Warframe Tau release date: late 2026, with Devstream 198 on Oct. 30 as the first of two Tau showcases

Warframe: Tau takes the game beyond the Origin System for the first time, in late 2026. Digital Extremes hasn’t set the day, but the build-up has started: a first Tau showcase on Oct. 30 and a one-time event that ends on Nov. 17. Here’s the release window, our estimate and what’s in the update.

When does Warframe Tau come out?

Digital Extremes revealed Warframe: Tau at TennoCon on July 11, 2026, for later in 2026 on all platforms. Its October schedule, posted on Oct. 5, still says Tau arrives later in 2026, and the studio hasn’t named a date.

Our estimate: mid-December 2026. Warframe’s big year-end updates have landed in the second week of December three years running: The Old Peace on Dec. 10, 2025, Warframe: 1999 on Dec. 13, 2024 and Whispers in the Walls on Dec. 13, 2023. Last year, Digital Extremes announced the December window on Oct. 31 and the exact date on Nov. 28. The Taubound event, which fuels the trip to Tau, ends on Nov. 17, and our estimate puts Tau after that date.

Devstream 198 on Oct. 30. The first detailed look since TennoCon comes on Friday, Oct. 30, from 2 to 3 p.m. ET: Devstream 198, Tau Part One, the first of two Tau showcases. Viewers who watch from start to finish earn a Tauforged Archon Shard Grab Bag, with one Crimson, Amber, Azure, Topaz, Violet or Emerald shard inside. A Soulframe Devstream follows from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. ET.

Epoch Operation: Taubound runs from Oct. 15 to Nov. 17, and Digital Extremes says it won’t run again. Players collect Moonflesh in any mission on Eris and trade it to Praghasa, a Sentient Mothership, for rewards and daily story messages; that fuel powers the path to the Tau System. Anyone who has finished Vor’s Prize can join, since the normal Star Chart and Junction requirements are lifted for the event.

Separately, a permanent Tau Prologue Quest has been in the Codex since Oct. 15. It needs The Hex and The Old Peace quests done first and sets up the road to Tau. Since July 13, players who completed Vor’s Prize can also customize their own Vessel at any Dry Dock.

Fornax, Brysko and the Hunra. Tau is Warframe’s first entirely new star system, orbiting a binary star, and Digital Extremes frames the update around one question: “What has become of Tau?” The journey starts in Fornax, a lawless Sentient ring city of slums, docks and gambling dens, soaked by storms of black rain that drive its people mad.

The new Warframe is Brysko, a noir-inspired Warframe working with Albrecht Entrati to infiltrate the Sentient underworld. Brysko fights with the Corecracker, an Exalted Pistol, and Rain & Shine, a pair of brutal Fist weapons. The enemies are the Fornax Drowners, a new Sentient faction, and the target is the Hunra, the kingpin who controls the city’s rackets through violence and fear.

Between fights, the casino tables offer Portau, Warframe’s first original card game, with suits of Blooms, Cores, Moons and Suns. Fornax is only the start: another location, still unrevealed, launches with the full update.

Expected price: free, our estimate. Warframe is free to play on Steam, and The Old Peace arrived in December 2025 as a free update. Tau comes to all platforms, according to Digital Extremes. Before it, the fall’s Iceblade of Narin update added Narin, the 66th Warframe, on Sept. 23, and the six-player Icebind mode followed on Oct. 7.

For another free-to-play shooter changing course this fall, see our Destiny 2 unvaulting page, and for player numbers in the genre, our ARC Raiders player count tracker.

This page is updated as soon as Digital Extremes announces the Warframe: Tau release date.