Warframe Tau System: What It Is & Why You Should Pay Attention

In anticipation to Warframe’s biggest annual event, Digital Extremes has released a few teasers. Among the teasers was a little info drop for the new tau system upgrade for Warframe. This is great news for the community as the players have been waiting for a Warframe tau system for a long time. Finally, getting it could possibly mean a great leap for the Warframe lore. A fair warning to any readers that are not up to date with the quests, there will be a lot of spoilers and many things you may not be able to understand. Hence, it is recommended that players complete the main storyline of Warframe at the very least.

Tau System’s Lore Drop

To understand it’s significance, we must first understand what is leading us to the Tau system. The expansion is so deep rooted into the lore that we have to start from the very beginning. At first there were the Orokin, who had dominion over the current solar system (origin system). But the Orokin wanted more, so they formed a crew and sent a ship with passengers to travel to the Warframe tau system and inhabit it. The ship was called the Zariman, and the tenno are actually the descendants of the original people in the Zariman.

It was while travelling to the tau system that the Zariman had an accident, and encountered the man in the wall. The man in the wall is a manifestation of the void itself, and is a very powerful entity that is prominent in Warframe’s lore. This entity’s power is still not fully known to us, and we don’t have much information about it due to the limited interaction we had with both this creature, and Albrecht Entrati.

The Orokin wanted dominion over the tau system, and the since the Zariman failed, they wanted a safe route to the other system. Hence they wanted to create a solar rail, like the solar junctions that connect the planets in the origin system, and from there, all the way to tau. To be able to achieve this, the sentients were created. The Orokin then sent them to inhabit tau.  The sentients then later rebelled against the Orokin from within tau. As a result, a full scale war took place which we know as the old war.

While the old war was taking place, the infested had also joined the fray, and this had started to change the dynamics of the old war.  With the infested being connected to a hive mind, their only goal is to infect, conquer, and destroy all life. Later on, it was due to the modification of a strain of the infestation called the helminth strain that gave birth to warframes. The ones controlling the warframes were the tenno, from the Zariman. The tenno then fought against the sentients with the orokin.

Later on, the sentients freed the tenno from the orokin safety measures and then the sentients and tenno defeated the orokin. One of the sentients guided the tenno throughout the war and was their support. This sentient is none other than Natah, who also went by the Lotus. She had originally come to only eradicate the orokin but then she betrayed the sentients and became a mother-like figure for the tenno.

After the Orokin were defeated, the tenno then turned on the sentients and forced them back into tau. This meant that Natah had also betrayed her own kind. After the old war ended, there was a period of peace which was then broken once again by the sentients. They had been biding their time in tau before attacking the tenno. This caused another war which we refer to as the new war, and this has it’s own quest in which you probably will have participated.

Warframe Tau System’s Significance

The tau system has always been present in major events in the Warframe lore. It is a massive part of the game’s lore, and some even consider it the foundation for the entire storyline. Finally getting the tau system in the game could pretty much full all the holes in the story and possibly even completing it.

As of right now, we only have a teaser for the Warframe tau system, which you can watch here. The release date for the tau system upgrade for Warframe  is not confirmed, additional info will be released on July 19th 4:30 PM ET. You can watch the stream yourself on twitch, and grab a free Valkyr Prime from the twitch drops while you’re at it. Or you could check out our website for any updates after the stream. Warframe is available on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Serie X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.