Warframe: Mobile Touch Control Guide

If you have experience playing first or third person shooting games on mobile, you may be familiar with touch controls generally. For those who are new to mobile gaming, or those who want a complete breakdown, we’ve created a Touch Control Guide for Warframe:

CORE TOUCH CONTROLS

Movement & Camera:
The screen area is divided down the middle. The left side is used to move the character, and the right side is used to move the camera.

• Move character: touch anywhere on the left side of the screen to activate a virtual joystick. Continuing to hold and drag in any direction will move the character in that direction. Running and walking is dictated by the distance of your thumb from the starting place.
• Move camera: touch anywhere on the right side of the screen to activate camera movement. Continuing to hold and drag in any direction will move the camera in the desired direction.

Virtual Buttons:
Virtual buttons unlock as you progress through the game and their functionality becomes relevant. Some of these are context sensitive and will only be shown if there is something that can be done by tapping them in that instance.

• Aim: appears center left of screen. Hold the icon to toggle the aim view. Continuing to hold while dragging in any direction allows your character to move while aiming.
  • Players can set ‘toggle aim’ instead of ‘hold to aim’ in the settings.
     
• Shoot: appears center right of screen. Tap the icon to shoot or hold to shoot continuously. With Automated Shooting enabled, the Shoot Icon will be hidden until the player uses the Aim button.
  • Manual shooting can be useful for interacting with non-hostile objects.
     
• Bullet Jump: appears below the Jump button. Tap and release the icon to Bullet Jump. Players can still combine a crouch and jump to perform a Bullet Jump, but the dedicated virtual button is meant to make things easier on mobile devices.
  • While holding the Bullet Jump button, you can aim your jump by adjusting the camera on the right side of the screen. Release the Bullet Jump button to execute the maneuver.
    • Note: A Bullet Jump can still be performed by pressing ‘Crouch’ then sliding your thumb to ‘Jump’ and releasing.
       
• Jump: appears below the Shoot button. Tap to jump. Tap again while in air to initiate a double jump.
   
• Crouch: appears below Jump and left of Melee. Tap to crouch and tap again to stand. Tap the button while moving to roll. Hold the button while moving to slide.
  • Players can set ‘hold to crouch’ instead of ‘toggle crouch’ in the settings.
     
• Melee: appears right of Crouch and below Jump. Tap to melee attack. Hold to melee attack continuously. With Automated Melee enabled, this button is hidden, but will appear when there is something destructible within melee range.
  • Manual melee can be useful when there is a destructible object blocking the way.
  • Melee button can be set to always on by disabling Automated Melee in the settings.
     
• Abilities: four icons on the bottom right side of the screen. Tap and release to activate a Warframe’s ability. Holding allows aiming for abilities where aim plays a role.
   
• Cycle Weapon: appears on the bottom left side of the screen. Tap to cycle between Primary and Secondary Weapons. This widget displays the equipped weapon, ammo, and level.
   
• Alternate Fire: appears on the right side of the screen, left of Jump. Tap to initiate a weapon’s alternative fire. Hold to use the alternative fire continuously if the weapon supports continuous fire.
  • This dynamic button differs based on the functionality of the equipped weapon.
  • If the equipped weapon does not support an alternate fire, this button will not appear.
     
• Operator: appears left of Alternate Fire. Tap to switch to Operator / Drifter Mode. Tap again to switch back to Warframe mode.
  • This button will not appear if Operator mode is not currently available.
     
• Contextual Button: will appear left of the Jump button. Tap to initiate action. A contextual button will appear when there is something the player character can interact with.
  • This includes hacking consoles, using zip-lines, performing stealth kills, etc.
     
• Gear Wheel: appears right of Abilities buttons. tap to open the gear wheel, and tap again to close it. When the gear wheel is open, the player can drag to browse equipped items. Release to activate the item.
   
• Menu: appears on the top left of the screen. Tap to open menu.

   

Melee Touch Controls

• You can change your combat state using the new Melee virtual button (indicated by the crossed-swords icon) on the bottom left of the screen (left of the weapon Cycle).
• How to enable: Tapping the Melee Icon brings the player into Melee-only mode, where all of your attacks are done solely by your Melee weapon. This is most comparable to holding “F” (default) on keyboard & mouse on the PC version of Warframe.
• If Auto shooting and Auto Melee are disabled, Melee-only mode introduces a Light Attack, Heavy Attack, and a Manual Block Button to the right side of the UI. 
• If players are using simple touch controls (Auto Shooting and Auto Melee enabled by default) these new Melee buttons are hidden. To disable Auto Melee, go to Options > Touch > Automatic Actions > Auto-melee OFF / ON.  
• How to disable: Tapping the Weapon Cycle button will return players back to default attack mode and out of Melee-only mode. 

MOBILE EXCLUSIVE FEATURES

• Automated Attacks: in order to support Warframe’s fast, mobility-based gameplay on mobile devices, several features have been automated by default. Automated attacks can be disabled in the settings if the player prefers manual attacks.
  • Automated Shooting: moving the crosshard onto a target will make Primary and Secondary weapons fire automatically.
  • Automated Melee: positioning your character beside an enemy makes your character melee attack the target automatically.
  • Note: Automated Attacks are disabled when the character is crouching to allow stealth attacks to be performed without interruption.
  • Note: Automated Attacks are disabled when playing with a Controller.
     
• Sensor Ring: the relatively smaller screens present on mobile devices can make it challenging to keep track of important surrounding objects. A sensor ring provides directional indicators for out of frame objects to improve world space awareness.
  • Sensor Ring has 3 different sizes, indicating near, middle, and far objects
  • Non-hostile objects are represented with a white colour
  • Hostiles are represented with a red color.
     
• Bullet Jump Button:
  Tap and release the dedicated virtual button to Bullet Jump.
  • While holding the Bullet Jump button, you can aim your jump by adjusting the camera on the right side of the screen.
  • Release the Bullet Jump button to execute the maneuver.
  • Note: A Bullet Jump can still be performed by pressing ‘Crouch’ then sliding your thumb to ‘Jump’ and releasing.