Since 2022, Megan Everett has been the “Community Director” of Warframe. But what does that actually mean? In the interview, we spoke with her about the profession, her personal career path, and the gaming industry. On the occasion of this year’s TennoCon, the community event of Warframe, we also took the opportunity to learn more about upcoming innovations.
Anyone who has ever seen a DevStream of Warframe or has generally looked around on the game’s social media channels will likely recognize Megan’s face. There, she often takes on the moderation, discusses the game’s development, and engages with the community.
She has been working for Digital Extremes, the Canadian development studio behind Warframe, since 2013. In 2022, she was appointed Community Director, leading the entire community team. This positions her as the successor to Rebecca Ford, who is now the Creative Director for Warframe.
The entire interview with Megan is available either as a video (in English) or as a transcript (in German or English):
Note: For better readability, the text has been slightly revised and shortened.
What does a Community Director actually do?
MeinMMO: Hi Megan, and thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate you taking the time for this interview.
Before we jump into some Warframe content, I would love to talk more about you and your work for Digital Extremes. Can you give us a brief overview, what your job as a community director is, and what your day-to-day business looks like?
Megan Everett: Yeah, absolutely. Well, my name is Megan Everett, I’m the community director of Warframe. I’ve been here since 2013, so I’ve seen Warframe really grow and take off. I’ve been through, you know, the ups and the downs throughout the 13 years we’ve been doing this.
I started as a junior community [manager]. Rebecca took me under her wing and taught me everything I know. And when it was – I think it was 2021 when we did the changing of the guard, as we call it – Rebb became creative director and I became community director.
That really obviously shifted a lot of my responsibilities. And now I’m responsible for a team of 20, 21 individuals who have a lot of impact on this game and various roles. We have our creator team, we have our QA, we have localization and we have live ops, we have charity, we have so many amazing people on the community team. My role is obviously to make sure that they have everything they need.
But at the same time, being here for 13 years, in my honor I am able to be a face of this game in a way where the community know that I am hopefully a person that they trust to give their feedback to. And I get to do the live streams and meet our players all over the world, which is one of my greatest joys.
And obviously with TennoCon coming up, they’re coming to us, which is a nice one day – or I guess it’s two days a year now – event. But one of the most special moments of my entire career is having thousands of – specifically Warframe and Soulframe – players come and want to see us. It really is a highlight of my career.
And yeah, the day to day really depends on what’s going on. You know, if we have updates going on, we’re always either in the live ops world where we’re making sure that the current public build is taken care of and everything has what they need and fixes are going out.
Or it’s also looking ahead to updates we know are coming out and developing those behind the scenes and making sure that the quality of life is in there. Is this what the players want?
And it’s a mix of that. Also talking to the players, managing the team and talking to the devs. So it’s a very hard to describe role because there’s so many hats that we like to wear. But yeah, I can’t see myself anywhere else, on any other game and I’m happy to be where I am with the community that we have built.
MeinMMO: Oh, that’s really nice.
It’s not always easy to take on a great legacy
MeinMMO: So, like you already said, as a community director, you have stepped into the footsteps of no other than the “Space-Mom” herself, Rebecca Ford, who is now the Creative Direcor of Warframe. How was that for you, to step into such a great legacy?
Megan Everett: Oh my God. I remember the time – because this was still like just petering off of Covid times 2021, at the beginning of 2021 in January, February – when we started to have the conversations of the switching of the old guard, and the old guard wanting to do Soulframe.
I remember Rebb kind of broke the news to me over a Google Meet call, and she let me know what was going on. She said to me like “Megan, we need a community director (obviously, with her going to creative director). And it’s you. Would love if you wanted to take that on.”
And I … I will do whatever Rebb asks of me.
Essentially, I was like “If you believe in me, then I believe in myself. Right?” Like she has quite literally taught me everything I know.
So for her to have that much trust in me to then completely take over – even just the aspect of managing people – was something that was kind of not my specialty at that time. I was community manager. But for us, we kind of have a difference between managing people and then managing the game.
Because that’s what a lot of the community team does, just manage the game, manage the players and manage that world. Whereas there’s also the responsibility of managing people and making sure that they’re taken care of.
And that was I think the biggest learning curve for me: being responsible for what is a large number of people and making sure that they have everything they need, and the ups and the downs and all of that.
So that was definitely a big hurdle. And I think as well, like Rebb has just, you know, helped build this game. She was the one and only person on the community team. She started the forums. She started the customer support. Like, she was the one.
And then for her to obviously trust me with the responsibility to take on that community team, it was very daunting. But it was it was a no brainer. In my head I was like “Yes, I’ll do it. I’ll go through the challenges of it.”
And to this day, I think the fact that our relationship is so close – having a creative director and the community director be as close as we are – is a very good thing. And her coming from community, understanding the feedback of the community team and the feedback of the players, being able to almost foresee what players are going to react to as we’re making these updates, as she’s doing the creative director role.
I’m so just honored to have this role and her trust me in that. And I’m so happy with where Warframe has gone. You know, as we’ve made that change and the things that we’ve produced, the updates we’ve done, the things we’ve done together as a team.
It’s been a very scary but interesting ride and it hasn’t all been perfect, but we definitely have gotten a good rhythm and a good flow of how we want to operate in these roles. And I feel like it’s…, I feel like it’s paying off.
MeinMMO: Yes, absolutely!
From Supermarket to the Sacred Halls of Warframe
MeinMMO: Can you tell us a bit more about how you basically ended up here? Was it always your dream to work in the video game industry? Did you find it hard to get into the industry, especially as a woman, who are still – at least from my perspective – quite underrepresented in higher positions. How was this journey for you?
Megan Everett: Yeah. I mean, I grew up a gamer. My first gaming experience was – I’m gonna date myself when I say this – but my first console was an N64 playing Ocarina of Time and Hybrid Heaven and 007. And I had a Game Boy playing Pokémon. I was very Nintendo coded when I was growing up. Then I got into the Xbox and played Halo religiously. So I was always this little gamer girl nerd. Got bullied in school. You know, like that was my vibe.
I honestly never even knew that video games could be a job. It was always…, it had that connotation of “You’re playing in your basement, you’re never going to make a career out of this”. Like it’s just a hobby. Don’t waste your time. So I kind of had that mentality in my head. It was just a hobby. Just after school fun.
And especially in London, Ontario, we’re not the biggest of places.We’re not the most happening of places. People would rather go to Toronto, go to Montreal. That’s where things are going on. So even the thought of a video game studio existing in London, I didn’t think was a thing at all.
I was a manager at a grocery store, not really knowing what I was doing with my life. I went to college, got a marketing degree and didn’t really know what to do with that. Then I met Rebecca through mutual friends and didn’t even know what her job was. I had no idea of her background or anything.
Just through, you know, hanging out, she realized that I was a nerd, because I would talk about video games. I have Zelda tattoos. She was like “Oh, hold on a second. You might be like me”. She approached me and said “I work for a video game studio, and the video game that we’re working on is taking off and I really need some help in community. Would you be willing to interview for this?”
And I was like: “Oh my God, that exists here in London? Like, I had no idea.”
I think my skills at the time, I would say were very like… I participated in the Zelda sub forums in an anonymous degree. I didn’t have any anything, you know, background wise to really support being in the role that I am at the time.
And she was just like “Nope, you’re it”. Like “Come, come join me. We’re going to get along great. And I’ll teach you everything I know”. Because she was also learning along the way. So it was just kind of a very organic introduction into this industry, which I think in 2026 probably wouldn’t happen.
I think 2026 is very, you know, you already need the skills or anything like that. I just happen to get very lucky and befriended Rebecca and get into the industry. Then she taught me everything I know from forums, to even social media to actual in game. Not that I know how to code, but just understanding what all of the back end means and everything like that. She taught me. So I would say it was very…, I was underqualified for this job.
MeinMMMO: But you learned along the way. I mean, I worked out, so why not?
Megan Everett: Yeah, I learned along the way. And I think, like I said, Rebb taught me everything. I definitely feel like, when I got to the 2021 era – where I was asked to be community director – I definitely felt confident in my skills of what I had learned. And obviously I watch Rebb do what she’s got to do and try to emulate that to my best.
I think one of the biggest things that I had to understand when I became community director was Rebb being – for me, I’m biased – but she’s like the perfect example of what a community director could be. I had to understand that as much as I want to just be a carbon copy of Rebb, I can’t. I’m my own person and I’m my own management styles and stuff like that.
So I did have to come to realizations like: I need to do this on my own terms as well. While obviously taking everything that I’ve ever learned from her and applying it. But yeah, it was a underqualified lucky position that I got in. Then I just really worked hard and took everything that Rebb was saying and teaching me to heart.
And really, I’m very passionate about this game. Like I wouldn’t still be here within this role if I didn’t love this game as much as I do and the people that work on it. So yeah, I mean, I owe everything to Rebb. And she would hate that I’m saying that, but it is truly true.
MeinMMO: Oh, that’s so cute!
An interview with Rebecca about her path to Creative Director can be found here:
An Industry in Constant Change
MeinMMO: Warframe is going on for over a decade now. I think the Community work is probably one of the biggest reasons, why this even worked out.
How do you feel the aspect of Communiy Management changed over the years? Do you also see changes in Gaming and Gaming culture in general?
Megan Everett: Yeah. I like to think back on when I first started and when our team was 2 or 3 people. Really all we had to communicate to people was, you know, Twitter and Facebook at the time. And we had our own in game chat and our forums. That was it.
That was where we spent our time reading threads, responding to threads. We had support tickets, but that was really it. Then, as we’re going through 2013, we started with Twitch. That’s when Twitch like just started. We were one of the first video game developers doing any type of live stream on Twitch, and we kicked that off. That became also an avenue to talk to players.
So I think what’s really interesting to me is – fast forward to now or the most recent years – there’s so many ways to communicate with players. You have the social medias, you have the discords, you have the in-game chats. There’s so many ways that we can communicate with our players on our live streams and all these other opportunities.
It became almost a little crazy and hectic to try and manage it all, because you want to make sure you’re covering all your bases and you’re not ignoring one platform, Reddit and stuff like that. Even though you don’t own the Reddit, you want to make sure that it’s well managed and well taken care of. So it’s definitely a space where there’s a lot of noise and we as community team – you know, experts, I would love to say – need to understand how to manage that and figure out how to speak on those different channels.
13 Years of Success – How Does That Work?
Megan Everett: I think in terms of where Warframe is at, and the community that we’ve built, I’m very proud of that. Because I think our community, they will let us know when we misstep, which I’m very grateful for. We have our ups and we have our downs, and our community is honestly just along for that ride, which I’m very thankful for.
But it’s a kudos to the early days of approaching how we wanted to do community and being very truthful and honest about that.
We kind of say the word “transparent” to death here. I try to think of a different word when I try to use transparency. But we always said from the get go: Warframe was going to be a game that players could help us build. Build together, as they’re telling us feedback and things that they do or don’t like. We’re going to bring it – as community people – straight to the devs. We’re fighting for community and we’re trying to get points across.
And I think because we’ve been doing that for over a decade, 13 years now, our developer team as a whole understands how valuable the community input is, even if it’s not what you want to hear.
They know that the community feedback is one of the most important parts of any update that we do, or any change that we make. That has been, I think, a lot of our shining star – or guiding star – in terms of how we do our updates and how we talk about our updates and how we present ourselves on these live streams.
We really do not take ourselves seriously at all. We go on these dev streams or these Tenno lives and we’re goofing, we’re laughing, we’re cracking jokes. I think what we’ve built over the years is just really made or not made. Sorry. But it shows our community that we’re just human beings and we’re just making a game that we love.
And we’re making a game with our players, that have been around for 13 years. Who are founders still. I was just at Anime Expo and I met like six founders and I was like “Oh my God, you’re still here. That’s crazy. You’re the reason this game is alive”.
And I think we owe it to the community to just continue that. What I hope is a legacy at this point. Of just Warframe updates and taking the story in weird directions. And again, making the game that our community wants – that we want – and just having fun with it and being honest when we do misstep a little bit.
A Future with AI – Grim?
MeinMMO: Do you have any expectations or guesses how the future might look like?
Especially in a time, where AI is pretty much everywhere and could do a lot of things, like creating Posts or something like this. What do you think makes the “human work” and interactions so valuable, especially in the Warframe-Community?
Megan Everett: Yeah, that’s a great question. And I think, obviously, it’s scary out there. Like you can’t deny it. You boot up any social media app and the first thing you see is something happening with our industry. It’s honestly devastating and very sad.
I feel very – this is biased – but I feel very lucky to be where we are with Warframe. You know, we’ve had some of the best years we’ve ever had. And I think that’s really impressive to say for a 13 year old game. Obviously I hope that that continues.
People will look at the steam charts and analyze that to death and do what you gotta do. But we see the stats internally and from there, we’re able to figure out [everything].
We know some of the pain points with “Jade Shadows: Constellations” that just came out. It’s like: Okay, we tried the Railjack thing and maybe that wasn’t the best move. So let’s do something else and try to pick up where we might have dropped some pieces.
We truly believe in humans making games, not, you know, AI making games. And we were very passionate about that because everything we’ve done.
Like we do our demos live. Every single TennoCon demo – the Tenno live – has been either Rebecca or myself with an Xbox 360 controller doing a 25 to 30 minute demo. Absolutely live with hitches and things that aren’t perfect.
That’s the way we want to do it. And that’s the way we’re going to always do it because that’s what we believe in. We’re very…, I like to think we’re a home brewed Canadian company that just wants to be authentic and honest and not cater to the easy route or what people think is going to be the next big thing. We’re in our London, Ontario bubble. And we don’t really stray from that. I think that has – to my biased – really helped us along the way, not get too caught up in in the noise that’s going on.
MeinMMO: Yeah, I definitely agree on this.
The Biggest Update in the History of Warframe
MeinMMO: So, for the upcoming TennoCon, I know you guys have some great announcements ready. I think one of the biggest reveals will probably be Warframe finally going to the Tau System. Please tell us everything about this highly anticipated update. What can players expect?
Megan Everett: Oh, this is probably our biggest update we’ve ever done. I think for someone who understands Warframe or has played a good amount of Warframe, they know what Tau is or just that Tau exists and that we’ve never been there before and we don’t know what it looks like.
There’s all this story around what happened in Tau and the fact that it’s 2026, 13 years later, we’re finally going to Tau. Not only are we going to Tau, but it’s our new solar system. We have our current solar system. We got earth, we got mercury etc. and we’ve lived in that solar system for 13 years. Now we’re creating an entirely new solar system.
What TennoCon shows and Tenno live demo shows is essentially one region of the Tau solar system called Fornax, which is kind of like the sentient ringed city. It’s giving mafia, it’s giving drug addiction and things like that.
It’s not a happy place, which is unfortunate. But we do intend so, obviously. You’ll see that at Tenno live and experience that kind of region of the Tau solar system.
The complete Tenno Live demo can be found on the Warframe YouTube channel:
Later on in the year, we’ll show you a second region within the Tau solar system. And it really is huge.
I think that moment during Tenno live, when you’re flying through and you see Tau finally open up: I have my hopes and dreams as to how people react to that. I’m going to be sad if it doesn’t pan out the way I want it to, but I really do feel like the fact that we’re finally going to Tau is going to be huge for our players.
I hope they like the route we’ve taken with it. I think – I’m almost certain – that no one expects it to be a happy place. So I feel like we’re not going to disappoint anyone thinking it’s going to be rainbows. It is in fact the opposite. But we’re finally going and together we’re going to experience what that is.
Obviously Tenno live is only a small part of what the Tau world is going to look like. I just can’t wait to see how [players] feel about that, how they feel about Brysko, our first inner monologue Warframe. Albrecht Entrati is back, the Vessel is back. So there’s so many good, amazing, exciting pieces about Tenno live that I feel like as a Warframe fan and enjoyer are really going to excite people.
I think that we’ll put some puzzle pieces into the very large Warframe puzzle that we built, and also probably take some away because we always like to have more questions than answers. But it’ll definitely get people talking a little bit about the relation between Old Peace and what we learned there, and what we’re now experiencing in Tau.
MeinMMO: There will also be a new Warframe, which is going to be the first female ice themed Frame in the game. I think this sounds very cool. Can you tell us a little bit more about her?
Megan Everett: Yeah, we’re keeping her a little bit hush, other than she is our first female ice Frame. We get a lot of understandable feedback from players. When we put out Uriel last year, everyone said that he’s the male Ember, right.He’s the fire guy. And then you have Ember as the fire girl.
We get asked all the time like: I want a male Zephyr, I want a female Knightess. That one would be Saryn. But anyways, you get that commentary of like: “I love this theme of a Warframe. Give me the other gender and different vibe”.
And Frost has been the only ice guy ever in Warframe. No other Warframe really be doing anything icy. So the fact that we’re now doing a female ice frame is very exciting.
I think the only other thing I can say about her is that when we were thinking of this next Warframe, we really took inspiration from a certain story in the cultural world. It made a lot of sense to then do a female ice Frame. It was kind of like “right time, right place”. And it just is working out to be the Iceblade of Narin.
You’ll see all everything about her in the September dev stream from South Korea, which is very exciting. And yeah, she’s very exciting. I’m excited for people to see her.
MeinMMO: Including the things we talked about, do you have a personal highlight from the announcements at TennoCon, that you are really excited about?
Megan Everett: Ooh. I mean, I really think it’s – like I said – that fly into Tau. I’ve seen that sequence when it was like bare bones and didn’t look anything good, and I still got excited about it. So my hopes are very high for people’s reactions to finally seeing Tao and being there. That to me is the pinnacle of what we’ve been working on.
And everything else is very exciting. You know, the Emir, Shockwave, Nightwave is just fun and goofy. And I think people really enjoy seeing the 1999 Hex characters given some more life.
There’s a lot of exciting things and it’s just another exciting year. I hope people just resonate with what we’re doing and want to hang out for the ride.
MeinMMO: So, last but not least, I want to close the interview with a bit of weird question. If you had to describe the community as a Warframe, which one would it be?
Megan Everett: Uhh, as a Warframe? I would say that they are probably Jade. And I say that because Jade is a very passionate but powerful Warframe.
She obviously has her story arc and it was a little sad. But I think everyone really resonated with what Jade’s story was. She had some sacrifices. But at the end of the day, she is this powerful, beautiful entity that has compassion and understanding and just love. And our community shows us love every single day. I feel like Jade is a good representation of our players.
MeinMMO: Thank you so much for the interview and the great answers!
MeinMMO was present as a press representative at TennoCon. The costs for admission, travel, and accommodation were covered by the organizers.
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