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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 launched a new update. The Vallis Undermind highlights the distinctive charm that has come to define Warframe in recent years.

The new content, made available this week, introduces a fungus-inspired character that performs a unique animation, along with a brand-new biome to discover. However, it also revisits core concepts, with another quest designed to making sure this complicated, expansive long-running online game is accessible for new players.

A Quest Called "The Teacher"

Called “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: modding.

In Warframe, modifications are enhancements that can be added to your character or your weapons to boost their performance. They range from the straightforward (increase damage or speed up reload rate) to the devastatingly complex. Content creators often craft hour-long videos about optimized loadouts that use powerful mods in combination 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, upon completing the mission, 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 handled the story elements, 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 removes the player's powers and melee weapons, and compels them to use the mod system to handily demonstrate its power.

Many of the external team were longtime players, but others had never played before, according to a principal games designer. This fresh viewpoint that was essential.

“Our initial step involved observing new players and go right play through the tutorial and document extensively on everywhere they fell out,” 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 put the mod in the slot,” he said.

Filling a Significant Gap

Warframe’s mods allow players to create stupidly powerful synergies that turn the screen into a blitz of numbers. 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 Teacher” is filling a real and significant gap for newcomers — and that doing so isn’t as simple as it looks.

“Numerous subtle adjustments and little subtle things in the background there to just demonstrate the possibilities 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, 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. “But you don’t want to explicitly tell players, 'oh yeah, actually on a base level mod, you only got a low probability to proc an elemental effect.' So how do you tutorialize that without changing it?”

Veterans will instinctively look for that kind of weapon effect and grasp their function, but beginners require instruction to notice these details.

“This type of design work that we previously focused on just because that hasn't been our focus,” said a narrative lead. “But part of it not being our focus that we never really told people how to use mods.”

Significant Investment

“There’s so much that goes into just making a seemingly straightforward quest that — honestly — you can complete quickly,” said the designer. “Yet it represents extensive development for many team members.”

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'm a huge fan of Teshin,” he said. “He's my 8-year-old internal self's idea of what's cool.”

Streamlining the Beginning

In the decade-plus since launch, Warframe has been in a ongoing struggle with its own new user introduction. 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 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 reduced repetitive play up front.

With “The Teacher,” it’s clear that the developers are doubling down on a commitment to make sure Warframe’s initial hours doesn’t stay locked in 2013. Beginners can find their way — even if they miss the menu prompts.