TennoCon, Digital Extremes’ yearly convention, partners and donates towards charities in Canada. For TennoCon 2024, the Warframe developer chose two charities to partner with, unlike previous years where a single charity would be their choice for the community event. This year, AbleGamers is Digital Extremes’ overseas choice and Make-A-Wish is its local charity choice.
With Make-A-Wish, Digital Extremes has granted a child’s wish to become a video game voice actor. James, a 16-year-old with Spina Bifida, is familiar with Warframe due to his older brother being a Tenno–the affectionate name designated to the players of Warframe. Kevin Lim, a voice actor for the Warframe character Bombastine, was how Digital Extremes initially discovered James’ wish.
“Through being involved with [Make-A-Wish, Lim] got wind of a boy named James–whose wish was to be a voice in a video game,” community manager Megan Everett said. From there, Lim asked James, if he would be interested in being a voice actor for Warframe due to Lim’s recent work on the game’s Duviri Paradox expansion.
“Then Kevin Lim reached out to us and from there, we reached out to Make-A-Wish and asked if James wanted to be in Warframe. He was very excited in doing this opportunity. We just continued the conversation with James, Make-A-Wish, and his family. Corey [Van Den Hoogenband] and Veronica [Botnick] on our community team [who] have led the force for reaching out to charities over the years regardless of TennoCon. They were also very heavily involved with Make-A-Wish, and even [talked] with the developers to get his character for his arcade cabinet in-game made and aligning [James and his family] to come to London,” Everett explained.
James, alongside his family, arrived in London earlier this week for James’ role in the upcoming Warframe 1999 expansion, recording lines at Digital Extremes’ studio. “Talking with James and his family, every day [his mother] has sent me a message that he had the best day ever during rehearsals,” Kevin Lim said. Lim added that, if the online rehearsals have been the best day ever, then TennoLive will be even greater.
James and his character will appear in the arcade-cabinet section of Warframe 1999, so players can hear and watch on their own while playing the game. Warframe 1999’s expansion releases this winter.
Be sure to check out our piece on Metal Gear Solid being Warframe 1999’s inspiration and our piece on Studio Ghibli being Soulframe’s influence.
