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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 launched a major update. This latest expansion exemplifies the creative flair 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 brand-new biome to discover. But it’s also going back to basics, with another quest geared at making sure this complex, vast long-running online game is accessible for new players.

A Quest Called "The Teacher"

Named “The Teacher,” this is the highly anticipated mission that trains 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 added to your character or your weapons to boost their performance. These can be simple (boosting power or shortening reload times) to the incredibly intricate. Dedicated players often craft hour-long videos about idealized builds that use synergistic enhancements to create devastating effects.

“I think a lot of people were maybe getting into the early game, encountering mods without grasping their purpose,” said a key developer. “I think it was really important, at the end of the quest, for players to think, ‘Hey, modding is cool. I'd like to experiment further.’”

A Collaborative Effort

“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 component for their ship, 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.

Many of the external team were already fans of the game, but some were newcomers, according to a principal games designer. This fresh viewpoint that was essential.

“The first thing we did was basically sit behind them and have them experience the introduction and document extensively on all points of confusion,” the designer said. Early-game menu pop-ups introduced players to modding. But the team noted that they didn’t work on everyone.

“Some people didn't see basic instructions where it's flashing on the screen saying equip the modification,” he said.

Addressing a Real Need

Warframe’s mods allow players to create stupidly powerful synergies that fill the display with damage values. But "The Teacher" isn’t really about that. There will be some long-time players who desire more advanced content, like optimizing for endgame challenges. But it became clear that “The Teacher” is filling a real and significant gap for early players — and that executing this is quite complex.

“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 rapid-fire gun, because it shows off the proc rate more,” 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 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 narrative lead. “But part of it not being our focus that players weren't properly taught the modding system.”

Significant Investment

“There’s so much that goes into just making a really simple mission that — frankly — you can blast through in about 15 minutes,” 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 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 ongoing struggle with its own player onboarding process. There are many intricate mechanics that players can ignore initially — and won't encounter until hours into the game. And others, like modding, that scale in complexity depending on how much time you want to invest. An update earlier this year 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 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 — even if they miss the menu prompts.