🔗 Share this article

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. The Vallis Undermind highlights the creative flair that has come to define Warframe in the past few seasons.

This expansion, released on Wednesday, adds a fungus-inspired character that performs a unique animation, along with a whole new explorable fungal area. But it’s also going back to basics, with a new mission aimed at making sure this complex, vast 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 fundamental yet complex systems: modding.

In Warframe, mods are augments 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 incredibly intricate. Dedicated players often craft hour-long videos about idealized builds that use powerful mods in combination to create overwhelming power.

“I think a lot of people were maybe getting into the early game, encountering mods without grasping their purpose,” explained a key developer. “We believed it was crucial, upon completing the mission, for players to think, ‘Wow, modding is interesting. I want to try more of this.’”

A Joint Development

“The Teacher” was created through a partnership between the core team, who provided the narrative sauce, and a supporting studio, 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 interrupted by a menacing, powerful warrior called Teshin, who takes away the player’s abilities and close-combat arms, and compels them to use the mod system to handily demonstrate its power.

Many of the external team were already fans of the game, but others had never played before, according to a lead 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 presented the mod system. 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 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.

“There’s lots of little tweaks and background details there to just sort of show you what it can do rather than tell you,” 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.

“Adjustments to the armament 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 low probability to trigger a special damage type.' How can you teach this mechanic effectively?”

Veterans 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.

“It’s not a kind of game development that we've had to worry about as much 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.”

Months of Effort

“There’s so much that goes into just making a seemingly straightforward quest that — honestly — you can blast through in about 15 minutes,” 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 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 encounter until hours into the game. 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 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 doesn’t stay locked in 2013. Beginners can find their way — regardless of overlooking tutorials.