Warframe scares me a bit. Ok, it scares me a lot. Here’s this big free-to-play MMO that’s been growing for over a decade, adding layers upon layers of complex sci-fi lore and context to its imposing metal form.
I couldn’t tell you before googling it why one of my fellow article writers had declared in the chat for a recent press preview that Excalibur Prime users won’t be spared when the revolution comes. I can tell you that its end of year 2025 update is called The Old Peace, and looks like it’ll be a hoot.
The Old Peace, which developers Digital Extremes have just shown off a demo of at this year’s edition of annual Warframe get-together TennCon, is all about “the war-scarring conflict between the Orokin, their creations, and a coalition of Dax Anarch Warriors” upon the Perita moon”. The demo of it kicked off with the player fighting a huge robo-lad that turned out to be manned by a small robo-lady, who then accompanies you through events you’re hallucinating via a Matrix-esque tech bath with The Lotus, the mysterious figure who talks you through missions from the start of the game.
“You had the new war, you know about the old war,” Warframe creative director Rebecca Ford said of the update, “but now it’s time to learn about the old peace, where, as with all wars, there was a moment in time when there was an effort for peace, a treaty. There was a time on Tau when things could have been different.”
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The Old Peace, which’ll expand Warframe’s focus skill tree and add in a new baddie faction, is bringing with it a standalone side story called The Devil’s Triad that looks like it’ll see you take on three scary bosses to earn a new warframe and a couple of new protoframes. The frame’s dubbed Uriel, it’s devil themed, and it’s also the last warframe that the game’s former art director Michael ‘Mynki’ Brennan worked on prior to his death from cancer in October last year.
Before all of that, the game’ll also be getting an autumn update featuring a Lavos Deluxe cosmetic, a rework of the Oberon frame, and a quest called The Teacher. The latter’s designed to teach you all about modding in Warframe, which sadly is of the adding stuff to gear in a game variety, rather than the downloading a thing that turns NPCs into Shrek variety.
Digital Extremes also announced that a standalone Warframe TTRPG module, made in collaboration with sci-fi dice game Starfinder devs Paizo and dubbed Warframe x Starfinder: Operation Orias, is launching in October this year.
Going back to The Old Peace, the very end of its TennoCon showing teases Warframe’s future, with an update dubbed Tau coming in 2026 set to continue the game’s current “Void War” story arc. “We have a very ambitious next couple of years [planned], to get the roots of Warframe and everything we’re gonna need [in place] to continue this crazy journey,” Ford said.
So, no slowing down in sight for the massive MMO’s continued metamorphosis, even as Digital Extremes’ other project, Soulframe, inches closer to full release.