There’s a lot that I don’t know about Warframe.
The online multiplayer game was released in 2012, and in 13 years, the plot has gone places. What began as a vibes-based space shooter has transformed into a vibes-based space opera, with some pretty incredible writing to accompany the satisfying gameplay.
I am not going to explain the plot of Warframe, both because I don’t want to spoil you and also because I am still working my way through the story missions myself. I have experienced some jaw-dropping moments, and I understand that many more await me.
What I am going to tell you is that Warframe has given me my song of the summer. It’s called “Party of Your Lifetime,” and it’s ’90s-style pop in the vein of Backstreet Boys or N’Sync. It came out last year and it’s by On-lyne, which is the boy band that’s in Warframe, the video game that I am ostensibly playing.
There’s a boy band in Warframe, and I love their hit single
“Party of Your Lifetime” is related to Warframe’s 1999 expansion, which came out in December 2024. The expansion is a big chunk of story content that does indeed take place in the year 1999, in a city on the edge of the new year — and disaster.
When it was announced, Polygon writer Cass Marshall wrote, “I love how [Warframe developer] Digital Extremes will take swings at wild story beats, and Warframe: 1999 looks like one of the weirdest additions yet.”
They have retroactively been proven right, or at least, I think they have, because I don’t know what happens in Warframe: 1999, or why it exists, or why my boyfriend, who is further in the game than I am, keeps insisting that “it makes perfect sense.”
As far as I know, Warframe is a game in which I play a biomechanical freelance bounty hunter of sorts, in space, in the far future! I have a big space dog, and I shoot aliens with my big space gun. Earth is there, but also so is a monstrous Worm Queen, who lives on an asteroid and is my enemy. Nothing about Warframe says 1999 to me… yet!
Someday, I will understand why it exists. I will understand why there is a boy band in Warframe, and perhaps why they delivered this pitch-perfect ’90s bop. “Party of Your Lifetime” is energetic without being harsh, and every member of the band gets their chance to shine. As a K-pop fan, this song scratches the exact part of my brain that yearns for lighthearted dance tunes, songs that exist purely because they are producing serotonin in your brain.
But then I listen to the lyrics, and I get scared! Why are they singing “join us, embrace us, don’t ever erase us”? This feels like it might be significant! I don’t know why, though!
For now, I recommend putting on On-lyne’s hit single while you’re doing dishes or perhaps driving down the highway at night. It’s better than it has any right to be.
