Warframe 1999: Everything we know so far about the upcoming update

Warframe 1999 is an upcoming update unveiled during TennoCon 2023, arriving sometime in 2024. This update might be transformative for Warframe's gameplay, and its lore implications are already evolutionary for this long-running MMO-lite. Naturally, this much-teased update is something the Tenno across the Origin System are hyped about.

If you are not sure what this new update entails, you have come to the right place. This article will outline all the currently known details about Warframe 1999, including its potential gameplay features.

Does Warframe 1999 have a release date yet?

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As of DevStream 180 (June 2024), Warframe 1999 does not have a release date yet. However, with a TennoCon taking place in July 2024, we might have some official announcements regarding a launch window soon.

If we were to make an educated guess, this would come out in Fall 2024, sometime between September and November.

The launch might happen on December 31, as the update's plot takes us back to the Eve of New Year, 2000. If this is the case, Warframe 1999 will be released exactly a year after Whispers in the Walls, and another interim update might be announced during this TennoCon.

What will the Warframe 1999 update be about?

Many lore questions remain unanswered, but the Whispers in The Walls questline does a good job of setting up a prelude to Warframe 1999. Your goal in this update is clear: travel back in time to find Dr. Entrati before "you are late" and The Man in The Wall takes control of him.

As things stand, much of this premise remains up to interpretation. Warframe 1999 could be the point of divergence between Warframe's timeline and our world, with Y2K being the catalyst. Alternately, akin to Duviri Paradox, Y2K Earth could just be a verisimilitude within a dream, a void projection of the "old world" in Albrecht's mind.

Warframe 1999 gameplay features (speculative)

We are still quite blurry on the lore details and how exactly the narrative side of things will pan out. However, on the gameplay side of things, some details can be pieced together from what we know:

90s weaponry and grounded Dark Sector gameplay

Arthur and Aoi have the good ol' guns from our world (Image via Digital Extremes)

The Whispers in the Walls quest segment is our window into what the gameplay might be like in Warframe 1999. The update will take players to the past in many ways:

We are going back to the more grounded gameplay of Dark Sector and early Warframe, which may be a welcome change from current-day Warframe's frantic pace.
Real-world weapons from the past will be available: like the AX-52 (Kalashnikov), which will be released with TennoCon 2024, Glock and Tec-9 (both weapon cosmetics from previous Nightwaves).
With the 'old world' weapons, Warframe 1999 will likely have an alternate vertical progression system rather than equipment modding.

Proto-frames

We will engage Warframe 1999's world through "proto-frames" — controlled through potentially multiple vessels in Albrecht's lab back in the Origin System. So far, the Protoframes for Excalibur (Arthur) and Mag (Aoi) have been revealed, and they will also have abilities like Warframes.

It is not known whether Protoframes are also controlled through Transference from a "Vessel," or whether Transference is just a channel to reach their consciousness in the past.

Open-world and Atomibike

Warframe 1999 will 'heavily feature' the atomibike (Image via Digitial Extremes)

In the Aoi Protoframe Reveal teaser, we also see an Atomibike. The developers have confirmed this to be a feature in the update. If it's not a "gotcha" linear cinematic segment, having an actual bike naturally means a world big enough to need transportation.

If that's true, then Warframe 1999's Earth will be the fifth open world after Plains of Eidolon, Orb Vallis, Cambion Drift, and Duviri.

The Y2K bug has grown four limbs

Is this Y2K bug in the room with us right now? (Image via Digital Extremes)

Taking the year 2000 as the apocalyptic premise naturally relates it to the Y2K bug, among other things. At least one of the enemy factions we will face in Warframe 1999 is already known: computer parts on wheels and limbs charging like Infested hordes.

Other than a very physical manifestation of technophobia in the "old world," these may also have something to do with an offshoot of the "Technocyte virus" from Dark Sector.

On top of this, we are also likely to face the Murmur, given the Man in The Wall is still very much in the picture as the big bad.

Back to the future: Tau System Expansion?

Archon Hunts, as they exist in Warframe right now, are supposed to get us closer to Pazuul and the Tau system. After the New World, what happened to the Tau system at large still remains largely unexplored.

A Tau system expansion should thus be on the cards for Digital Extremes. It would be a stretch to expect Warframe 1999 to give us both Y2K and a whole new system, but its events could very well be a precursor to this (purely speculative) update to be Warframe's steam for 2025.

More about the Warframe 1999 update will be revealed in this year's TennoCon, which is also handing out the AX-52 rifle to Twitch viewers.

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