A couple weeks ago I found myself singing along, misty eyed, with a talking bear, a la Jungle Book, as we planted seeds together. It was one of the most meaningful gaming experiences I’ve had.

I’ve recently jumped back into Digital Extremes’ Soulframe and have been loving every second of it. I’ve been a long time fan of Warframe and have been keeping tabs on its sister game ever since it was announced back in 2022.

I had bounced off of it a few times before, mostly I think because of unpolished onboarding and some clunky progression–both of which have been massively improved (go play the game)–but the world and spirit of Soulframe have always stuck with me. Ever since I saw the moose nudge the naked Envoy’s body and heard the lyrical speech of the narrator, I was hooked. The imagery of massive wolves, hunted in their own lands, evoked scenes from Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke and made me giddy with delight.

Exploring the open world of Midrath, meeting your NPC Ancestors, and undoing the pollutive harm inflicted by your enemies are in many ways your standard video game affairs. However, Soulframe elevates each of these to a much more meaningful level, by infusing them with a child-like sincerity. That sincerity is a breath of fresh air that resonates with my own childhood in a way that few other games do.

Every morning and afternoon of my senior year of high school I rode shotgun in my brother’s car. He was an art teacher at the school and kind enough to pick me up and drop me off each day right beside the elm tree on our block. It’s a beautiful tree that throughout its years has doubtless been home to thousands of chirping birds and skittering squirrels. And while I don’t remember when I learned it, I had come to know that even the neighborhood’s rabbits loved the tree. They would find refuge and peace among the tall grass that couldn’t properly be mowed near its trunk.

One beautiful spring afternoon, as my brother pulled the car up to the curb, I warned him about these rabbits. I told him to be careful and do his best not to spook them. Ultimately they did dash out as we exited his Honda but I still felt proud. Reality, or Nature specifically, had entrusted me with a secret, its soft underbelly, and I had respected it. I chose to respond to its vulnerability with a delicate touch and not abuse it.

That vulnerability is part and parcel to the sincerity with which Soulframe is written. None of the game feels like it at all concerns itself with being “cool.” It reminds me of musical theater in its reckless pursuit of what is fun and beautiful and true, and in its complete abandonment of being afraid of what is “cringe.” From a cynical perspective Soulframe’s writing is weird, embarrassing, cheesy, sentimental, nerdy, awkward – all descriptions I’ve heard of theater – but to see it as any of those things would be to betray it, it would be to chase the rabbit out of the grass, to take advantage of its vulnerability. 

No, instead you ought to allow yourself to tenderly enter into Soulframe’s world and unabashedly love each moment. You have to forget what you have been trained to see as strange and simply sing along with a virtual bear on your screen. Love recklessly.

Thanks for reading! If you have any thoughts on sincerity, Soulframe, or anything else, do reach out! I love talking about these sorts of things.

I think I’ve got 2 more blogs in this vein of Soulframe’s beautiful child-like qualities. Next time I’ll be talking about why pretending Santa is real is good and why art is actually at its best when it’s lying juuuust a bit.