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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 significant update. This latest expansion highlights the unique whimsy that has become synonymous with Warframe in recent years.

The new content, released on Wednesday, brings in a fungus-inspired character that does a little dance, along with a whole new explorable fungal area. However, it also revisits core concepts, with another quest aimed at making sure this complicated, expansive long-running online game makes sense to new players.

A Quest Called "The Teacher"

Called “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: the mod system.

In Warframe, mods are augments 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 devastatingly complex. Dedicated players often produce extensive guides about optimized loadouts that use powerful mods in combination to create overwhelming power.

“I think a lot of people were maybe getting into the early game, seeing mods, not really understanding it,” said a key developer. “We believed it was crucial, at the end of the quest, for players to think, ‘Wow, modding is interesting. I want to try more of this.’”

A Joint Development

“The Teacher” was developed in a collaboration between the core team, who provided the narrative sauce, and a supporting studio, 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 close-combat arms, and forces them to engage with 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. 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 all points of confusion,” the designer said. Introductory tutorials presented the mod system. But the team observed these weren't effective for all.

“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" isn’t really about that. There will be some long-time players who wish the quest was geared more towards their needs, 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 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 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 better demonstrates the effect frequency,” the designer said. “However, the goal isn't to say to people, 'oh yeah, actually on a base level mod, you only got a low probability to trigger a special damage type.' So how do you tutorialize that without changing it?”

Veterans will instinctively look for that kind of weapon effect and grasp their function, but new players have to be taught to notice these details.

“This type of design work that we previously focused on just because our priorities lay elsewhere,” said a narrative lead. “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 really simple mission that — honestly — you can complete quickly,” said the designer. “Yet it represents extensive development for loads of people.”

The designer was clearly enthusiastic over contributing to a beloved title — and to craft a mission for one of his favorite characters.

“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 12 years since its release, Warframe has been in a ongoing struggle with its own player onboarding process. There are many intricate mechanics 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 your level of engagement. 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 early game experience evolves beyond its origins. New players can get their foot in the door — regardless of overlooking tutorials.