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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 unveiled a major update. The Vallis Undermind exemplifies the distinctive charm that has become synonymous with Warframe in recent years.

The new content, released on Wednesday, adds a new mushroom-themed warframe that performs a unique animation, along with a whole new explorable fungal area. However, it also revisits core concepts, with a new mission designed to making sure this complicated, expansive 12-year-old MMO makes sense to new players.

A Quest Called "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 enhance their abilities. They range from the straightforward (increase damage or speed up reload rate) to the incredibly intricate. Dedicated players often craft hour-long videos about optimized loadouts that use synergistic enhancements to create overwhelming power.

“I think a lot of people were maybe getting into the early game, encountering mods without grasping their purpose,” explained a key developer. “I think it was really important, 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 appear early in the game.

In the quest, the player is asked to retrieve 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 compels them to use the mod system to handily demonstrate its power.

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

“Certain players missed fundamental guidance where it's flashing on the screen saying equip the modification,” he said.

Closing an Important Loop

Warframe’s mods allow players to create stupidly powerful synergies that turn the screen into a blitz of numbers. 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 elemental damage types; in this case, a magnetic effect that depletes protective barriers.

“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 explicitly tell players, 'oh yeah, actually on a base level mod, you only got a few percentage chance to trigger a special damage type.' How can you teach this mechanic effectively?”

Experienced players will naturally recognize these mechanics and grasp their function, but beginners require instruction 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 story developer. “However, this oversight meant that players weren't properly taught the modding system.”

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 clearly enthusiastic over being able to work on a game that he loves — and to design content featuring a preferred figure.

“I love 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 hours into the game. And others, like modding, that increase in depth depending on how much time you want to invest. A previous patch streamlined the early game 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 reinforcing their dedication to make sure Warframe’s early game experience doesn’t stay locked in 2013. New players can get their foot in the door — regardless of overlooking tutorials.