Roughly two years ago, Warframe received a delightful dose of heartbreak in the form of Jade Shadows. Digital Extremes’ free-to-play sci-fi shooter has a history of ‘intermission’ quests – smaller stories that helped fill the space between larger narrative beats; smaller portions of intrigue, and fresh gameplay loops to indulge in.

Jade Shadows stood out. Not only did it bring a fan-favourite (and largely antagonistic) character to the forefront, it did so through the lens of fatherhood of all things. A tragic death, a bold departure from expectations, and an ending inspired by Children of Men.

So how do you follow-up that sort of poignant moment? And what could this mean for future intermission quests like it? The answer to the first question is Warframe’s upcoming Jade Shadows: Constellations. As for the second, I recently sat down with community manager and live ops lead Megan Everett, to find out more.

Everett describes Constellations as a ” continuation of a story no one saw coming”, saying the team was actually quite nervous when it released its predecessor two years ago.

“It was so out there and opposite from what players had been used to from Warframe’s storyline,” she continues. “When we saw the reception was positive, we saw a place this year that could fit it, where we could do our first proper sequel to a story in Warframe. A true part two to Jade Shadows.”

With this direct follow-up, Digital Extremes is trying to achieve something tricky: retaining the emotional core that made the first quest so popular, while injecting an intense dose of action. The quest features two brothers – either Orion or Sirius from the end of the first Jade Shadows quest – battling it out in a timeline-blending brawl. This warrants a less sombre tone, at least for a while.

The decision on what child to pick at the end of this initial quest is honoured in Constellations, with Everett saying: “You’re going to have an experience based on who you’ve picked”, though they wouldn’t reveal which brother proved the most popular back in the original Jade Shadows quest.

In terms of tone, Everett says this update “scratches that itch” for action that wasn’t present in the original Jade Shadows quest, while keeping the emotional core intact. “Constellations bring some violence that we didn’t do in Shadows” she explains. “The narrative is still very focused on Stalker as a father, but you have this eternalism battle between two realities where each child was chosen. So the epic dueling violence happens between these brothers battling for the spotlight.

“There’s a level of the classic Warframe experience, of battles and action, but there are still emotional moments in there. You can’t tell this story without it.”

The original Jade Shadows opened the door for exploring themes and ideas disconnected from Warframe’s main narrative, and to years of characters, and that’s something Constellation continues.As an MMO, there are plenty of fan-favourites lying around, and none of them are up to much, as far as we know. “I don’t know how many times I hear about The Sergeant, and people want to see The Sergeant,” Everett says. “It’s like, no offense, but he’s a D character. He doesn’t really mean anything, but he could mean something. That’s the mentality when we do these side updates.

“We have these opportunities to do these occasional, interim updates that are a little weird and crazy. We can play around a lot with stories that don’t have anything to do with The Old Peace or whatever, or maybe they do in subtle ways.

“Leaving characters and potential characters in the dust would be a failure, we need to do things with them to keep things interesting.”