Tenno Time To Explain #4: Ten TennoCon Predictions, based on almost nothing, 2026 Edition
It’s the eve of TennoLive, DE has been dealing us teaser cards every day for the last ten days, and while we wait for them to show us their hand, here are ten predictions before TennoCon, based on almost nothing.
It probably goes without saying, seeing as how we will be discussing potential content that follows Warframe’s most recent events, but just in case, you’ve now been warned, from here on out—spoilers!
A Sentient Companion System - Warframe is at its best when it’s walking the fine line between making its systems deeper and more engaging, while also continuing to widen and expand its world. Last year, during the Old Peace, we met one of our Operators oldest friends, a young sentient named Adis, unlike any sentient that came before him. During the quest, the Operator and Adis even participate in this weird almost marriage-coded unity ceremony before shit starts to hit the Tau-themed fan. And although it was all undercut by Ballas’ machinations, as even the best things for our Operator always seem to be, this whole moment felt very important and almost prophetic.
What if the story of our operator isn’t complete without a sentient companion to balance it out? I think DE is going to add a whole new system that lets us build out our own sentient to aid our Tenno in adventures to come. Maybe this sentient will be Adis reborn, or somehow one of his progeny, or something else entirely, but I think the time is right for DE to add something that truly opens the game up in a whole new way.
A Sentient Tenno - similar to prediction number one, yet different. The New War brought us revelations of the Drifter, and with them, a whole new playable main character. Perhaps what we will see next is another playable main character in the form of a sentient, Adis or otherwise. If the Operator and Drifter make some strange eternalistic dyad, maybe there’s actually a case to be made for a void-holy trinity with a sentient as its third prong.
Adis made a deal with our friendly neighborhood man in the wall - I’m a bit foggy on the lore implications on this one, but with the ever growing list of characters making deals with Wally–our Tenno, the Lotus, and now even Hunhow–perhaps Adis has also added himself to the list?
A Sentient Protoframe - okay, this one is a carryover from last year. At that time I had said:
"We already have frames like Revenant and Caliban that were created from sentient material, but what if when we get to Tau, we find the Sentients have been trying to create their own kind of warframe? We know from the Sacrifice that Ballas was sending schematics of frames back to Hunhow. Could it be possible for these schematics to have been backwards engineered in a way that would work with Sentient anatomy? Could we see a new character that’s a Sentient, not a human, in the early stages of transforming into a warframe?"
I speculated at the time that protoframes didn’t have to be human, and while we sort of got halfway with there with the announcement of the orokin protoframe Roathe, blue body and all, I think it’s going to happen for real this year. Because, if not during our big Tau update, then when? I don’t think it’s going to be Caliban, as he got a lot of the spotlight last year, and I don’t think DE is going to double dip. I think it might be a proto for a new frame entirely, but maybe it’s also Revenant.
We’re getting to Tau via Helminth - look, I won’t pretend to be a lore expert here, but we traveled back in time to 1999 sort of via helminth, so who’s to say we can’t cross star systems? It seems to me that Albrecht is already on Tau, and if he’s on Tau, maybe he brought a strand of the Helminth with him?
A new base of operations - we had the orbiter, then the New War brought Drifter's Camp, and 1999 brought the Backroom, so it only seems right to have a Tau base now as well.
A Cozy Farming Sim - Let's not stop at a new base of operations. We know DE likes to put their own spin on trendy game mechanics and genres. We got the dating sim two years ago in the form of Kim Chats. Maybe this time we’re getting a Tau-based farming sim.
There will be a new star chart, but not yet - If we're finally making it to Tau, I'm hoping DE will build out a whole new star chart for us to explore. I think they will announce this is coming, and it will serve as a roadmap for content to come, but we aren’t getting it with this update, at least not more than a few nodes.
Expansion of Tau and Void damage and/or a rework/refinement of the damage system - this is another holdover from last year, but I still think we’re due for it! Enough said.
The debut of a new Dan Trachtenberg directed cinematic - I predicted this last year, and I think there’s even less of a reason for it to be true this time, but I’m going to keep trying to manifest this. DE and Dan Trachtenberg, please collaborate again!
And that's it for now! Ten predictions before TennoCon. I'm looking forward to catching the stream tomorrow and taking in all of the fun new announcements DE has in store for us. But while we wait, what are some of your predictions for TennoCon?