Officially dubbed as “The Steel Path,” Digital Extremes has revealed that Warframe hard mode will begin it’s testing this weekend for invited players.

The Steel Path will be introducing new difficulty modes to Warframe that will give players the opportunity to replay both old and newer content, only at a far higher challenge. For now, they are running some public clusters and have opened up to inviting at least 1000 PC players. Steam will be required to participate in this round of clusters, and for those interested in participating you can do so by visiting this link: Public Test Cluster: Opt-in Key Lottery #2!

Here are the details on Warframe hard mode as seen on the official forums –

What it is:

• Higher Difficulty Series of content that rewards exclusive cosmetic decorations, emotes, and mastery.
• An extra layer of opportunity for players to use their powerful gear to take on threats at a higher level without having to wait in missions for long periods of time.
• A way to engage with some better scaling Affinity and Mod Rewards.

What it isn’t:

• Intended to be associated with the nebulous ‘end game’ topic.
• overly complicated in its goal to simply provide higher-level content and some exclusive rewards.
• tiered. We are providing one 100+ level pass to be cognizant of matchmaking for our first iteration.

The Warframe hard mode was first announced early last month and has since then received several teases of it’s launch being near. With public testings now starting, chances are we will see the release of The Steel Path within the next few months. Of course, console players will eventually see this update, most likely shortly after it’s PC release. We’ll be sure to keep tabs on it’s development, but in the meantime, PC players be sure to sign-up for your chance to participate in the public cluster.