Games Like Warframe

Summary: The First Descendant is the closest direct substitute for Warframe, because it copies the structure almost beat for beat. Past that, the right pick depends on which layer you miss: the movement, the build depth, or the fact that nothing worth having is locked behind money. Destiny 2, which used to be the automatic second recommendation, stopped receiving content updates in June 2026.

The First Descendant is the nearest match on structure, and like Warframe it is free on PC, PS5 and Xbox.
Destiny 2 received its final live-service update on 9 June 2026, so it is a finished game now rather than a growing one.
Warframe's rare quality is not the parkour. It is that every weapon, frame and cosmetic can be earned without paying.
For mobile, the honest answer is Warframe itself, which runs on iOS and Android with cross-save.

Warframe has been running since 2013 and is still shipping quests, which is most of the reason this question is hard to answer. It is three games stacked on each other: a movement game, a build-crafting game, and a free-to-play game that never sells power outright. Most alternatives do one of the three well and skip the rest, so the useful answer depends on which layer you are actually trying to replace.

What Makes a Game Like Warframe

Four things, and almost nothing has all four.

Movement comes first. Bullet jumping and sliding make Warframe faster than anything else in its class, and going back to a shooter with a sprint button feels like wearing a weighted vest. Second is build depth, where mods, arcanes and dozens of frames produce loadouts that play nothing alike. Third is that the grind is the content rather than a tax on it. Fourth is that co-op is optional, so four-player squads and solo runs are both real ways to play.

That last point is also the commercial one. Warframe is free to play in a stricter sense than most, where money buys time instead of power, and the free-to-play label guarantees nothing of the kind anywhere else on this list.

The First Descendant Is the Closest Match

If you want the same shape of game, install The First Descendant. Nexon released it in July 2024 as a free third-person looter shooter built on Unreal Engine 5, with named characters who carry their own abilities and a boss-fight grind at the centre of everything. It runs on PC, PS5 and Xbox with crossplay, and the comparison to Warframe was so immediate at launch that nobody involved bothered arguing with it.

Be realistic about the population. It peaked above 264,000 concurrent players on Steam in its opening week and now averages closer to 6,000, which is plenty for current content and thin on the older missions you pass through on the way there. The monetisation also leans harder on paid shortcuts than Warframe's does, so the generosity you are used to is not part of the package.

Matchmaking is regional, and in a game built around long boss fights a bad connection costs you more runs than a bad build does. A routing service such as GearUP is the usual fix when your squad is spread across countries.

Warframe Like Games Worth Installing

With the direct substitute out of the way, the field splits by which layer you are replacing. If you are really just looking for something to play with friends, the multiplayer roundup sorts by group size instead of by genre.

Destiny 2. Still the best gunfeel in the genre and free to start. No longer a live game, which changes the calculation rather than ending it.
Helldivers 2. The co-op layer done better than Warframe does it. Almost no build depth, and that is deliberate.
Remnant II. Third-person shooting with souls-like weight, archetypes in place of frames, and worlds rebuilt procedurally between runs. One purchase, no live-service tail.
The Division 2. The closest thing to Warframe's mod system, buried inside a cover shooter that moves at half the speed.
Borderlands 4. The loot volume without the grind economy. You buy it once, finish it, and stop.
Deep Rock Galactic. Class-based co-op with a generous shop and the most pleasant community in the genre. Not strictly a looter shooter, closer than that sounds.
Soulframe. Digital Extremes' own fantasy sibling, still in pre-alpha Preludes testing on PC. Worth signing up for, not worth waiting for.

Destiny 2 needs its own paragraph. Bungie shipped Monument of Triumph on 9 June 2026 as the game's final live-service content update and moved the studio on to new projects. Servers stay up, everything you own stays yours, and the catalogue stays where it is. For a returning veteran that is a loss. For someone starting now it is arguably the opposite, because nothing expires while you work through it and the systems will still mean the same thing in six months.

Games Like Warframe on Steam

Everything above except Soulframe is on Steam, and the free ones cost nothing but disk space to audit. Warframe, Destiny 2 and The First Descendant can all be installed in one evening, which is the cheapest way to work out which layer you actually miss. The wider free catalogue on Steam is worth a look before you spend anything at all.

For the paid picks, the refund window is the real test. Two hours is enough to learn whether Remnant II's weight suits you or whether Borderlands 4's writing does not, and both refund cleanly if you ask inside the limit. That is a better filter than any review, including this one.

One practical note for anyone coming off Warframe's movement. These games ask for flick aiming far more often than they ask for tracking, and a mouse with a sensor you trust does more for your hit rate than any graphics setting. Logitech's mid-range models cover that without flagship pricing.

Mobile Games Like Warframe

The literal answer is Warframe. The mobile client runs on iOS and Android and carries the full game with cross-save, so your account follows you instead of starting over. It is demanding on older handsets and cramped on a phone screen, but it is the real game rather than a spin-off.

If you want something designed for the format, Destiny: Rising is the closest fit, a gacha shooter with a semi-open world and genuinely good movement. Punishing: Gray Raven is the other dependable pick, with the sharpest action combat on the platform and a pity system fairer than most of its neighbours.

Both run on gacha economics, which means the currency purchase is the product and the game is the advertisement. A prepaid Razer Gold top-up is the usual way to cap that, since you spend what you loaded rather than what your card allows.

Free to Play Means Something Different in Each of These

The label hides the difference that matters. Warframe sells platinum, and platinum is tradeable between players, so a patient player earns premium currency with time instead of money. Nothing else here does that.

The First Descendant sells shortcuts on a grind it designed itself, and the mobile games sell characters outright. Both models lean on a small number of very heavy spenders rather than a broad base, which is worth understanding before you decide what a free game is costing you.

What None of Them Replace

Thirteen years of compounding. Warframe has more systems than any game on this list will ship in its lifetime, most of them optional, which is exactly why it is both overwhelming to start and hard to leave. An alternative with four systems done cleanly will feel thin after that, however well made it is.

The other absence is the trading economy. Player-to-player trading of mods and parts makes a bad drop rate survivable and turns the grind into something social. Every game on this list solves the same problem with a shop.

Start With the Grind You Will Not Resent

Work backwards from the layer you miss. If it is the movement, nothing here matches it and the honest advice is to stay put. If it is the loot, Borderlands 4 or Remnant II deliver the same hit without asking for a second job. If it is the free-to-play generosity, The First Descendant is the nearest equivalent anyone has managed. If it is the co-op, Helldivers 2 and Deep Rock Galactic are better at it than Warframe has ever been.

Most of this lives on Steam, and a Steam gift card covers the paid picks and the wallet top-ups without attaching a card to the account.