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The popular online game known as Warframe, an experience where you might encounter bizarre cosmic entities and pilot futuristic vehicles, has launched a major update. The Vallis Undermind highlights the unique whimsy that has become synonymous with Warframe in recent years.

This expansion, made available this week, brings in 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 geared at making sure this complicated, expansive long-running online game makes sense to new players.

Introducing "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: modding.

In Warframe, modifications are enhancements that can be equipped on your warframe or arsenal to enhance their abilities. These can be simple (increase damage or speed up reload rate) to the incredibly intricate. Content creators often craft hour-long videos about optimized loadouts that use powerful mods in combination 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, at the end of the quest, 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 original developers, who provided the narrative sauce, and a supporting studio, who designed the mission, 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 effectively show its potential.

Many of the external team were already fans of the game, but some were newcomers, according to a principal games designer. This fresh viewpoint that was essential.

“The first thing we did was basically sit behind them and go right play through the tutorial and document extensively on all points of confusion,” the designer said. Introductory tutorials introduced players to modding. 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.

Filling a Significant Gap

Warframe’s mods allow players to create incredibly strong combinations 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 mission addresses a genuine oversight for early players — and that executing this is quite complex.

“Numerous subtle adjustments and little subtle things in the background there to just sort of show you what it can do rather than explain it outright,” 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, Magnetic damage that eats chunks out of enemy shields.

“Adjustments to the armament to be a burst-fire weapon, because it shows off the proc rate more,” the designer said. “However, the goal isn't 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 beginners require instruction to notice these details.

“It’s not a kind of game development that we previously focused on just because our priorities lay elsewhere,” said a story developer. “But part of it not being our focus 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 — frankly — you can blast through in about 15 minutes,” said the designer. “Yet it represents extensive development for many team members.”

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

“I'm a huge fan of Teshin,” he said. “He embodies everything my younger self found awesome.”

Improving the New Player Experience

In the decade-plus since launch, 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 scale in complexity depending on your level of engagement. A previous patch improved the introductory experience 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 doubling down on a commitment to make sure Warframe’s early game experience evolves beyond its origins. Beginners can find their way — regardless of overlooking tutorials.