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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 released a major update. This latest expansion exemplifies the unique whimsy that has become synonymous with Warframe in recent years.

This expansion, released on Wednesday, introduces a fungus-inspired character that performs a unique animation, along with a whole new explorable fungal area. However, it also revisits core concepts, with a new mission aimed at making sure this complicated, expansive long-running online game is understandable by new players.

A Quest Called "The Teacher"

Titled “The Teacher,” this is the highly anticipated mission that educates Warframe players on how to use one of the game's most basic — yet most intricate systems: the mod system.

In Warframe, mods are augments that can be added to your character or your weapons to enhance their abilities. They range from the straightforward (boosting power or shortening reload times) to the devastatingly complex. Dedicated players often produce extensive guides about optimized loadouts that use powerful mods in combination to create overwhelming power.

“I think a lot of people were maybe getting into the early game, seeing mods, not really understanding it,” noted a lead narrative designer. “I think it was really important, at the end of the quest, for players to think, ‘Hey, modding is cool. I want to try more of this.’”

A Collaborative Effort

“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 confronted by a formidable foe called Teshin, who takes away the player’s abilities and melee weapons, and forces them to engage with the mod system to handily demonstrate its power.

Several developers were already fans of the game, but some were newcomers, according to a lead designer. It was this outside perspective that proved critical.

“The first thing we did was basically sit behind them and have them experience the introduction and take prodigious notes on everywhere they fell out,” the designer said. Introductory tutorials presented the mod system. But the team noted that they didn’t work on everyone.

“Some people didn't see basic instructions where the game highlights it saying put the mod in the slot,” he said.

Addressing a Real Need

Warframe’s mods allow players to create incredibly strong combinations that fill the display with damage values. But "The Teacher" isn’t really about that. There will be some long-time players who desire more advanced content, like creating powerful and specific builds. But it became clear that the mission addresses a genuine oversight for newcomers — and that executing this is quite complex.

“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 powerful elemental status effects; in this case, Magnetic damage that eats chunks out of enemy shields.

“Adjustments to the armament 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.' So how do you tutorialize that without changing it?”

Veterans will instinctively look for that kind of weapon effect and grasp their function, but new players have to be taught to pay attention to these things.

“This type of design work that we've had to worry about as much just because our priorities lay elsewhere,” said a narrative lead. “But part of it not being our focus that players weren't properly taught the modding system.”

Significant Investment

“There’s so much that goes into just making a seemingly straightforward quest that — honestly — you can complete quickly,” said the designer. “But it's months and months of work for many team members.”

The designer was visibly glowing with excitement over contributing to a beloved title — and to design content featuring a preferred figure.

“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 decade-plus since launch, Warframe has been in a ongoing struggle with its own new user introduction. There are lots of complex systems that players can ignore initially — and won't encounter until much later. And others, like modding, that increase in depth 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 less time on the grind up front.

With “The Teacher,” it’s clear that the developers are reinforcing their dedication to make sure Warframe’s early game experience doesn’t stay locked in 2013. New players can get their foot in the door — even if they miss the menu prompts.