common misconception in warframe is that Umbra is a "series" of warframes and that Umbra is somehow special, and that Ballas made an entire audiobook of information to give to the sentients, but for some reason players believe that Ballas is only telling sentients about Umbra or an "umbra series" when that is absolutely never implied to be the case. That's absolute nonsense. In the quest where you first unlock operator, it's shown that the operator is unable to use Transference without the transference chair or direct contact. It's LITERALLY shown. The warframe deactivates as soon as the operator exits their pod. Then the operator has to crawl to the warframe and make direct contact to control it again. Then, you get to the orbiter, and you have to defeat the Stalker, only the Stalker stabs your warframe and separates it from the operator. Stalker then tries to strangle the operator, but since Stalker is himself a warframe (tum dum duuum oh look another sentient warframe and he's not "an umbra". duh.), contact with the operator actually soothes him and causes him to lose his will to kill. This is when the warframe that was stabbed, takes a moment to, on its own, without being Transference-controlled, break the sword it was stabbed with (War) in two, breaking the Sentient's link to Stalker. The operator is then placed inside the transference chair in order to be able to control warframes. In the next operator-related quest, the queens try to take over your body, but through the void nonsense of Conceptual Embodiment, the operator creates a version of Teshin inside their mind and has that Teshin help the operator unlock their forgotten abilities in order to escape the queens. This succeeds and now the operator is able to use Transference without the need for the chair and without the need for contact. Then, some side information. Titania was a warframe that was given to an archimedian to help that archimedian. This warframe was never implied to have been controlled by a tenno. Mesa also acts on its own in Patient Zero. It's not being controlled by a tenno, and warframes are immune to the Infestation, since they are infestation. Instead, the infestation messed with that Mesa's mind, like it tries to mess with the mind of the player in Infested Salvage, telling the player's warframe "we are your flesh", etc to try to convince it to join the infestation hivemind. That fails because the player warframes are always in contact with their frames when this happens. Chroma was not controlled by a tenno. It may have been under Sentient influence, or something else - but there it was, uncontrolled. Then we have the most important information as to how exactly the warframes are made, what they act like, and why the tenno are able to control them, in Rhino Prime's codex entry. It describes a warframe being created and tests run on it to allow the orokin to control them, but the warframe is beastly, full of rage, and uncontrollable. However, just before it bashes one of the scientists' brains in, it stops, and it's revealed that it had been pacified by one of the Tenno, held in an adjacent chamber. Then, in the Sacrifice quest where Umbra is introduced, we learn the actual process of creating WARFRAMES. NOT "umbra warframes". You take a subject, you create a strain of infestation that will suit your needs, and then you infest the subject with it. The process is painful, and has been used both on volunteers and on criminals, as both "reward" and punishment. In the quest, we see through the eyes of Umbra, how it's being twisted into a Warframe, dose by dose, and slowly losing control. We also know that Umbra specifically was fitted with a transference bolt that is different from most of the rest. This would indicate that Ballas' betrayal happened some time before the warframes were paired with the tenno, and that transference bolt was created for Ballas to be able to control Umbra's actions to an extent - such as when Umbra was fully transformed and lashed out in anger, but not toward Ballas, which is what it wanted, but toward his own son, at Ballas' command. We also know from later in the quest that Umbra was unable to strike against Ballas because of it. And from just before that, we see in action the pacification of a warframe, as described in the Rhino Prime codex entry, and as narrated by Ballas. The warframe is full of anger, hate, torment, because of how it was created. What the tenno do is take away their pain, literally. As for their memories - it seems each Tenno can have a different approach. Some tenno help the warframe forget who it was, others help it simply move on, move forward but not forget, and others still, tell it to use those memories. In either case, the warframe is then pacified - its will is not overridden by default, as we see with both Umbra and Stalker. It has to relinquish control in order for the Operator to be able to control it. Most warframes we build are willing to follow us, either because they are too old to remember who they once were (in the case of the first starter frame), or because the volunteers we use to create the warframes with the helminth are just that - volunteers. Umbra was different because it was not grown out of a volunteer, but synthesized by an overcharged Ordis from the remains that we found on Earth, and built to the exact specifications of what was scanned - neural pathways included, since we also scan half of Umbra's head that survived. So we had to hunt it down and pacify it, bit by bit - one contact was not enough. Just like one contact with Stalker was not enough to subdue it - only to calm it, make it unwilling to kill the Tenno - which is also what happens to Umbra the first time you encounter it - it pushes the Operator out of itself, then examines the operator and wants to kill it - but the operator temporarily enters its mind, and it's pacified by this, opting to escape instead. It's all neatly wrapped in a bow, but people want to make it convoluted and not make any sense. Oh sure ballas sent information to the sentients but actually it wasn't about the warframe project, no, it was about umbra project, of which there was only ever one, and it was under Ballas' control so it posed no threat to the sentients. Jesus Christ, the mental gymnastics. The concept also works exactly the same way with any other thing the Operator transfers into - Necramechs also seem to be partially based on a person at the center (the central cocoon with the skull head is present in both of the variants of necramech, making it seem like it's not a design choice, but a requirement, and more than likely a coffin for a person whose mind was used to control the necramech. "Necra" already implies something to do with death, and they are stated to be the spiritual predecessors of warframes, who were also made out of living subjects. Lesser willed creatures like orowyrms and maw worms (don't remember their actual name) are easier to control, but there is only a limited time you can control them before they kick you out of their bodies as well. This is why they have a timer. It baffles me how DE was able to make a coherent story out of all these outlandish elements, and yet most people just fail to understand the most basic aspects of it. Sure I don't expect everyone to understand why there is a difference between controlling an orowyrm and controlling a warframe, but warframe pacification? That's described in a non-missable quest, in detail. It's even narrated, and it's all but literally stated by ballas "Hey sentients, I am about to tell you about the warframe project, how they are made, and how we are controlling them".

As much as people would want more Umbras, I believe it’s better to keep it to only one because it would devalue the first one and his story. I would rather warframes feel special in everything they can rather than mesh them together with very little differences. It’s why I don’t agree with taking abilities from other frames and putting them on others since what would get me interested in other frames as a player was seeing an ability I wasn’t familiar with and be like “woah, what are they using?”

Use Umbra, equip long range automatic primary (Supra Vandal, or Telos Boltor), put in gear few Wisp Specters, Shield Osprey Specter, Corrupted Bombard Specter, Ancient Healer Specter and Squad Energy/Health/Ammo Restore Large and go solo on the highest level Survival Dark Sector, choose a long hall with only one entrence, pres 5 and you read a book or watch a movie for few hours. You'll leave the place with loot for a month nonstop crafting. Just collect every 3-4 min life support modules activating Void Sling, to keep life support to 100%. You welcome.

Excalibur Umbra is my favorite warframe. Waiting for Excalibur heirloom skin

Just unlocked umbra a few days ago, pretty lit

i was the type that prefer to just get toe to toe with enemies instead of attacking from afar and this has always been my play style on every combat related game. So i really like using excalibur and then changed to gara since shes a bit tanky but can also nuke the whole field while still having the aspect of face to face combat. Aside from she being one of the earliest frames we can get. But after i got myself dagath and xoris, i just change my whole preference on combat in games altogether. Mid range combat just might be my best play style. And not too long after, i got myself khora prime. And about a day ago, i just finished the sacrifice quest and honestly, excal umbra made me realized why i really love close combat. Its the satisfaction. Despite what they throw at you, you'll just slowly but surely approach them and eventually defeat them. And umbra did just that, both to his guilt and his literal play style. I may still prefer mid range combat but umbra will forever hold a special place in my heart

I remember umbra as one of my go-to frame to cheese sortie bosses since 4 can go through walls lol

Spoilers, explanation for Excalibur Umbra being the only Umbra Warframe. The reason Umbra is its own frame is due to the fact that 'Umbra' is the person who became the Warframe you earn in the Sacrifice. That's the reason as to why there are no more Umbra frames. Umbra was a Dax soldier who essentially got screwed by Ballas, an Orokin.

I finished the new war quest and damn... all of it is just crazy and i love it.

I love Umbra because of his unique passive ability that lets me move around and do stuff while the player is controlling their Tenno.

When I started playing I browsed the wiki a lot and found Umbra, I then proceeded to "speed run" my way to the sacrifice and got him close to Christmas of that year, (for a rough context of when this was, 2021)

Amazing video pal keep it up

The Chinese build of Warframe is a good look at how the main game likely would have been in the hands of any other publisher (Activision, EA, Ubisoft, etc.) and would probably be on par with Destiny with how aggressive the monetization is there. This is just one more reason we should be thankful for how DE have chosen to run the game. They have their faults and things to improve of course but this is a look at how much worse we could have had it.

Whoever was banshee wailing during the convention footage, holy fuck

It was an interesting quest, glad to have done it. Prefer regular Excaliber in actual play though if I'm not using my Loki Prime.

American OG here.. I remember when we heard rumors of China's special Excalibur skin and it made me want their version! Oh how foolish I was...

how Excalibur umbra umbra'd the community

6:53 this would’ve been the perfect place to put a vpn sponsorship.

At the 7:37 mark, I love the use of a Final Fantasy 13 track.

Let’s be honest umbra is just a replacement for excal prime and I wouldn’t have it any other way

I wish I had the money to be a founder back when I could have. Really want to put Excal. Prime's helment on Umbra's body

Your editing must be at least lr 1 with an intro like that 🥰

i dont want more umbra frames,i just want the scarf cosmetic

not to mention. umbra was also another thing that allowed growing power stacking and all the other timed mods. just like it was for arkwing going in a out of it. tho idk how many ppl knew that cuz it wasnt talked about. only with my friends like Summit and others who looked for things like that.

It shook the community by not being stalker as it was originally planned. They barely retconned umbra into existence after players found out he was available in the chinese build for the chinese founders and crying about him because technically he's not excal prime so we can get him legally. Any new player who plays the quests in order feels the retcon hard. Everything leading up to the sacrifice builds up stalker's story but then he vanishes

I remember when people were giving out platinum for free. The were really insistent on handing it out. "Nothing in this world comes without a cost." Just glad I turned them down. Note: Khora is a bit broken in the Index, as her Kavat is still useable in spite of the pet ban. As her Kavat is a power, and not a pet.

Reworked Hydroid and Excal are a match made in heaven

Word becomes fact. What I expected from the beginning finally happened. Domo arigato.

Let me give you guys a tip, use kullervo subsume skill and walla, all melee got red crits haha. Excal mains unite !!

i fucking love ff13 lightning returns music, the intro gave me nostalgia.

I know ive been watching a few Warframes videos and looking up how to farm certain things cause i play this game once every few seasons and dont know where everything is but i just unlocked this like an hour ago. This is the second time this has happened only its less weird now cause i actually am engaged with the game. The other time it was Risk of Rain 2

"Excalibur Umbra is the Umbra version of Excalibur" Roll Credits

this video felt like a 15 min rant against China

I stupidly read the title as how Umbra choked the community Which he actually did

I mean, I guess you could say that... But it feels like overthinking about it. I feel like they wanted/needed to have a Prime version for Excal, that is still one of the most popular and iconic Warframes for Warframe. BUt the Prime version of Excal was given only to founder members and will never be released again. So DE had to make up a new """"prime""""" version for Excal, and they came up with this Umbra thing. That really makes no sense in lore and is not going to be a trend for any other Warframe.

If they do another Umbra frame, I hope it to be Xaku, as I feel it'd be the most logical choice. Xaku is a frame that, if I am remembering correctly, is a frame that is made up of three other frames that were mostly destroyed on Deimos, so a frame that technically shouldn't exist originally, and shouldn't have a prime version. Because of this, mayhaps a fraction of Xaku could still have a form of sentience due the trauma of what happened and we can see what Warframes made Xaku in the eyes of one of the frames, reliving that memory as Excal Umbra was reliving his own.