Digital Extremes has finally pulled back the curtain on Warframe: Tau, the sci-fi shooter's long-awaited second solar system, revealed during a presentation at TennoCon, the annual Warframe and Soulframe expo. After last year's flashback tour in The Old Peace expansion, Tau gives us our first proper look at the home of the game's Sentients faction - and it is a gloriously gruesome place.
We've been waiting a long time for Warframe to venture beyond its original solar system, and Digital Extremes clearly wanted to make an impression. Tau leans hard into noir theming, and the results are equal parts stylish and stomach-churning.
So what exactly is Fornax?
The first of the system's two initial areas is a ringed city called Fornax, whose occupants are plagued by corrupting rain and addicted to a substance known as the Bloom. It's a putrid, vertiginous, divided place - reportedly built inside a giant corpse, so it doesn't so much have alleyways as bronchioles. Picture what might happen if H.R. Giger were hired to redesign New York.
Fornax is made up of three hubs, and it's populated by gilded and busted biomechanical machines. One resident is a talking hood ornament; another is two heavy loaders clipped together at the waist. The layout runs from grim to glitzy:
The lower levels are tunnels where those hooked on the Bloom lie in makeshift tents.
Higher up, there are glistening canyons of hovercars that vaguely recall classic Cadillacs and other vintage American roadsters.
Higher still, there's a neon casino with holographic singers, jangling pseudo-roulette wheels, and Warframe's first ever in-game card game.
Meet Brysko, Warframe's Chandler-style detective
Fornax is home to Brysko, a chain-smoking, trenchcoated "Chimera Warframe" with an inner monologue reminiscent of a Raymond Chandler detective. He's voiced by Critical Role's Matt Mercer, and in combat he throws explosive cards and wields a grappleshot that works on both enemies and the architecture.
Brysko is working for Albrecht Entrati, for those keeping track of Warframe's ever-expanding cast. In an introductory mission starring him, you'll play cards with the city's ruler, a crimelord called the Hunra, described as looking like a half-vapourised goblin riding around in a ruptured beetle tuxedo.
Warframe's first card game, Portau
That casino houses Portau, Warframe's first ever in-game card game, which is apparently a bit like poker. It's not just window dressing, either - according to a separate interview, Fornax's concept reflects quite strong feeling about real-life addiction and gambling, a theme Digital Extremes is expected to explore further down the line.
What else is coming to Warframe?
The Tau expansion will arrive alongside a host of smaller changes:
Tweaks and new content for the existing Origins system.
New kinds of mission and new enemies.
New plot threads for established characters.
A massive, dormant Sentient body added to one of the game's hangar environments - flown in live during the announcement - whose skin and gender presentation you can customise, for purposes unknown.
There's also a smaller update on the way this autumn, Iceblade of Narin, which introduces a new ice element Warframe and reworks the 2013-era Banshee. And in August, a sidestory arrives: a mini "Fables and Frontiers" role-playing adventure that reuses the AOL-style messaging system from time-travelling expansion Warframe: 1999, complete with a new song from in-game boyband On-lyne.
Yes - Warframe has a boyband. At this point it feels like Warframe contains just about everything.
When does Warframe: Tau launch?
Warframe: Tau launches this year. If you're new to the universe and intrigued by Tau, be warned: you'll have to chew through the existing story and put in your time in the progression mines to unlock access.
Are you excited to trade your Origin System stomping grounds for the rain-soaked bronchioles of Fornax, or does the thought of even more grinding give you pause? Let us know in the comments.
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