Warframe's next big expansion Whispers in the Walls gets weird with Necramechs and retro Earth tech

As part of its big TennoCon 2023 fan convention news blowout, developer Digital Extremes has pulled back the veil on Warframe’s next big expansion, Whispers in the Walls, as well as detailing the free-to-play sci-fi shooter’s mid-term future as its celebrates the big one-oh – including perhaps its wildest expansion yet in next year’s Warframe: 1999.

Whispers in the Walls, though – which was revealed with the huge 20-minute chunk of gameplay you can see below – is certainly no slouch on the wild front, continuing Warframe’s wonderfully weird streak by folding in mysterious multi-storey men, instantaneous dimensional shifts, and even brief glimpses of extremely out-of-place retro Earth tech – 80s mobile phones and beige PCs with CRTs to name a few – in its arresting unveiling.

As explained by Warframe creative director Rebecca Ford in a press event prior to TennoCon, Whispers in the Walls – which introduces new missions types, NPCs, bosses, and factions, alongside a new hub and procedural tile set – is all about going back to the familiar and re-contextualising everything players have seen so far in their ten-year Warframe journey.

It’s a whisking back of the lore curtain that begins with players returning to Deimos’ Necralisk for a conversation with delightful floaty head-thing Loid, who says he’s been hearing the name Kalymos in his dreams. After a bit of walk-and-talk, the opening eventually leads the pair down into the bowels of the Necralisk, where it transpires strange machinery has started some unstoppable process. Here, the preamble reaches its climax, and the walls of the room slide open revealing previously uncharted fathoms beyond.