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The space ninja adventure known as Warframe, a title where you might encounter bizarre cosmic entities and pilot futuristic vehicles, has released a significant update. This latest expansion exemplifies the distinctive charm that has become synonymous with Warframe in more recent times.

This expansion, made available this week, adds a fungus-inspired character that does a little dance, along with a whole new explorable fungal area. However, it also revisits core concepts, with a new mission designed to making sure this complex, vast 12-year-old MMO makes sense to new players.

A Quest Called "The Teacher"

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

In Warframe, mods are augments that can be equipped on your warframe or arsenal to improve their stats. These can be simple (increase damage or speed up reload rate) to the incredibly intricate. Dedicated players often craft hour-long videos about idealized builds that use synergistic enhancements 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. “We believed it was crucial, upon completing the mission, for players to think, ‘Hey, modding is cool. I'd like to experiment further.’”

A Joint Development

“The Teacher” was developed in a collaboration between the original developers, who provided the narrative sauce, and an external team, who designed the mission, which will appear early in the game.

In the quest, the player is asked to retrieve a component for their ship, but they’re confronted by a formidable foe 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 longtime players, but some were newcomers, according to a principal games designer. It was this outside perspective that proved critical.

“The first thing we did was basically sit behind them and go right play through the tutorial and take prodigious notes on all points of confusion,” the designer said. Early-game menu pop-ups presented the mod system. But the team observed these weren't effective for all.

“Some people didn't see basic instructions where the game highlights it saying equip the modification,” he said.

Filling a Significant Gap

Warframe’s mods allow players to create incredibly strong combinations 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 desire more advanced content, like creating powerful and specific builds. But it became clear that “The Teacher” is filling a real and significant gap for early players — 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, 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 explicitly tell players, 'with a basic modification, you only got a low probability to trigger a special damage type.' So how do you tutorialize that without changing it?”

Veterans will naturally recognize these mechanics and understand how it works, but beginners require instruction 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 story developer. “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 seemingly straightforward quest that — frankly — you can complete quickly,” said the designer. “But it's months and months of work for loads of people.”

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

An Evolving Onboarding Process

In the decade-plus since launch, Warframe has been in a ongoing struggle with its own new user introduction. There are many intricate mechanics that players can ignore initially — and won't encounter until hours into the game. 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 mind-bending plot developments with less time on the grind up front.

With “The Teacher,” it’s clear that the developers are doubling down on a commitment 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.