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The space ninja adventure known as Warframe, a title where you can feed yourself to a giant mouth and drive a motorcycle in the year 1999, has launched a significant update. This latest expansion exemplifies the unique whimsy that has come to define Warframe in more recent times.

This expansion, made available this week, introduces a new mushroom-themed warframe that does a little dance, along with a brand-new biome to discover. However, it also revisits core concepts, with a new mission aimed at making sure this complex, vast 12-year-old MMO makes sense to new players.

Introducing "The Teacher"

Titled “The Teacher,” this is the highly anticipated mission that instructs 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 improve their stats. These can be simple (increase damage or speed up reload rate) to the incredibly intricate. Dedicated players often produce extensive guides about idealized builds that use synergistic enhancements 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'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 an external team, who designed the mission, which will be introduced to new players.

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 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 longtime players, but others had never played before, 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. 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 the game highlights it saying equip the modification,” 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 desire more advanced content, like creating powerful and specific builds. But it became clear that the mission addresses a genuine oversight for newcomers — 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 mission's objectives 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 rapid-fire gun, because it better demonstrates the effect frequency,” the designer said. “But you don’t want to say to people, '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 notice these details.

“It’s not a kind of game development that we previously focused on 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.”

A Labor of Love

“There’s so much that goes into just making a seemingly straightforward quest that — frankly — 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 design content featuring a preferred figure.

“I love Teshin,” he said. “He embodies everything my younger self found awesome.”

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 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 your level of engagement. A previous patch streamlined the early game 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.