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The space ninja adventure known as Warframe, an experience where you can feed yourself to a giant mouth and pilot futuristic vehicles, has released a major update. The Vallis Undermind highlights the creative flair that has become synonymous with Warframe in more recent times.

This expansion, released on Wednesday, brings in a fungus-inspired character that does a little dance, along with a brand-new biome to discover. However, it also revisits core concepts, with another quest geared 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 educates Warframe players on how to use one of the game's fundamental yet complex systems: the mod system.

In Warframe, modifications are enhancements that can be added to your character or your weapons to boost their performance. 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 powerful mods in combination to create devastating effects.

“Many players likely started their journey, seeing mods, not really understanding it,” noted a lead narrative designer. “We believed it was crucial, at the end of the quest, for players to think, ‘Hey, modding is cool. I want to try more of this.’”

Teamwork in Action

“The Teacher” was developed in a collaboration between the core team, who provided the narrative sauce, and an external team, who designed the mission, which will be introduced to new players.

In the quest, the player is tasked with obtaining 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 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 principal games designer. This fresh viewpoint that proved critical.

“Our initial step involved observing new players and go right play through the tutorial and take prodigious notes on everywhere they fell out,” the designer said. Early-game menu pop-ups introduced players to modding. But the team observed these weren't effective for all.

“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 incredibly strong combinations that fill the display with damage values. But "The Teacher" isn’t really about that. Veteran users who wish the quest was geared more towards their needs, like creating powerful and specific builds. But it became clear that the mission addresses a genuine oversight for newcomers — and that doing so isn’t as simple as it looks.

“Numerous subtle adjustments 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 mission's objectives 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, 'with a basic modification, you only got a few percentage chance to trigger a special damage type.' So how do you tutorialize that without changing it?”

Experienced players will instinctively look for that kind of weapon effect and understand how it works, 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 narrative lead. “But part of it not being our focus that players weren't properly taught the modding system.”

Months of Effort

“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 loads of people.”

The designer was clearly enthusiastic over contributing to a beloved title — and to design content featuring a preferred figure.

“I'm a huge fan of 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 consistent battle with its own player onboarding process. There are lots of complex systems that players can ignore initially — and won’t even have access to until much later. And others, like modding, that increase in depth depending on your level of engagement. An update earlier this year streamlined the early game so that players could reach Warframe’s complex narrative arcs 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 doesn’t stay locked in 2013. New players can get their foot in the door — even if they miss the menu prompts.