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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 unveiled a new update. The Vallis Undermind showcases 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 whole new explorable fungal area. However, it also revisits core concepts, with another quest aimed 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: modding.

In Warframe, mods are augments that can be equipped on your warframe or arsenal to improve their stats. These can be simple (boosting power or shortening reload times) to the incredibly intricate. Dedicated players often produce extensive guides about idealized builds 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,” noted a lead narrative designer. “We believed it was crucial, upon completing the mission, for players to think, ‘Wow, modding is interesting. I'd like to experiment further.’”

A Collaborative Effort

“The Teacher” was developed in a collaboration between the original developers, who handled the story elements, and a supporting studio, who crafted the gameplay, which will appear early in the game.

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 takes away the player’s abilities and melee weapons, and compels them to use the mod system to handily demonstrate its power.

Several developers were already fans of the game, but some were newcomers, according to a lead designer. It was this outside perspective that proved critical.

“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 observed these weren't effective for all.

“Certain players missed fundamental guidance where the game highlights it saying put the mod in the slot,” 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 elemental damage types; 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 explicitly tell players, 'with a basic modification, you only got a few percentage chance to proc an elemental effect.' So how do you tutorialize that without changing it?”

Experienced players will instinctively look for that kind of weapon effect and grasp their function, but new players have to be taught 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 narrative lead. “But part of it not being our focus that players weren't properly taught the modding system.”

Months of Effort

“A tremendous amount of work is required for just making a really simple mission that — frankly — you can complete quickly,” said the designer. “But it's months and months of work for loads of people.”

The designer was visibly glowing with excitement over being able to work on a game that he loves — and to craft a mission for one of his favorite characters.

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

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 much later. And others, like modding, that scale in complexity 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 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. Beginners can find their way — regardless of overlooking tutorials.