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The popular online game known as Warframe, an experience where you can feed yourself to a giant mouth and drive a motorcycle in the year 1999, has released a new update. The Vallis Undermind exemplifies the unique whimsy that has become synonymous with Warframe in the past few seasons.

This expansion, made available this week, adds a new mushroom-themed warframe that performs a unique animation, along with a whole new explorable fungal area. But it’s also going back to basics, with another quest geared at making sure this complex, vast long-running online game is understandable by new players.

The Arrival of "The Teacher"

Called “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, modifications are enhancements that can be equipped on your warframe or arsenal to boost their performance. These can be simple (boosting power or shortening reload times) to the devastatingly complex. Content creators often produce extensive guides about optimized loadouts that use powerful mods in combination to create overwhelming power.

“Many players likely started their journey, encountering mods without grasping their purpose,” noted a lead narrative designer. “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 Collaborative Effort

“The Teacher” was created through a partnership between the core team, who handled the story elements, 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 confronted by a formidable foe called Teshin, who removes the player's powers and melee weapons, and compels them to use the mod system to effectively show its potential.

Several developers were longtime players, but others had never played before, according to a principal games designer. It was this outside perspective that proved critical.

“Our initial step involved observing new players and have them experience the introduction and take prodigious notes on everywhere they fell out,” the designer said. Early-game menu pop-ups introduced players to modding. 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 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. Veteran users who wish the quest was geared more towards their needs, like optimizing for endgame challenges. 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 background details 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 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 shows off the proc rate more,” the designer said. “But you don’t want to say to people, 'with a basic modification, you only got a low probability 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.

“This type of design work that we've had to worry about as much just because that hasn't been our focus,” said a story developer. “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 — honestly — 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.”

Improving the New Player Experience

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 even have access to 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 doubling down on a commitment to make sure Warframe’s initial hours evolves beyond its origins. New players can get their foot in the door — even if they miss the menu prompts.