TennoCon 2024: Warframe 1999 To Travel Back In Time This Winter

Break out your Modrobes and bucket hats, millennials— Warframe 1999 is coming, and Digital Extremes is taking us back in time.

During TennoCon 2024 ‘s main event, the “TennoLive” Devstream for Warframe , creative director Rebb Ford and community manager Megan Everett pulled back the curtain on the long-running game’s exciting new chapter, coming Winter 2024.

Warframe 1999 is the next chapter in Warframe ‘s ongoing narrative, following Whispers In The Walls . Players will travel back to the turn of the millennium in the game’s alternate Earth, where a lot of things are very similar to our own world’s Y2K—except instead of a crippling computer bug, the real threat is a literal biotech virus. (And maybe also pop music; an original song, “ Party of Your Life ,” by the in-universe boy band On-lyne, features in the background.)

The two-day festival concluded with an extended look at Warframe 1999 ‘s first mission—and the members of Arthur’s Syndicate, the Hex. Fans in attendance cheered as each was introduced alongside their callnames: Aoi (Mag), Amir (Volt), Quincy (Cyte-09), Eleanor (Nyx), and Lettie (Trinity). Cyte-09 is a new Warframe arriving alongside the update, but otherwise the whole squad, including Arthur (Excalibur), are connected to iconic Warframes, and Digital Extremes has dubbed them Protoframes.

Even outside of Warframe 1999 , the Protoframes are fully voiced, so Arthur and friends can react during gameplay on any mission.

After Arthur interacts with each, and quickly checks into his “Kinematic Instant Messaging” account to give a tease of Warframe ‘s first romance system, the new gameplay demo kicks into high gear, with the squad rolling out on new Atomicycle mounts to pursue a lead on Dr. Entrati. This instantly-iconic vehicle will be available not only in the streets of Höllvania in Warframe 1999 , but in other open world areas as well.

Arthur runs into a new enemy faction and battles a tank one-on-one while the original score kicks into overdrive. Ultimately Arthur ends up fighting Infested, failing a Worm -style encoding challenge, and coming face-to-face with… the Excalibur Warframe?

While the crux of Warframe 1999 is focused on the past storyline, it will have big ramifications for the game’s present. The demo ends back in the Origin System, where the Tenno encounters a heavily-infested mass in space, which turns out to be a stadium. “Party Of Your Life” blares from it, and as the Tenno enters the structure, they are confronted by a new class of Infested Adversaries, like the Kuva Liches or the Sisters of Parvos—except this time, it’s the fictional boy band On-lyne, corrupted.

With the prominence of the Protoframes comes a new feature, the Gemini Series Skins . These will allow players to switch between Warframe and Protoframe on the fly by utilizing a unique emote. Even outside of Warframe 1999 , the Protoframes are fully voiced, so Arthur and friends can react during gameplay on any mission.

Speaking of voices, the new chapter has a stellar cast, including Ben Starr ( Final Fantasy XVI ) as Arthur, Alpha Takahashi ( Cyberpunk 2077 ) as Aoi, Melissa Medina ( Final Fantasy XIV ) as Lettie, Kevin Afghani ( Super Mario Bros. Wonder ) as Amir, Amelia Tyler ( Baldur’s Gate 3 ) as Eleanor, Trieve Blackwood-Cambridge ( Forza Horizon 5 ) as Quincy, and Nick Apostolides ( Resident Evil 4 ) as On-lyne’s Zeke.

Also making his voice acting debut in Warframe 1999 is James Conlin. Digital Extremes collaborated with the Make-A-Wish Foundation to grant James’ wish of becoming a voice actor, and he can be heard in the demo as Ollie, the voice of the arcade games in the Hex’s homebase. Fans in attendance at TennoLive gave him a huge ovation.

Digital Extremes has multiple updates coming in hot through the rest of the year. The mini-update The Lotus Eaters arrives in August to help set up Warframe 1999 and introduce Sevagoth Prime. The Canadian studio is returning to Gamescom and the Tokyo Game Show this year, and at the latter they will unveil a “Unannounced 2024 Update” for this fall. Ford was tight-lipped about this update, but it will include a host of quality-of-life updates like item favouriting, and reworks from companions and the Caliban Warframe.

The Warframe 1999 update arrives this winter on all platforms. An animated short produced by The Line will accompany it to serve as a further introduction. For now, players can check out a special temporary relay in-game to explore the Hex’s home base.

Digital Extremes will celebrate its tenth annual TennoCon next year on July 18-19, once again in their hometown of London, Ontario.