Soulframe Throws Its Doors OPEN — Warframe Studio Lets EVERY PC Player Into the Alpha on November 6, No Invite Needed

November 2, 2026 · by Aurum

For nearly two years, getting into Soulframe meant getting lucky. Digital Extremes’ free-to-play fantasy action RPG — the follow-up project from the studio behind Warframe — has been running an invite-only alpha called Preludes, with new players mostly waved in around events like TennoCon. That changes this week. On Friday, November 6, Soulframe Open Preludes opens the gates to every Windows PC player, no invite, no key and no Founder’s Pack purchase required. You sign up for an account on the official Soulframe website, download the game’s own launcher, and you are in.

One clarification up front, because it trips people up: this is not a Steam release and it is not a full launch. Soulframe’s Steam page remains a wishlist page for a wider PC release later, with no date announced, and there is no console version in this phase. Open Preludes is the ongoing alpha playtest, now simply open to anyone who wants to help shape it — and Digital Extremes is being unusually honest that player feedback at this stage will steer where the game goes next.

New arrivals will find a substantial game waiting. Sixteen Preludes chapters are already in place, introducing the world of Alca, its characters and its systems through story-driven quests called Fables. You play an Envoy — a descendant of ancient Fey blood, resistant to the Spellsong that made Alca forget itself — freeing corrupted Omen Beasts, forging Pacts that grant ancestral abilities, discovering World Trees, freeing captive animals, and pushing back the invading Ode forces in co-op parties of up to four. Crafting, customisation and weapon progression are all live, and the paid Founders programme stays exactly as it is for players who want to support development and unlock Pacts and equipment instantly.

The timing is deliberate. Open Preludes lands just ahead of Preludes 17, the Verse of the Veilands update, which Digital Extremes detailed in its latest Devstream and which arrives later in November with some of the most-requested features in the game’s history. Headlining it is the Omen Wolf mount system: after completing The Tormented Stag Fable and purifying two Veilands regions, players can train a wolf pup, brew it a Bairnday Biscuit, and raise it into a fully fledged rideable Omen Wolf mount.

Verse of the Veilands also introduces a new environmental world progression system — after The Tormented Stag, the Ode corruption visibly spreads across Alca’s overworld, and pushing it back becomes a core loop — plus a new character Pact, the Ode Shrike, which turns the invaders’ own trapping tricks against them with deployable spike traps, enemy-lifting balloon darts, damage-linking bola chains and an evasive throwing bomb. The seasonal Bita’s Eve event returns too, with Wintersquash patches, a headless horserider mini-boss called Veltruska, limited-time rewards and a special fish, the Sunken Terror.

Creative director Geoff Crookes admitted the team feels the weight of the moment, saying in the announcement that it feels “a little scary to finally open the gates like this,” but that the arrival of mounts and world progression made it the right time to gather wider feedback. That is the honest posture of this whole project: Soulframe has been community-driven since day one, and November 6 is when the community stops being a closed club.

If you have been watching from outside — or if you are one of the Warframe faithful wondering what Digital Extremes’ fantasy detour actually plays like (Proven Gamer’s latest Warframe coverage: Warframe Is Leaving the Origin System — Tau Opens a Whole New Star System This December, FREE on Every Platform) — Friday is your on-ramp, and it costs nothing but a download. Create your account at soulframe.com before November 6 if you want to be ready the moment the gates open.

Source: Digital Extremes announcement via Games Press (November 2, 2026).