Warframe’s melee combat is getting a major revision, and it’s been a long time coming. It’s still some time away, thanks in part to a design change that the developers revealed today – and it looks like it’s worth the wait, as it will present a fast, fluid way of swapping between ranged and melee combat on a whim.

There’s going to be a quick melee attack that instantly allows you to strike, leaving you in melee stance. From there, you can either stay in melee or swap back to your gun instantly. This makes for a massive increase in combat speed, with a more fluid switch between attack types – exactly the sort of usability change this melee revamp is meant to provide.

That info comes as part of today’s devstream #116 (relevant part at 1:03:00), but it’s certainly not our first look at melee 3.0. Back in August, we saw improvements like being able to add heavy attacks to combos, and choosing where to strike on the ground with a heavy jump attack. The highlight, however, is the ability to do combo aerial attacks.

Aerial attacks do feature in Warframe, but they previously could not be comboed in the same way ground attacks could be – now players can do just that. Furthermore, as was pointed out on devstream #114 (roughly 33:00), this also means that players are able to ‘float’ for longer in the air and so reach higher areas or items.

Today’s stream also gave us a look at the K-Drives and Vent Kids coming in the next big Warframe expansion. The Fortuna release date is still some time away, set for an indeterminate time this fall, but you can follow that link for much more info on everything we know so far.