What Is the Release Date of Cyte-09 in Warframe?

The Warframe: 1999 expansion will be bringing a lot of new things to Warframe, including the brand new Cyte-09 Waframe. But when will our latest friend be released?

Cyte-09 Warframe release date

Cyte-09 will be released as part of the Warframe: 1999 expansion during the last quarter of this year. I suspect the update will drop in the run-up to Christmas, although we have no firm dates yet. We don’t know much about the character just yet, other than that he ends up being a part of Arthur’s Protoframe crew in the past, and this somehow results in his Frame data ending up in the future for us to play with.

For folks who don’t know, Warframe: 1999 is heavily referential to Dark Sector, and Cyte-09 is a reference to the Technocyte Virus that rampages through the world of the game and has now ended up in old Earth in the year 1999 and is threatening all manner of consequences. This is not the first time that things from Dark Sector have bled into Warframe, as both games are developed by Digital Extremes. Things like the main character’s name, Hayden Tenno, carry over as the protagonist’s name, and even his main weapon is the Glaive throwing weapon that we end up with in Warframe.

According to Kory Cromie, the artist at Digital Extremes who worked on the concept for the Warframe, this was the first-ever Warframe character that they were given to work on. I think they knocked it out of the park. The design is similar to other things in the Warframe universe, invoking hints of Inaros and Lavos, but it is also unique, especially in the face mask and beret-style helmet. Like many other Warframes, the initial design was a sketch by Keith Thompson, who has been the catalyst for a lot of the Warframes we end up getting in the game.

Cromie sites 20th-century foreign legions and irregular resistance fighters as sources of inspiration. The design is stunning, and I cannot wait to see the full model that they produce for the game.

We don’t know anything about his kit yet, but we do know that the Cyte-09 we will meet in the past is something of a sharpshooter, helping out Arthur from a distance, so that might give us some clues as to how he plays. Warframe doesn’t really have a Frame that leans heavily into the idea of sniping, so that might be an interesting way to go.