After six hard-fought rounds that pitted its tenacious tenno against menacing mechs, vicious street thugs, dragons (and their dungeons), the gods themselves, and that most dangerous of enemies – cute anime characters – Warframe sits upon the throne as the champion of the inaugural MMOBomb Ultimate F2P Showdown!

Just hours before the final round of voting ended, it looked like Warframe would have to make do with second-place honors, but a legendary effort from the fan base and an 11th-hour promotion from developer Digital Extremes through the official Warframe launcher helped seal the victory. Warframe wrested control of the title from runner-up SMITE, racking up an astonishing 81,225 official votes.

Fueled by a strong tournament-long drive on Reddit and early promotion through the official launcher, SMITE managed 80,071 votes, making the final margin an extremely competitive affair: 50.358% to 49.642%. In all, over half a million votes were counted in the tournament, with roughly half of that number going to the final two games alone throughout their runs in the tournament. Sometime soon, we’ll write a post-mortem recapping the showdown and detailing what we’ve learned from the competition, namely “it ain’t over till its over”!

Hail to the victors! And congratulations to all the entrants who called their banners and made this tournament an event to remember. We’ll see you next year!

Edit: Official Response from Warframe developer Digital Extremes”