🔗 Share this article

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 significant update. The Vallis Undermind exemplifies the unique whimsy that has come to define Warframe in recent years.

This expansion, made available this week, adds a fungus-inspired character that does a little dance, along with a brand-new biome to discover. 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.

The Arrival of "The Teacher"

Called “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, mods are augments that can be equipped on your warframe or arsenal to boost their performance. These can be simple (increase damage or speed up reload rate) to the devastatingly complex. Content creators often produce extensive guides about optimized loadouts that use synergistic enhancements to create devastating effects.

“Many players likely started their journey, seeing mods, not really understanding it,” noted a key developer. “I think it was really important, at the end of the quest, for players to think, ‘Wow, modding is interesting. I want to try more of this.’”

A Collaborative Effort

“The Teacher” was created through a partnership between the original developers, who provided the narrative sauce, and an external team, who designed the mission, which will appear early in the game.

In the quest, the player is asked to retrieve a component for their ship, 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 handily demonstrate its power.

Several developers were already fans of the game, but others had never played before, according to a principal games designer. It was this outside perspective that proved critical.

“Our initial step involved observing new players and go right play through the tutorial and document extensively on all points of confusion,” the designer said. Early-game menu pop-ups 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 equip the modification,” he said.

Addressing a Real Need

Warframe’s mods allow players to create stupidly powerful synergies that turn the screen into a blitz of numbers. But "The Teacher" focuses on different aspects. Veteran users who wish the quest was geared more towards their needs, 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 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 burst-fire weapon, because it shows off the proc rate more,” the designer said. “However, the goal isn't to say to people, '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?”

Veterans will naturally recognize these mechanics and understand how it works, but beginners require instruction to pay attention to these things.

“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 players weren't properly taught the modding system.”

A Labor of Love

“There’s so much that goes into just making a really simple mission that — honestly — you can complete quickly,” 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 design content featuring a preferred figure.

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

An Evolving Onboarding Process

In the 12 years since its release, Warframe has been in a ongoing struggle with its own player onboarding process. There are many intricate mechanics that players can ignore initially — and won't encounter until much later. And others, like modding, that increase in depth depending on your level of engagement. A previous patch streamlined the early game so that players could reach Warframe’s mind-bending plot developments with less time on the grind 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.