Warframe, the 13-year-old free-to-play multiplayer game from Digital Extremes, is preparing a major expansion into a brand new solar system called Tau, alongside a raft of updates designed to test whether ageing content and new ambitions can coexist. Creative director Rebecca Ford told Polygon the studio is simultaneously building fresh content and revisiting old systems, a balancing act she describes as the "impossible task" facing anyone working on the long-running title. The push matters because Warframe has increasingly become a haven for players leaving games like Destiny 2, and the studio is trying to give veteran and casual players alike new reasons to stay engaged.

The fall update, The Iceblade of Narin, arrives on 23 September with a new Warframe and hub area, followed on 15 October by the Epoch Operation: Tau event, which involves piloting a giant humanoid-shaped spacecraft. The studio is also introducing Glacial Defense, a demanding new six-player cooperative mode that Ford is careful to distinguish from the "raids" (officially Trials) retired in 2018 due to low engagement and high maintenance costs. Other recent changes, including a horror-themed mode called Follie's Hunt and expanded content for the divisive Railjack spaceship mode, have had mixed receptions, underlining the risks the team takes in reworking a game whose community, as Ford puts it, considers it "our game" as much as the developers do.