During the first moments of Warframe’s The New War, Ballas severs the Lotus’ hand and impales the main character, leaving them adrift in the endless Void. At the same time, in another plane of existence, that severed hand arrives just as the Drifter is going to be executed.

The Duviri Paradox isn’t presented as the usual expansion in an MMO video game. This new chapter in Warframe’s story works both as a presentation for the Drifter, an adult version of your Operator character, but also as an alternative to the game’s beginning, as new players can now choose to take their first steps either through the classic first mission or Duviri Paradox, which sports a series of challenges that introduce you to the basic concepts of the game, while also telling a compelling story.

Related: Nobody Does Trailers Quite Like The Legend Of Zelda

Once you get your bearings and learn about the Drifter’s new cosmic powers, you’ll have an opportunity to take in the amazement of this new and wonderful environment made by the Digital Extremes team. The plains and caves of Duviri are painted in black and white with brushes of color that change the scene in a dynamic way. Here, locations never look the same way twice, creating an unsettling yet beautiful atmosphere.

As you progress through Duviri Paradox, it becomes obvious that it’s stuck in a time loop, while being plagued by the new Dax enemies that start chasing the Drifter. This is where the first gameplay element of the expansion shows up, as you find out your first Kaithe, an ethereal horse-like creature that helps you travel quickly across this landscape, both on the ground and in the air. The way the Kaithe moves through the sky feels so organic and fluid that it immediately puts every other vehicle in the game to shame, and while they’re not the fastest means of transport, they’re certainly the most entertaining.

The drifter riding a Kaithe through the sky in the direction of a golden city, in Warframe: The Duviri Paradox.

At the center of this pocket universe is Dominus Thrax, a childish tyrant whose shifts in mood cause this whole world to change significantly every few hours. Each mood stage represents a particular tale narrated by different characters from Thrax’s court, which makes the whole world shift to a different palette of colors that better reflect those moods.

It is during these stages that you will encounter the new Dax enemies. To face these powerful foes, you are introduced to a new style of melee combat for your human character, the Drifter. Warframe has always had dynamic and fast-paced combat gameplay that changes from melee to shooter on a whim, with smooth transitions between the hundreds of weapons at your disposal. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen here, as the Drifter’s new combat style feels clunky, slow, and often frustrating.

A red, shady garden in a vision, in Warframe: The Duviri Paradox.

That being said, you get to play with warframes once again between each stage, in a new area called The Undercroft. Unfortunately for veteran players, this might be a bit of a drag because the warframes and weapons that you get to use are the most basic ones, and the objectives in each Undercroft section are simple at best, and boring at worst.

However, The Undercroft helps Warframe to finally address and solve one of the game’s biggest issues, and one that made it often look unwelcoming to new players in the past: the level of complexity that the game presented to newcomers during the first steps. Digital Extremes finally caters to a more casual audience by presenting simple yet effective ways to learn how to play this game, without feeling that you need a manual to get a grasp of the mechanics.

Ultimately, The Duviri Paradox reforms one of the most unpopular sections of the game into a more graceful shape, while also presenting a new challenge and story chapter for veteran players. While its narrative impact is less pronounced than The New War, it certainly is one of the best expansions that Warframe has released to date.

2-Warframe The Duviri Paradox-SCORE CARD

Next: It's Hard To Imagine PlayStation Every Releasing A Game As Bad As Redfall