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The space ninja adventure known as Warframe, a title where you might encounter bizarre cosmic entities and drive a motorcycle in the year 1999, has unveiled a major update. This latest expansion showcases the unique whimsy that has come to define Warframe in more recent times.

The new content, released on Wednesday, brings in a new mushroom-themed warframe that performs a unique animation, along with a whole new explorable fungal area. However, it also revisits core concepts, with another quest geared at making sure this complex, vast long-running online game is accessible for new players.

A Quest Called "The Teacher"

Titled “The Teacher,” this is the highly anticipated mission that educates Warframe players on how to use one of the game's most basic — yet most intricate systems: modding.

In Warframe, modifications are enhancements that can be added to your character or your weapons to enhance their abilities. They range from the straightforward (increase damage or speed up reload rate) to the incredibly intricate. Dedicated players often produce extensive guides about optimized loadouts that use powerful mods in combination to create overwhelming power.

“Many players likely started their journey, seeing mods, not really understanding it,” said 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.’”

Teamwork in Action

“The Teacher” was created through a partnership between the core team, who handled the story elements, and an external team, who crafted the gameplay, which will be introduced to new players.

In the quest, the player is tasked with obtaining a new segment for their spaceship, but they’re confronted by a formidable foe called Teshin, who removes the player's powers and close-combat arms, and compels them to use the mod system to effectively show its potential.

Several developers were already fans of the game, but some were newcomers, according to a principal games 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 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 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 turn the screen into a blitz of numbers. But "The Teacher" isn’t really about that. There will be some long-time players who wish the quest was geared more towards their needs, like optimizing for endgame challenges. But it became clear that the mission addresses a genuine oversight 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 explain it outright,” the designer said. For example, one of the mission's objectives is to show how mods can create elemental damage types; in this case, Magnetic damage that eats chunks out of enemy shields.

“Adjustments to the armament to be a burst-fire weapon, because it better demonstrates the effect frequency,” the designer said. “But you don’t want to say to people, 'with a basic modification, you only got a few percentage chance to proc an elemental effect.' How can you teach this mechanic effectively?”

Experienced players will instinctively look for that kind of weapon effect and understand how it works, but new players have to be taught to notice these details.

“This type of design work 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 we never really told people how to use mods.”

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

An Evolving Onboarding Process

In the 12 years since its release, Warframe has been in a consistent battle with its own new user introduction. There are lots of complex systems that players can ignore initially — and won’t even have access to until much later. And others, like modding, that increase in depth depending on your level of engagement. A previous patch improved the introductory experience 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 reinforcing their dedication to make sure Warframe’s initial hours doesn’t stay locked in 2013. New players can get their foot in the door — even if they miss the menu prompts.