Warframe’s new Garuda frame is a combination of elegance and brutality

Garuda is one of the new Warframes revealed this year at TennoCon, and Friday we got to see her in action during Digital Extreme’s devstream. The developers say they’ve focused on making her a gory, elegant frame, and those attributes are instantly apparent when Garuda gets into combat.

The first thing you notice about Garuda is the sets of vicious-looking claws that she keeps folded back toward her shoulders when she’s not fighting.

When she is, those flip forward, and they’re not just for show: Warframe community director Rebecca Ford showed off a development build of Garuda, and had her eviscerating enemies and impaling them on spikes she can summon from the ground.

Garuda is a vampire-themed frame, and her passive ability increases her damage output the lower her health gets. Managing this health/damage slider is the key to playing the frame, and her active abilities are all designed around this mechanic.

Her 3 ability lowers her health in exchange for energy, which you can then use on her other abilities. Her 1 lets her bound toward an enemy and rip them apart with those claws we mentioned before, and it summons an energy shield. Her 2 summons a spike to impale enemies and harvest their blood to for healing.

Using the three abilities together allows Garuda to bounce between healing and increased damage quickly, and she looks pretty heavy metal while she’s at it – her abilities all are based around blood, and she’s usually covered in the stuff after any enemy encounters. Have a look at Ford’s session with her:

Garuda’s 4 (or ultimate) summons a swirling vortex of spinning blades, which shred anything that gets close to her – or that she approaches, since she can move around while it’s active. To top it off, she also has her own signature crossbow, for when she gets tired of hand-to-hand.

Digital Extremes is still putting the finishing touches on Garuda – her stats are placeholder for now, and some of her effects and animations are still under development. As usual, the developers didn’t provide a release date for the new Warframe – she’ll be available “when she’s done.”