How To Unlock The Steel Path 2025

warframe • 2025-11-07 • Beginner

How to Unlock Steel Path in Warframe

Steel Path is Warframe’s New Game+ mode, offering harder enemies, improved rewards, and access to new progression systems that make your loadouts even stronger.

This guide will walk you through what Steel Path is, how to unlock it, and everything it offers once you begin clearing nodes.

What Is Steel Path?

Steel Path is a harder version of the normal Star Chart where:

  • All enemies are +100 levels higher
  • Enemies gain +150% Health and Shields
  • Enemy density is always set to maximum
  • Missions award +100% Resource Drop Chance
  • Missions award +100% Mod Drop Chance

When you enable Steel Path:

  • Your entire Star Chart resets for Steel Path only
  • You DO NOT lose progress on the normal Star Chart
  • You earn Mastery XP again for each Steel Path node

Steel Path also adds:

  • Incursions — 6 daily Steel Path alerts rewarding Steel Essence
  • More standing from bounties (plus 1 Steel Essence per bounty)
  • 25 Steel Essence for fully clearing a Steel Path planet
  • Increased mission rewards (ex: Duviri Pathos Clamps go from 10 → 15)

Steel Path is one of the best places in Warframe for efficient farming, thanks to the max enemy density and doubled drop chances.

How to Unlock Steel Path

To unlock Steel Path, you must fully complete every node on every planet in the normal Star Chart.

Checking Your Missing Nodes

Warframe’s new player experience update added node completion icons on planets, but some nodes only unlock later (e.g., Deimos content).

To avoid hunting blindly:

  1. Go to any Relay
  2. Fast travel to Teshin
  3. He will tell you exactly which planets still have incomplete nodes
  4. After clearing those, talk to him again — he updates the list

When all required planets are finished, you’ll receive a prompt to unlock Steel Path.

You can then toggle Steel Path on/off from the left side of your Navigation screen.

Once active, you can begin clearing every planet again in Steel Path difficulty.

What Are Acolytes?

While playing Steel Path, you may encounter Acolytes, which function like tougher, Steel Path–specific versions of the Stalker.

Acolytes:

  • Spawn randomly in Steel Path missions
  • Are much stronger than standard assassins
  • Drop 2 Steel Essence when killed (affected by boosters & Retriever)
  • Drop a random Steel Path weapon Arcane:
    • Deadhead
    • Dexterity
    • Merciless
    • (Primary or Secondary versions)

These arcanes are extremely useful for boosting weapon performance.

What Are Weapon Arcanes?

Weapon Arcanes are special upgrades you can slot into your Primary and Secondary weapons to gain powerful bonuses such as:

  • Headshot damage multipliers
  • Reload buffs
  • Damage over time bonuses
  • Kill-triggered effects

To slot a Weapon Arcane, you need:

  • Primary Arcane Adapter
  • Secondary Arcane Adapter

You can buy these from:

  • Teshin (for Steel Essence)
  • Archimedea / Cavia vendor (using Pathos Clamps, if it appears in rotation)

Acolytes drop some arcanes, but there are many more to collect, so adapters are essential.

What Is Steel Essence?

Steel Essence is the core resource for Steel Path progression, used to buy valuable items from Teshin such as:

  • Arcane Adapters
  • Riven Mods
  • Relic Packs
  • Umbra Forma
  • 3x Forma Bundles
  • Kuva
  • And more (rotation changes weekly)

How to Earn Steel Essence

You can gain Steel Essence from:

  • Acolyte kills → 2 Steel Essence
  • Incursions → 5 Steel Essence each
  • Bounties → 1 Steel Essence each
  • Fully clearing a planet → 25 Steel Essence
  • Other special content sources shown in-game

Smart Uses of Steel Essence

Some weekly buys worth prioritizing:

  • Riven Cipher
  • Rifle/Shotgun/Pistol Rivens
  • Umbra Forma
  • 3x Forma Blueprint
  • 25x Relic Pack bundles (especially for new Prime releases)

Saving Steel Essence for new Prime Access releases is a great strategy for speeding up your relic farming.

Steel Path Incursions

Steel Path Incursions are six daily missions that refresh every day.

Each Incursion rewards:

  • 5 Steel Essence
  • A completed Steel Path node on your map (even without a path to it)

Benefits of running Incursions:

  • Quick daily Steel Essence (up to 30 per day)
  • Unlocks random nodes across the Steel Path Star Chart
  • Usually has more active players than random Steel Path nodes
  • Good for grouping if you struggle with Steel Path difficulty early on

Incursions are great to add to your daily checklist:

  • Quick
  • Efficient
  • Helps fill your Steel Path map
  • Provides consistent Steel Essence income

Conclusion

And that covers everything you need to know when starting out on Steel Path!

If you’ve already unlocked it, share your first Steel Path experience — especially the first Earth mission, which tends to surprise new players with its difficulty.
If you haven’t unlocked it yet, give that first node a try once you do!

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