5 New things Warframe is trying with its end-of-year Old Peace update

Every year, Warframe tries to reinvent its (many) wheels in some way, and The Old Peace is no different in this regard. This was the much-hyped end-of-year update with great build-up since TennoCon 2025, but Digital Extremes isn't shying away from trying some risky things (and the usual buffet of quirky things) for this.

While the Tau-expansion direction was predicted by the dedicated playerbase a while ago, this first entry into the Void Wars saga has some elements that never appeared on anyone's bingo card. So, for those who haven't been following Warframe closely, here's five new things the game is trying with The Old Peace.

5 Big experimental features coming in Warframe's The Old Peace update

Grappling (and more parkour improvements to come later)

Mid-air grapples are visible in the TennoCon demo itself (Image via Digital Extremes)

As cool as honest trench warfare could have been, Warframe will give you a lot of room for aerial parkour in The Old Peace content. Specifically, the new headliner tileset we're getting is on Perita, the Tau moon, and it has some menacingly floating orbs you can grapple to.

This basically lets you use your parazon to gain some altitude, and a lot of momentum. If I put my thinking hat on, this reminds me of the Deadlock Protocol from 2020, which gave us the Jackal cinematic mid-bossfight where you grapple through a vent to get into the second boss arena.

However, with this one, you are encouraged to make use of these grapple-spots. The Perita Rebellion bosses (or at least Hunhullus from what we saw in Devstream 191) is designed in a way where staying on the fly is beneficial to efficiently fight them. Plus, if all that wasn't enough, grappling infuses your gun with Void damage for the next couple rounds in the chamber.

But the actual dessert after this parkour course is tucked away for later. Warframe is going back to actual wall-running in 2026. You won't do a bunny-hop through the wall, you will do proper wall runs again, Prince-of-Persia-style. This feature was supposed to ship with The Old Peace too, but now it's cut content awaiting future polish.

Gun-blade, but in two slots instead of one

Gunblades have existed as a ranged-but-melee option in Warframe for a long time. With The Old Peace, however, we are getting a hybrid in a different way. Vinquibus, the first-ever Bayonet weapon, will occupy both the primary and melee slot once equipped. It is also modded as a regular primary/melee weapon in respective slots.

During gameplay, due to how smooth Warframes gun-to-melee switch is, it works out as just playing with any old gun and blade, except it's all on the same trench-warfare rifle.

We have Unum Tower at home (and also reverse-Ascension)

Descendia will be a weekly reward tower (Image via Digital Extremes)

Those who predicted an upside-down Ascension game mode afer the Jade Shadows update may rejoice. They called it correctly. The new Descendia game mode, coming with The Old Peace, will finally let you do a vertical Orokin Tower heist... of sorts.

It's no ordinary follow-the-pod mission. Instead, you drop in on top of a 21-floor tower, and each floor has its own objective you have to clear to descend further. Descendia will also be a long-term weekly mission like The Circuit, with every seventh floor acting as a save point.

Quest skip to access quest-locked game modes

If a new player wants to, they can join the new game modes immediately (Image via Digital Extremes)

As arguably the biggest experimental feature in The Old Peace, you can now skip past your natural level of Warframe progression to play the Descendia and Perita Rebellion game modes right away. Ordinarily, you'd have to complete The Old Peace quest (which also means beating all the quests at least till The Lotus Eaters).

However, if you're a returning player who just wants to jump into the action, you can. There's an optional quest-skip prompt that lets you put aside the quest for later perusal, and just get to the new weekly Descendia grind. This is only available for the two new game modes for the time being, but it's a solution to the quest-gating dilemma that Digital Extremes may resort to in the future.

Autonomous summons for reactive gameplay

One giant leap for summoners (Image via Digtial Extremes)

The upcoming Warframe, Uriel, will have three different familiars as part of his passive. However, unlike Caliban or any other existing summoning-oriented frame, Uriel's infernal minions go around the mission doing their own thing.

Self-driving summons are not that new, but generally, Xaku's floating guns is the best metaphor for how the gameplay loop of a summoner Warframe tends to be designed. Not so with Uriel, though.

Your own abilities don't do a great deal on their own. You'll have to instead pay attention to what your bite-sized devil-spawns are up to: who's being chained, who's getting face-hugged or converted into a rune, and following up on them gives you great benefits.

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Edited by Sambit Pal