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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 significant update. The Vallis Undermind exemplifies the unique whimsy that has come to define Warframe in recent years.

The new content, made available this week, brings in a fungus-inspired character that does a little dance, along with a whole new explorable fungal area. But it’s also going back to basics, with a new mission designed to making sure this complex, vast long-running online game makes sense to new players.

Introducing "The Teacher"

Named “The Teacher,” this is the long-awaited quest that educates Warframe players on how to use one of the game's most basic — yet most intricate systems: modding.

In Warframe, modifications are enhancements that can be equipped on your warframe or arsenal to enhance their abilities. They range from the straightforward (increase damage or speed up reload rate) to the incredibly intricate. Content creators often produce extensive guides about idealized builds 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. “I think it was really important, at the end of the quest, for players to think, ‘Wow, modding is interesting. I'd like to experiment further.’”

A Joint Development

“The Teacher” was developed in a collaboration between the original developers, who handled the story elements, and an external team, who crafted the gameplay, which will appear early in the game.

In the quest, the player is asked to retrieve a new segment for their spaceship, 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.

Many of the external team were longtime players, but others had never played before, according to a lead designer. This fresh viewpoint that proved critical.

“The first thing we did was basically sit behind them and go right play through the tutorial and document extensively 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.

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

Addressing a Real Need

Warframe’s mods allow players to create stupidly powerful synergies that turn the screen into a blitz of numbers. But "The Teacher" focuses on different aspects. There will be some long-time players who wish the quest was geared more towards their needs, 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 little subtle things in the background 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 elemental damage types; 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. “However, the goal isn't to say to people, 'oh yeah, actually on a base level mod, you only got a few percentage chance to proc an elemental effect.' So how do you tutorialize that without changing it?”

Experienced players will naturally recognize these mechanics and grasp their function, but beginners require instruction to pay attention to these things.

“It’s not a kind of game development that we previously focused on 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.”

Significant Investment

“There’s so much that goes into just making a seemingly straightforward quest that — honestly — you can blast through in about 15 minutes,” said the designer. “But it's months and months of work for many team members.”

The designer was visibly glowing with excitement over being able to work on a game that he loves — 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.”

An Evolving Onboarding Process

In the 12 years since its release, Warframe has been in a consistent battle with its own new user introduction. There are lots of complex systems that players don’t need to worry about — and won’t even have access to until much later. And others, like modding, that increase in depth 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 mind-bending plot developments with reduced repetitive play 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. Beginners can find their way — regardless of overlooking tutorials.