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The space ninja adventure known as Warframe, an experience where you might encounter bizarre cosmic entities and pilot futuristic vehicles, has unveiled a significant update. This latest expansion exemplifies the unique whimsy that has come to define Warframe in the past few seasons.

This expansion, released on Wednesday, adds a new mushroom-themed warframe that does a little dance, along with a whole new explorable fungal area. But it’s also going back to basics, with a new mission geared at making sure this complicated, expansive 12-year-old MMO makes sense to new players.

A Quest Called "The Teacher"

Called “The Teacher,” this is the highly anticipated mission that trains 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 equipped on your warframe or arsenal to enhance their abilities. They range from the straightforward (boosting power or shortening reload times) to the incredibly intricate. Content creators 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,” noted a key developer. “We believed it was crucial, upon completing the mission, for players to think, ‘Hey, modding is cool. I want to try more of this.’”

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 new segment for their spaceship, but they’re confronted by a formidable foe called Teshin, who takes away the player’s abilities and close-combat arms, and forces them to engage with 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 lead designer. It was this outside perspective that was essential.

“The first thing we did was basically sit behind them and have them experience the introduction and document extensively on everywhere they fell out,” the designer said. Introductory tutorials presented the mod system. But the team noted that they didn’t work on everyone.

“Certain players missed fundamental guidance 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 fill the display with damage values. But "The Teacher" isn’t really about that. Veteran users 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 early players — and that executing this is quite complex.

“Numerous subtle adjustments and background details 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.

“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 explicitly tell players, 'with a basic modification, you only got a low probability to proc an elemental effect.' So how do you tutorialize that without changing it?”

Experienced players will naturally recognize these mechanics and understand how it works, but beginners require instruction 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 players weren't properly taught the modding system.”

A Labor of Love

“A tremendous amount of work is required for 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 many team members.”

The designer was visibly glowing with excitement over contributing to a beloved title — and to craft a mission for one of his favorite characters.

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

An Evolving Onboarding Process

In the decade-plus since launch, 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 how much time you want to invest. An update earlier this year 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 evolves beyond its origins. New players can get their foot in the door — even if they miss the menu prompts.