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The space ninja adventure known as Warframe, an experience where you can feed yourself to a giant mouth and pilot futuristic vehicles, has unveiled a new update. This latest expansion showcases the distinctive charm that has come to define Warframe in more recent times.

The new content, released on Wednesday, adds a new mushroom-themed warframe that does a little dance, along with a brand-new biome to discover. But it’s also going back to basics, with another quest designed to making sure this complex, vast long-running online game is accessible for new players.

The Arrival of "The Teacher"

Called “The Teacher,” this is the long-awaited quest that educates Warframe players on how to use one of the game's fundamental yet complex systems: modding.

In Warframe, mods are augments that can be added to your character or your weapons to improve their stats. These can be simple (boosting power or shortening reload times) to the incredibly intricate. Dedicated players often craft hour-long videos about optimized loadouts that use synergistic enhancements to create devastating effects.

“Many players likely started their journey, encountering mods without grasping their purpose,” said a lead narrative designer. “We believed it was crucial, upon completing the mission, for players to think, ‘Wow, modding is interesting. I'd like to experiment further.’”

Teamwork in Action

“The Teacher” was created through a partnership between the core team, who handled the story elements, and a supporting studio, who crafted the gameplay, which will appear early in the game.

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 takes away the player’s abilities and close-combat arms, and compels them to use the mod system to handily demonstrate its power.

Several developers were longtime players, but others had never played before, according to a principal games designer. It was this outside perspective that was essential.

“The first thing we did was basically sit behind them and have them experience the introduction and document extensively on everywhere they fell out,” the designer said. Early-game menu pop-ups introduced players to modding. But the team observed these weren't effective for all.

“Certain players missed fundamental guidance where the game highlights it saying equip the modification,” he said.

Closing an Important Loop

Warframe’s mods allow players to create stupidly powerful synergies that turn the screen into a blitz of numbers. But "The Teacher" isn’t really about that. There will be some long-time players who wish the quest was geared more towards their needs, like creating powerful and specific builds. But it became clear that “The Teacher” is filling a real and significant gap for newcomers — and that doing so isn’t as simple as it looks.

“There’s lots of little tweaks and background details there to just demonstrate the possibilities rather than tell you,” the designer said. For example, one of the mission's objectives is to show how mods can create elemental damage types; in this case, a magnetic effect that depletes protective barriers.

“We had to change the weapon to be a burst-fire weapon, because it shows off the proc rate more,” the designer said. “But you don’t want to explicitly tell players, 'with a basic modification, you only got a low probability to proc an elemental effect.' So how do you tutorialize that without changing it?”

Veterans will instinctively look for that kind of weapon effect and understand how it works, but new players have to be taught 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 story developer. “However, this oversight meant that we never really told people how to use mods.”

Months of Effort

“There’s so much that goes into just making a seemingly straightforward quest that — frankly — you can blast through in about 15 minutes,” said the designer. “Yet it represents extensive development for loads of people.”

The designer was clearly enthusiastic over contributing to a beloved title — and to craft a mission for one of his favorite characters.

“I'm a huge fan of 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 don’t need to worry about — 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. An update earlier this year streamlined the early game 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 reinforcing their dedication to make sure Warframe’s initial hours doesn’t stay locked in 2013. New players can get their foot in the door — regardless of overlooking tutorials.