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The popular online game known as Warframe, an experience where you can feed yourself to a giant mouth and pilot futuristic vehicles, has unveiled a major update. The Vallis Undermind highlights the distinctive charm that has come to define Warframe in more recent times.

The new content, made available this week, 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 aimed at making sure this complicated, expansive long-running online game makes sense to new players.

The Arrival of "The Teacher"

Named “The Teacher,” this is the highly anticipated mission that instructs Warframe players on how to use one of the game's fundamental yet complex systems: modding.

In Warframe, mods are augments 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 devastatingly complex. Dedicated players often craft hour-long videos about idealized builds that use synergistic enhancements to create devastating effects.

“Many players likely started their journey, encountering mods without grasping their purpose,” 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 Collaborative Effort

“The Teacher” was created through a partnership between the original developers, who provided the narrative sauce, and an external team, who crafted the gameplay, which will be introduced to new players.

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 removes the player's powers and melee weapons, and forces them to engage with the mod system to effectively show its potential.

Several developers were already fans of the game, but others had never played before, 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 introduced players to modding. 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.

Closing an Important Loop

Warframe’s mods allow players to create stupidly powerful synergies that fill the display with damage values. But "The Teacher" focuses on different aspects. 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 newcomers — and that doing so isn’t as simple as it looks.

“There’s lots of little tweaks and little subtle things in the background there to just demonstrate the possibilities 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 burst-fire weapon, because it better demonstrates the effect frequency,” 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 narrative lead. “However, this oversight meant that we never really told people how to use mods.”

A Labor of Love

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

“I love 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 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 even have access to until hours into the game. And others, like modding, that scale in complexity 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 doubling down on a commitment to make sure Warframe’s initial hours evolves beyond its origins. New players can get their foot in the door — regardless of overlooking tutorials.