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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 new update. This latest expansion exemplifies the distinctive charm that has come to define Warframe in the past few seasons.

This expansion, made available this week, introduces a fungus-inspired character that does a little dance, along with a whole new explorable fungal area. But it’s also going back to basics, with another quest designed to making sure this complicated, expansive long-running online game makes sense to new players.

A Quest Called "The Teacher"

Named “The Teacher,” this is the long-awaited quest that trains Warframe players on how to use one of the game's most basic — yet most intricate systems: the mod system.

In Warframe, modifications are enhancements that can be equipped on your warframe or arsenal to enhance their abilities. These can be simple (boosting power or shortening reload times) to the incredibly intricate. Dedicated players often produce extensive guides about idealized builds that use synergistic enhancements to create devastating effects.

“Many players likely started their journey, seeing mods, not really understanding it,” said a lead narrative designer. “I think it was really important, upon completing the mission, for players to think, ‘Hey, modding is cool. I'd like to experiment further.’”

A Joint Development

“The Teacher” was developed in a collaboration between the original developers, who provided the narrative sauce, and a supporting studio, who designed the mission, which will appear early in the game.

In the quest, the player is asked to retrieve 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 close-combat arms, and compels them to use 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 lead designer. It was this outside perspective that was essential.

“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.

“Certain players missed fundamental guidance where it's flashing on the screen saying put the mod in the slot,” 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" 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 executing this is quite complex.

“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.

“We had to change the weapon 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 few percentage chance to proc an elemental effect.' So how do you tutorialize that without changing it?”

Veterans 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 our priorities lay elsewhere,” said a story developer. “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 — frankly — 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 visibly glowing with excitement over being able to work on a game that he loves — and to craft a mission for one of his favorite characters.

“I'm a huge fan of 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 many intricate mechanics 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 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 initial hours evolves beyond its origins. Beginners can find their way — regardless of overlooking tutorials.