You Can Skip Straight to Warframe’s Old Peace – Here’s When to Hit the Crazy Button

After spending a full weekend messing with Warframe’s Old Peace update, I ended up doing the new content two different ways: once “properly” through the story, and once by slamming the new experimental content-skip – the “crazy button” the devs keep joking about. This guide is everything I wish I’d known before I started weighing that decision.

If you’re staring at that skip option wondering whether to press it, I’ll walk you through exactly how it works, how to unlock it, what you gain, what you lose, and how to squeeze the most value out of Descendia and The Perita Rebellion once you’re in.

What the Old Peace Content-Skip Actually Does

The Old Peace skip is an experimental feature that lets you jump straight into the new endgame-style modes – Descendia and The Perita Rebellion – without doing the long chain of prerequisite story quests. Think of it as a shortcut through years of narrative, but not through power progression.

On my main account, I was already far past all the story gates, so I first played Old Peace “as intended.” Then I made a fresh account and tried rushing to the skip. With a bit of focused leveling and some help from friends, I hit the new content in about 1–2 hours instead of the 20–30+ it usually takes to reach that point through the full questline. That time difference is massive if you’re just trying to play with friends or sample the latest modes.

The trade-off is simple but important:

• You still get the same gameplay rewards and future-content access
• You give up narrative context, certain post-game quests, and romance content
• You get streamlined versions of some missions, not the full, cinematic experience

Step 1 – Meeting the Requirements (MR10 and Taxis)

This is where a lot of people get confused, and I did too at first. The skip button doesn’t completely remove all progression checks – it mainly removes story checks.

There are two ways into Old Peace content:

• Standard access / public matchmaking: You need to be at least Mastery Rank 10 (MR10).
• Taxi access / private squads: Any MR, as long as someone in your squad qualifies and invites you.

MR10 Requirement: On my fresh account, playing reasonably efficiently, MR10 took just under 25 hours of normal play. You get Mastery by leveling weapons, companions, and Warframes to rank 30. If you’re solo and want to queue for Old Peace publicly, there’s no way around this gate.

Taxi Option: If you’ve got a veteran friend:

• They host a private squad (no public matchmaking).
• They select the Old Peace node and start Descendia or The Perita Rebellion.
• You join even if you’re below MR10 and haven’t touched the story.

This is how I got my “baby” account into Old Peace within a couple of hours of starting Warframe, and it worked flawlessly every time – just remember you still won’t be able to queue public until you hit MR10 yourself.

Step 2 – Where to Find and How to Use the Skip Button

Once your account is eligible for The Old Peace (either by story progression or by hitting the right trigger point in your star chart), the game offers you the “crazy button” skip directly in the quest UI.

• From your Orbiter, open the Navigation console.
• Go to the Quests tab.
• Select The Old Peace.
• You’ll see two options:
  • Normal story start / continue
  • A separate Skip to Gameplay or similarly labelled button – this is the content-skip.

The first time I hovered over it, I expected some tiny “are you sure?” window. Instead, you get a fairly clear warning: you’re about to bypass story quests and jump straight into streamlined versions of the new modes. Once you confirm, a couple of things happen:

• The game flags your account as having access to Descendia and The Perita Rebellion.
• You unlock the associated nodes for gameplay, just as if you’d done the story path leading there.
• Quest steps that would normally be required to reach Old Peace are treated as “fulfilled” for unlocking future content, but not for narrative replay.

You can still go back later and play the older quests in order – the skip doesn’t delete them, it just marks their gating function as done. I tested this on my alt: after skipping, I went back and manually started earlier cinematic quests, and they still worked fine. The story just feels a bit out-of-order because you’ve already seen later references and spoilers.

Step 3 – Choosing Between Descendia and The Perita Rebellion

After using the skip, your main decision is which Old Peace mode to grind first. My experience after several nights of runs:

• Descendia – Faster runs, more straightforward objectives, great for:
  • Learning the new mechanics
  • Power-leveling gear
  • Low-brain, chill farming sessions
• The Perita Rebellion – Slightly more complex and wave-like, better for:
  • Coordinated squads
  • Testing out burst or support builds
  • Longer sessions with friends

I ended up doing most of my casual farming in Descendia and saved Rebellion for when my regular squad was online and voice chatting.

What You Lose by Skipping (Don’t Ignore This)

The temptation is to see the skip as pure upside – “same rewards, less time.” That’s true mechanically, but there are real losses. Don’t make my early mistake of hitting the button on an account where I actually cared about the story.

• Major narrative context: You miss the build-up that explains who’s who and why you’re fighting here. Playing Old Peace “blind” felt like jumping into season 5 of a show I’d only watched the pilot for.
• Post-game quests (Triad and others): Some quests only appear if you’ve done the story path, not the skip path. On my skip account they simply weren’t there after I’d finished my first sets of runs.
• Romance options (like Marie): If you care about character relationships, those branches are tied to narrative completion, not just gameplay nodes. Skipping meant those interactions never unlocked for me on that file.
• Full mission variants: The versions you get via skip are streamlined – less walking, less setup, more “straight to the meat.” Great for farming, but you’re missing some of the environmental storytelling and slower beats that made my first, non-skip playthrough feel special.
• Accidental spoilers: Even though the game tries to shield you, NPC dialog and mission intros leaked enough hints that when I later did the older quests, some twists had clearly been telegraphed.

If you’re a lore-first player, my honest advice: don’t use the skip on your main account. Save it for an alt or for friends who openly don’t care about story.

What You Keep (and Why the Skip Is Still Powerful)

Now for the good news. Mechanically, the skip is surprisingly generous. In my tests, these things were identical whether I skipped or played through:

• Mission rewards: Same drops, same resource tables.
• Progression unlocks: Clearing Old Peace missions via skip still counted towards unlocking follow-up systems and future-update hooks.
• Future content access: When later story beats referenced Old Peace outcomes, my skip account still qualified.

That’s why it’s such a big deal for returning or alt players: you can park the narrative for “when I’m in the mood” and still jump into the latest Warframe systems right away.

Optimizing Your Builds and Focus Farming in Old Peace

Once I was in Descendia and Perita Rebellion, the next question was: how do I make this actually efficient? After a lot of trial-and-error (and a few very dead squishy frames), here’s what consistently worked.

Loadouts That Felt Great

• AoE nukers for chill farming: Frames like Saryn, Equinox, Ember, or Volt made my “brain-off” Descendia runs painless. Big area damage, moderate range, and some survivability are ideal.
• Reliable survivability: On my alt I leaned hard on Inaros and Nezha – anything tanky that let me learn the layouts without getting oneshot.
• Weapons: Fast-clearing primaries (Ignis Wraith, Kuva Zarr, Phenmor-type weapons) and at least one good melee for emergencies. Mod for status + crit over raw damage where possible; enemies scale fast.

Because the skip doesn’t give you free gear, don’t go in under-modded. On my first attempt I took mostly unforma’d weapons and felt completely useless until I fixed my builds.

Focus Farming: Nuking vs Stealth (500% XP Chains)

The Old Peace tiles are surprisingly good for Focus if you build around them. I tried two main routes:

• AoE Focus farming:
  • Slap a Lens on your main damage frame or weapon.
  • Run Descendia with an AoE nuker like Saryn.
  • Chain kills as fast as possible to keep affinity flowing.
  • This is low-effort but not max efficiency – good for casual grinding.
• Stealth Focus farming (my personal favorite):
  • Equip a stealth-oriented frame – I used Banshee with Silence.
  • Bring silent weapons (bows, suppressed rifles, daggers).
  • Crouch-walk through patrol routes and keep killing enemies without triggering alarms.
  • If you keep the stealth chain alive, you can stack bonuses up to around 500% affinity. On one particularly clean run, my Focus spike was almost five times what I got from a comparable nuke run.

The stealth method is absolutely less forgiving – if you break stealth, the bonus drops and you have to rebuild it. But once I learned the enemy spawn patterns, it became my go-to when I really wanted to min-max Focus gains.

Squad Synergy Tips

• Pair one hard carry nuker with one support (Wisp, Trinity, Harrow) and let your lower-MR friends bring whatever they’re leveling.
• Communicate Focus lenses – if multiple people are trying to farm seriously, don’t all bring the same exact role; share kills.
• For taxi squads, have the experienced host control pacing and objective focus. My early runs wiped mostly because everyone ran in different directions.

Who Should Use the Skip (and Who Really Shouldn’t)

After running both paths, here’s how I’d break it down.

• Use the skip if:
  • You’re a returning player who doesn’t care about catching up on years of story right now.
  • You’re making an alt account just to experiment with builds or play with friends at endgame.
  • You’ve got friends in Old Peace already and just want to join them ASAP.
  • You’re primarily motivated by systems, loot, and gameplay, not cutscenes.
• Avoid the skip if:
  • You’re on your main account and you actually enjoy Warframe’s lore.
  • You want access to all post-game quests, including Triad-style follow-ups.
  • You’re interested in romance and relationship content (like Marie).
  • You hate spoilers and want the story to unfold in order.

If you’re on the fence, my honest recommendation is to play the story normally once on your main, then feel free to abuse the skip for alts or for getting new friends into the action.

Looking Ahead: Why This “Crazy Button” Matters

The devs have been clear that this is an experiment. They’ve even joked that if it’s wildly successful, they’d roll similar skips back to earlier arcs like Warframe 1999 and keep doing it for future updates. From my time with it, I think that’s actually a good direction – as long as players understand the trade-offs.

Used wisely, the Old Peace skip is an amazing tool for:

• Lowering the barrier for new and returning players
• Letting you decide when you’re in a “story mood” vs “grind mood”
• Keeping friend groups together across wildly different progression levels

Just don’t treat it as a no-brainer freebie. It’s a shortcut with real costs – mostly invisible until you try to go back and care about the story later.

If I can leave you with one simple rule: press the crazy button for gameplay-first accounts and alts; leave it alone on the file where you actually care about Warframe’s universe. Do that, and The Old Peace content-skip becomes one of the most player-friendly experiments the game’s ever seen.