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

This expansion, made available this week, brings in a fungus-inspired character that performs a unique animation, along with a brand-new biome to discover. But it’s also going back to basics, with a new mission aimed at making sure this complicated, expansive 12-year-old MMO makes sense to new players.

Introducing "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 improve their stats. These can be simple (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 devastating effects.

“I think a lot of people were maybe getting into the early game, encountering mods without grasping their purpose,” explained a lead narrative designer. “I think it was really important, upon completing the mission, for players to think, ‘Hey, modding is cool. I'd like to experiment further.’”

A Joint Development

“The Teacher” was developed in a collaboration between the core team, who provided the narrative sauce, and a supporting studio, 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 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 already fans of the game, but some were newcomers, according to a principal games designer. It was this outside perspective that was essential.

“Our initial step involved observing new players and go right play through the tutorial and take prodigious notes on all points of confusion,” 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 it's flashing on the screen saying put the mod in the slot,” he said.

Closing an Important Loop

Warframe’s mods allow players to create incredibly strong combinations that fill the display with damage values. But "The Teacher" focuses on different aspects. 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 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 explain it outright,” the designer said. For example, one of the goals of “The Teacher” 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 rapid-fire gun, 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 naturally recognize these mechanics and grasp their function, but beginners require instruction to pay attention to these things.

“It’s not a kind of game development that we previously focused on just because that hasn't been our focus,” 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 — honestly — you can blast through in about 15 minutes,” said the designer. “Yet it represents extensive development for many team members.”

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'm a huge fan of 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 consistent battle with its own player onboarding process. There are many intricate mechanics that players don’t need to worry about — and won’t even have access to until hours into the game. And others, like modding, that scale in complexity depending on how much time you want to invest. A previous patch 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 reinforcing their dedication to make sure Warframe’s early game experience doesn’t stay locked in 2013. Beginners can find their way — even if they miss the menu prompts.