For the game itself, see WARFRAME.

The true nature of the Warframes and their Tenno connection is a secret lost to the Old War. Together, they represent our best hope in turning the tide of the machine war. Warframes are unique from Dax and other Infantry, deploying dangerous and esoteric Void energy, and equipped with often mundane physical weapons – this is key to fighting an enemy that had turned our technology against us.

—Warframes Fragment

A mysterious weaponized armor controlled solely by the Tenno. Through the Warframe, Tenno can cheat death, channel the forbidden Void energies and face scores of enemies without fatigue. Due to apparent resistances of their Bio-Metal exoskeletons, Warframes can be safely deployed to Infestation Outbreaks, should they occur. In-depth information of the Warframe mandate is forbidden to all but the Seven.

—Warframe Technology Fragment

The Warframe is an advanced weapons system used exclusively by the Tenno in their missions throughout the Origin System. The Warframes possess regenerative shields, greatly enhanced mobility, and the use of an array of supernatural abilities – all of which further augment the Tenno's deadly use of traditional combat arts.

Lore

“You're not supposed to be in here! You're going to ruin the surprise!”

The following article/section contains spoilers.

“Orokin secrets cannot remain secret forever! Start talking!”

The following article/section is conjecture. Content is subjected to change/removal as the game progresses. Please do not use this article for critical in-game information.

WhatRemainsComic5-7 — Prime Warframes fighting Infested

As a result of failing war efforts against the Sentients during The Old War, Warframes were created by the Orokin Executor Ballas after experimenting with the Infestation on human hosts. More specifically, the Helminth strain was developed to be injected into the strongest bodies the Orokin could find, volunteers or not, including Dax soldiers.^[1] However, the first Warframes were failures, turning against the Orokin.^[2] Torture, drugs, and surgical operations were attempted to destroy the hosts' minds and to tame the Warframes, but to no avail.^[3]

The Warframe project was put on hold until Transference technology developed, granting the ability to transfer one's consciousness into a surrogate body. The children survivors of the Zariman Ten Zero incident, hidden away in Reservoirs to control their chaotic Void powers, became the new "operators" of Warframes as they were the only ones to "see inside an ugly, broken thing and take away its pain".^[4] Through Transference, the Zariman children, now known as Tenno, were able to operate the Warframes and channel their Void powers through them.

Equipped with archaic ballistic and melee weapons, the newly operated Warframes were deployed onto the battlefield with great success against their Sentient assailants, turning the tide of war in the Orokin's favor.^[5]

Warframes also found use by the Orokin to control their colonies^[6], to serve as political assassins^[7], and to purge Infestation outbreaks.^[8] Any details surrounding the truth of the Warframes and their Tenno operators were kept hidden by the Council of Executors.^[9]^[10]^[11] A mythos surrounding them were created to mask the source of their power and to incite fear throughout the Orokin Empire.^[12] Due to their sparse numbers, civilian populations in the current WARFRAME era may still believe in these ancient myths about the Warframes and Tenno.^[13]^[14]

Overview

Warframes are divided into a collection of diverse models, each of which personifies a great warrior spirit. Players may don Excalibur to gain his prowess with bladed weapons, for instance. Each Warframe is moreover highly reconfigurable, meaning players can tailor their choice of Warframe to fit a multitude of playstyles. While certain Warframes excel in a particular situation, none are limited to a singular role and no role demands the use of a singular Warframe.

Players customize Warframes via the installation of Mods which can upgrade their Warframe Attributes, endow them with additional utilities, and even alter their abilities. Further bonuses can be achieved by equipping add-ons, such as Arcane Helmets or Arcane Enhancements.

Each Warframe features four unique and extraordinary activatable powers that allow for a large degree of control over the surrounding environment. Warframes also possess passive abilities – powers that activate on their own accord. These powers allow a Tenno to cast virtually anything, with examples ranging from devastating waves of energy, to bullet-nullifying barriers, mass healing, portals to the stars beyond, radial waves of antimatter, and even ethereal weapons. Warframes greatly augment the physical abilities of a Tenno as well, affecting natural skills like swordsmanship, marksmanship and, most notably, acrobatics.

New players start the game by selecting their first Warframe, from Excalibur, Mag, or Volt, and playing through the Vor's Prize Introductory Quest. As the player progresses, they may craft or buy other Warframes from the full list of offerings.

As of Hotfix 37.0.3, there are a total of 103 Warframes consisting of both original models and special variants. Only one of these special variants is exclusive to a certain group of players; Excalibur Prime is Founders-exclusive. Of the distinct Warframes, 28 are male, 26 are female, and 1 is non-binary (pluriform).

Acquisition

Warframes are obtained by two general methods: crafting them with in-game materials at the Foundry or purchasing them fully assembled from the Market. Additionally, obtaining a Warframe requires the use of a storage slot. Players possess a finite number of storage slots, which can be expanded by purchasing additional slots at the Market.

Foundry

Assembling a Warframe at the Foundry requires the Warframe's main blueprint and three component parts:

To construct a Warframe, players must first assemble each of its components. This is performed by expending Resources earned throughout the game, including a copy of the part's corresponding blueprint. Component blueprints are generally obtained by completing appropriate Assassination missions, Quests, or Clan Dojo research, though exceptions exist. After collecting and assembling all of the necessary parts, players can purchase the Warframe's main blueprint from the Market with Credits (the game's free-to-play currency) to complete the construction process. Once assembled, a Warframe may be upgraded at any time with the installation of an Orokin Reactor.

Market

Warframes can also be purchased fully assembled in the Market with Platinum. When acquired in this manner, a Warframe comes pre-installed with an Orokin Reactor and is provided with a complimentary Warframe storage slot.

Storage

Players begin the game with two Warframe storage slots and can acquire additional slots from the Market for a nominal fee of 20 Platinum each (Players also gain a complimentary slot for any Warframe purchased directly from the Market). Warframe slots can also be acquired through Nightwave. Note that a player can acquire Platinum without spending real world money by trading with other players.

Attributes

Main article: Warframe Attributes

Attributes are the stats and functionality of Warframes such as Health, Armor, Shields, Energy, and Sprint Speed. Each Warframe is made unique with a different combination of these and their powers.

Leveling Up

Main article: Affinity

Warframes require Affinity, conventionally known in other games as experience points (XP), in order to attain higher ranks. Each Warframe levels up separately from other Warframes to a maximum of Rank 30. Note that each of the Warframe's equipped weapons have Affinity rankings as well which also increase separately from Warframes. During missions, players are awarded Affinity through actions getting such as killing enemies, using abilities, completing objectives or reviving downed allies.

With each successive rank, a Warframe gains mod capacity as well as increases to Health, Shields, and Energy capacity, as well as 200 mastery points. Stat boosts received from ranking up are calculated from the base value of the Warframe for each stat, preventing mods from affecting the bonus.

During level up, all Warframe stats gain:

+10 Health capacity every 3 ranks starting at Rank 1
+10 Shield capacity every 3 ranks starting at Rank 2
+5 Energy capacity every 3 ranks starting at Rank 3

For a total of +100 Health, +100 Shields and +50 Energy capacity at Rank 30.

View Rank-Up Exceptions List▾▾

Since Update 15.0 (2014-10-24), Warframe Abilities unlock and rank up with affinity. The maximum Rank for any Ability is Rank 3.

View Ability Leveling List▾▾

Cosmetics

Main article: Warframe Cosmetics

Every Warframe can equip various kinds of alternative equipment or skins. These cosmetic items include Helmets, Idle Animations, holographic Emblems, Sigils and Cosmetic Armor.

Some of these items are available by default, some can either be bought from the Market or found as blueprints via the Cred Offering system. They can all be equipped in the Arsenal under the Appearance Tab.

Release Order

Raw Data

Main article: Module:Warframes/data

Trivia

Warframe, from the Orokin , literally means "War platform".
The name "Warframes" comes from a 1950s Boeing (Company) WWII research project equipping WWII soldiers with exoskeletons, as mentioned by Steve Sinclair during Devstream #1.^[15]
- Such a project did not actually exist and never saw development or research with Boeing^{[citation needed]}, which never developed significant military ground equipment of any kind until 2014. It is likely that the creator was referring to a failed system referred to as Hardiman, which was developed by General Electric in the mid to late 1960s, just prior to America's involvement in the Vietnam War^{[citation needed]}.
The naming convention for Warframes and its correspondence to various roles for combat hearkens to Japanese popular media design elements of using referential and real world mythology-based lore, in where they are not just used to evoke powerful reminiscence to their namesake and a sense of exoticism, but to also connotate otherworldliness and mysterious fantastical power rooted in dimensions beyond the everyday.
As of the Devstream 178, to complete the 'Alphabet of Frames', a Warframe will need to start with the letter 'U'.
Warframes were apparently assigned Operators during the Old War, as was the case with Jade.

Media

Warframe Deconstructed- Ep.1- Warframes

References

↑ "We cultured the Infestation, conceiving of a hybrid. Transformed, but only just. The 'Helminth' was created, born to yield these new warriors, worthy of battle against you. The great and terrible Hunhow. We took our greatest, volunteers or not, and polluted them with these cultured reagents. They transformed. They became Infested... but only just. Their skin blossomed into sword-steel. Their organs, interlinked with untold resilience. Yet their minds were free of the Infested madness. Or so we thought." - Ballas during The Sacrifice
↑ "The Warframes... All of them... failures. Surprised? They turned on us, just as you did. And so we had no choice but to commit them to grave." - Ballas during The Sacrifice
↑ "We had created monsters we couldn't control. We drugged them, tortured them, eviscerated them... We brutalized their minds... but it did not work. Until they came." - Ballas during The Sacrifice
↑ Quote from The Sacrifice
↑ "Warframes" Cephalon Fragment
↑ See Atlas' and Gauss' Leverian entries
↑ Ash's Leverian entry
↑ "Warframe Technology" Cephalon Fragment
↑ "In-depth information of the Warframe mandate is forbidden to all but the Seven." - "Warframes" Cephalon Fragment
↑ "Every time we tear a Tenno corpse from its metal womb we find nothing to explain their power. Our Warframe engineers gesture wildly about nanotechnology, how reactive dissolution hides the answers. What if a Warframe is merely a lightning rod? A conduit for these demons of the Void? Consider how it could change our plan." - Intercepted inbox message from Captain Vor during Operation: Arid Fear
↑ "Found the Reservoir? Hm, as unpleasant as our past is, I have to ask; I've, uh, seen inside a Tenno, yes. And what I've found didn't make sense. Does this Reservoir conceal some great deception?" - Alad V during The Second Dream
↑ "I had been, until then, a Tenno denier. They were ghosts, propaganda, twisted casualties of the Void Era. Not possibly real." - Mag Prime Codex entry
↑ "Tenno! The myths... they weren't myths!" - Myconian Male 1 during The Glast Gambit
↑ "The dogmatic Arbiters seek a truth through discipline and practice. They reject the 'Tenno as Warrior' mythology – a lie constructed to limit their potential." - Arbiters of Hexis description
↑ Origins of the word "Warframes"

Patch History

Update 34.0 (2023-10-18)

Base vs Final Stats in Modding - Health / Energy / Shield / Armor Stat Overhaul

If you’ve spent any time invested in the deeper nuances of Modding, you may be familiar with “Warframe Math” - math that upon first glance doesn’t really make sense, but once you learn the inner workings of the game, it all comes together. While we can appreciate the value that complex systems offer to a certain subsect of players, there are other aspects of the game that should have clear and understandable outcomes. Namely: Shield, Health, Energy, and Armor Modding.

Pop quiz: what is 300 + 440%? If you answered 740, you may just be an Excalibur player.

Vitality (+440% Heath), Redirection (+440% Shields), Flow (+150% Energy), and Steel Fiber (+110% Armor) come with large modifier values that don’t seem to match their outcome in-game. This is because these Mods apply their multiplier to the base stats of the Warframe - i.e., the stats you have at Rank 0. In the Excalibur example, a Rank 30 Excalibur’s Health stat of 300 earns an additional 440 Health from max rank Vitality (+440% Heath) since it applies to his base rank Health stat of 100, resulting in 740 total health.

In this update, we have removed this obfuscation by having Health, Shield, Energy, and Armor Mods apply to the stats of Warframes at their current rank. Continuing our Excalibur example, instead of Vitality always applying to Excalibur’s base rank 100 Health, it would apply to his Health stat based on his rank - namely, the stat you can actually see in your Arsenal. If your Excalibur were Rank 30, his Health stat would be 300, which means Vitality’s multiplier would be calculated off of 300.

With previous Health and Mod values, additional adjustments are needed to make this revision work while maintaining game balance. By only changing where the multiplier applies, a Rank 30 Excalibur would receive an extra 1,320 Health from max rank Vitality, resulting in a total health stat of 1,600. This outcome is a significant buff, which is not the intention of this system change.

To remedy this, we approached this problem in two ways:

1 - We reduced the overall multiplier for Health, Shield, Energy, and Armor Mods.
Since these now affect Max Rank Warframe stats, these Mods need to scale differently to maintain the status quo. Additionally, we wanted these new values to be as clear and understandable to all players as possible! Here are a few examples of these value changes:

Vitality: Reduced from +440% to +100% Health
Redirection: Reduced from +440% to +100% Shield Capacity
Steel Fiber: Reduced from +110% to +100% Armor
Flow: Reduced from +150% to +100% Energy Max

Note: These are not all of the Mods affected by this change. We share the comprehensive list further down in this section of the update notes.

Doing some quick math, this means that a Rank 30 Excalibur (300 Health) with a reworked Vitality Mod (+100% Health, applied to the final Health stat) would receive 300 extra Health, for a total of 600. That, in contrast, is a nerf, which we also don’t want to do.

So, our next step:

2 - We adjusted Warframe Health, Shield, Energy, and Armor values to keep the end result of the revised Mods as close to the original values as possible.

With this change, Excalibur’s Rank 30 Health stat is 370. With +100% Health from a max Vitality Mod, his resulting Health stat would be 740, which matches what it was originally.

While this path to the same result may seem a little complicated, the outcome matches our intention: we want players to be able to look at their Health, Shield, and Armor Mods, and be able to understand how they affect the stats they see in their Arsenal.

In addition to everything above, we also increased the base stat values for Warframes so that these revised Mods offer similar value for lower-ranked Frames. To do so, we reduced the amount of Health/Shield/Energy that Warframes earn per rank in half, and transferred the sum of that value to their base stats.

For Armor, this is the one stat that does not increase with your Warframe’s level (with some exceptions). Armor values across the board have been slightly increased to compensate for the Mod changes.

Not to beat a dead Kaithe, but Mods will now be applying to the Max Rank stat instead of the Base Rank. You may look at these numbers and think “nerf” or “buff” depending, but the outcome is that total Modded values are the same, if not a little higher in some cases. Here are a few outliers before we get into the nitty-gritty of it:

Lavos, Nidus, Nidus Prime, and Kullervo all have buffs to their Armor values as a result of this change.
- Ex: Nidus Prime’s Armor stat increased from 910 (previous) to 1,050 (new with this update) with max Steel Fiber Equipped. With all 3 Umbral Warframe Mods equipped, this buff results in a difference of 1198 Armor (previous) to 1470 Armor (new with this update).
Garuda and Garuda Prime’s received buffs to their Modded Energy pool.
- ie. Garuda Prime’s Energy stat has been increased from 800 (previous) to 912 (new with this update) with max Primed Flow equipped.

Warframe Stat Changes:

Reveal hidden contents ▾▾

Warframe Mod Changes:

As promised, here is the comprehensive list of Mod changes to go with the stat changes above.
*the values below are at Max Rank!

Reveal hidden contents ▾▾

While there may be significant changes to Warframe Stats and Mod values as a part of this overhaul, the end result is that your Builds should mostly stay the same. The key difference is the added clarity of what your Health / Shield / Energy / Armor Mods do in your Upgrade screens!

Update 24.4 (2019-03-08)

UI Changes & Fixes

The Warframe Abilities screen has received a visual and functional overhaul!
- Ability information is now displayed in a more condensed form, with hover-over functionality to display specific Stats and expand the information.
- A new ‘Tips’ section can be hover-overed to display tips for that respective Warframe’s Abilities such as tricks to synergize with other Warframes, most effective Damage output methods, Ability interactions within the Warframe itself, and more!
- Respective Ability videos now also appear upon hover-over to add that little extra spice! This initial Ability video aspect is currently functional for Excalibur, Mag, Volt, Garuda, Baruuk, Revenant, and Hildryn! More to gradually come!
- Your chosen UI Theme is now thematically reflected.
Respective Warframe Ability stats can now be seen in the Warframe Arsenal Upgrade screen.
Added stats to your Warframe’s Passive description in the Abilities menu.

Update: Specters of the Rail 0.0 (2016-07-08)

Warframe Helmet blueprints are now labeled as ‘Neuroptics’. Please note that when trading components, full Warframe sets now contain Systems, Chassis, and Neuroptics (previously Helmet) as components.

Update 17.5 (2015-10-01)

Duration Mods now have an effect on toggled Abilities.
- For example: Mods that added 100% duration will make a 10 Energy drain become a 5 Energy drain.
- The minimum energy cost of an Ability cannot go below 25% of the base cost.

Update 15.9 (2015-01-08)

Warframes will now have temporary immunity while loading into a mission in progress, to prevent spawning into a mission half-dead due to enemy attacks.

Update 15.0 (2014-10-24)

New Mods - Ability Augment Mods (x20)!

Ability Augment Mods tweak and enhance Warframe Abilities in interesting ways. They are equipped in Mod Slots via the Warframe Upgrade Screen.
These mods can be found within the Reward tiers of Syndicates. Higher Standing will allow Tenno to access the corresponding Augments per Syndicate.

New Customization - Sigils!

Found in the “Regalia” section of the Arsenal, equip and customize Sigils to show your loyalties and accomplishments!
- Please note: All Founders will be receiving Sigils corresponding to their rank at a later Update.

New Customization - Warframe Idles Feature!

You can now equip the 40+ Agile and Noble stances across all Warframes! Each Stance is unlocked with Platinum and will work across all Warframes once purchased.

Ability Mod Changes

The former 4 Ability Slots have undergone the following changes:
- All Warframes have had 2 Ability Slots removed. Any Forma spent on these slots will be refunded.
- All Warframes have had 2 previous Ability Slots converted to be blank polarities (unless otherwise Polarized).
- All Warframes purchased or crafted moving forward will have their abilities automatically viewable in the Arsenal.
- Abilities are all unlocked as a Warframe is leveled up.
- Abilities are all ranked up as a Warframe is leveled up.
On Login, the following will occur for all accounts:
- All highest Rank Ability Mods will be preserved and duplicated to fit the new Ability system. This means you won’t need to rank up any **abilities if you already had a Maxed (or partially fused) Ability Mod.
- Two slots will be removed (prefers ability polarity) and Forma used on Ability slots will be refunded.
- All Ability Mods converted to Fusion Cores of the appropriate level.

Update 11.6 (2014-01-08)

Made all Warframe components sellable (1000 credits each).

Update 7.11 (2013-05-17)

Invulnerability while casting ults removed for all Warframes.

Update 7.6 (2013-04-01)

Health, Shield, and Power Max stats will now passively increase with level.

Warframes Edit
Ash ( Prime) • Atlas ( Prime) • Banshee ( Prime) • Baruuk ( Prime) • Caliban • Chroma ( Prime) • Citrine • Dagath • Dante • Ember ( Prime) • Equinox ( Prime) • Excalibur ( Umbra, Prime) • Frost ( Prime) • Gara ( Prime) • Garuda ( Prime) • Gauss ( Prime) • Grendel ( Prime) • Gyre • Harrow ( Prime) • Hildryn ( Prime) • Hydroid ( Prime) • Inaros ( Prime) • Ivara ( Prime) • Jade • Khora ( Prime) • Koumei • Kullervo • Lavos • Limbo ( Prime) • Loki ( Prime) • Mag ( Prime) • Mesa ( Prime) • Mirage ( Prime) • Nekros ( Prime) • Nezha ( Prime) • Nidus ( Prime) • Nova ( Prime) • Nyx ( Prime) • Oberon ( Prime) • Octavia ( Prime) • Protea ( Prime) • Qorvex • Revenant ( Prime) • Rhino ( Prime) • Saryn ( Prime) • Sevagoth ( Prime) • Styanax • Titania ( Prime) • Trinity ( Prime) • Valkyr ( Prime) • Vauban ( Prime) • Volt ( Prime) • Voruna • Wisp ( Prime) • Wukong ( Prime) • Xaku • Yareli • Zephyr ( Prime)
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