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The space ninja adventure known as Warframe, a title where you can feed yourself to a giant mouth and pilot futuristic vehicles, has unveiled a significant update. This latest expansion showcases the distinctive charm that has come to define Warframe in the past few seasons.

The new content, made available this week, brings in a new mushroom-themed warframe that does a little dance, along with a brand-new biome to discover. However, it also revisits core concepts, with a new mission geared at making sure this complicated, expansive long-running online game makes sense to new players.

A Quest Called "The Teacher"

Called “The Teacher,” this is the highly anticipated mission that trains Warframe players on how to use one of the game's fundamental yet complex systems: modding.

In Warframe, mods are augments that can be equipped on your warframe or arsenal to boost their performance. These can be simple (boosting power or shortening reload times) to the incredibly intricate. Content creators often craft hour-long videos about idealized builds that use synergistic enhancements to create devastating effects.

“Many players likely started their journey, seeing mods, not really understanding it,” explained a key developer. “I think it was really important, at the end of the quest, for players to think, ‘Wow, modding is interesting. I want to try more of this.’”

A Joint Development

“The Teacher” was created through a partnership between the original developers, who provided the narrative sauce, and a supporting studio, who designed the mission, which will be introduced to new players.

In the quest, the player is tasked with obtaining a component for their ship, but they’re interrupted by a menacing, powerful warrior called Teshin, who removes the player's powers and melee weapons, and compels them to use the mod system to effectively show its potential.

Many of the external team were longtime players, but others had never played before, according to a principal games designer. It was this outside perspective that proved critical.

“Our initial step involved observing new players and go right play through the tutorial and document extensively on everywhere they fell out,” the designer said. Early-game menu pop-ups presented the mod system. But the team noted that they didn’t work on everyone.

“Some people didn't see basic instructions where it's flashing on the screen saying put the mod in the slot,” he said.

Addressing a Real Need

Warframe’s mods allow players to create stupidly powerful synergies that fill the display with damage values. But "The Teacher" focuses on different aspects. Veteran users who desire more advanced content, like optimizing for endgame challenges. But it became clear that “The Teacher” is filling a real and significant gap for early players — and that executing this is quite complex.

“There’s lots of little tweaks and background details there to just sort of show you what it can do rather than tell you,” the designer said. For example, one of the goals of “The Teacher” is to show how mods can create powerful elemental status effects; in this case, a magnetic effect that depletes protective barriers.

“We had to change the weapon to be a rapid-fire gun, because it shows off the proc rate more,” the designer said. “But you don’t want to say to people, 'with a basic modification, you only got a few percentage chance to proc an elemental effect.' How can you teach this mechanic effectively?”

Veterans will instinctively look for that kind of weapon effect and understand how it works, but beginners require instruction to notice these details.

“It’s not a kind of game development that we've had to worry about as much just because that hasn't been our focus,” said a narrative lead. “But part of it not being our focus that we never really told people how to use mods.”

Months of Effort

“A tremendous amount of work is required for just making a really simple mission that — honestly — you can blast through in about 15 minutes,” said the designer. “Yet it represents extensive development for loads of people.”

The designer was visibly glowing with excitement over being able to work on a game that he loves — and to craft a mission for one of his favorite characters.

“I love Teshin,” he said. “He's my 8-year-old internal self's idea of what's cool.”

Improving the New Player Experience

In the 12 years since its release, Warframe has been in a consistent battle with its own player onboarding process. There are lots of complex systems that players can ignore initially — and won't encounter until hours into the game. And others, like modding, that scale in complexity depending on how much time you want to invest. A previous patch improved the introductory experience so that players could reach Warframe’s complex narrative arcs with reduced repetitive play up front.

With “The Teacher,” it’s clear that the developers are doubling down on a commitment to make sure Warframe’s early game experience doesn’t stay locked in 2013. Beginners can find their way — even if they miss the menu prompts.