If you’ve played missions on Warframe, you may have noticed the cryptic lines from a pop song. What’s it all about?
Warframe takes place in a distant future where defective clones, greedy corporations, megalomaniac superhumans, and disgusting mutants have spread across the solar system. Nonetheless, the game is filled with Easter eggs and humorous pop culture references!
One of them is particularly striking, as it contains lyrics from a Taylor Swift song. But how did the lyrics make their way into the game and what is the reason for that?
Taylor Swift on Mars?
If you want to play a mission on Mars in Warframe and select the region “Kadesh” on the star map, you will see this text alongside the usual description:
“Cause the players gonna play, play, play. And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate. Baby I’m just gonna shake, shake, shake. Shake it off.”
These lines are from the song “Shake It Off” by pop singer Taylor Swift from the year 2014. How did they make it into the distant future of Warframe?
A relic from the old days of war
The answer to this question is hidden in the past of Warframe. In April 2014, a major update was released. It contained a new PvP mechanic. Player clans could conquer selected regions called “Dark Sectors” on the map by completing more challenges there than other clans within a certain time.
The winners could then control the sector for a certain time and demand a sort of tax from every player wanting to participate in the often highly lucrative missions there. Another privilege of the sector owners: They could display their clan emblem there and submit a sort of motto.
Will the lyrics remain in the game forever?
The last clan that left its mark on the Kadesh sector was likely a big fan of Taylor Swift and inscribed the famous song lyrics. And probably the song would soon have fallen victim to the conflict and the next clan would have deleted it.
The dark sector conquest system didn’t work optimally. Due to “win trading” and other exploits, it was extremely abused. Therefore, the developers shut down the entire system with update 16 in 2016.
However, the previous states were retained, and therefore the song lyrics still proudly adorn the mission page of Kadesh in Warframe. And they will probably stay there for a long time unless the developers revive the conflict over the dark sectors at some point.
But who knows, maybe the song will remain in the game out of nostalgia reasons. It has become a cult classic and is “just a part of it.”
Read here why the close bond between Warframe and the community was actually born out of necessity.
