🔗 Share this article

The space ninja adventure known as Warframe, a title where you might encounter bizarre cosmic entities and pilot futuristic vehicles, has launched a major update. This latest expansion highlights the creative flair that has become synonymous with Warframe in recent years.

The new content, released on Wednesday, adds a fungus-inspired character that performs a unique animation, along with a brand-new biome to discover. However, it also revisits core concepts, with another quest aimed at making sure this complex, vast long-running online game is accessible for new players.

Introducing "The Teacher"

Called “The Teacher,” this is the long-awaited quest 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 added to your character or your weapons to enhance their abilities. These can be simple (increase damage or speed up reload rate) to the incredibly intricate. Content creators often produce extensive guides 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,” said a lead narrative designer. “We believed it was crucial, at the end of the quest, for players to think, ‘Hey, modding is cool. I'd like to experiment further.’”

Teamwork in Action

“The Teacher” was created through a partnership 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 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 melee weapons, 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 principal games designer. This fresh viewpoint that was essential.

“The first thing we did was basically sit behind them and have them experience the introduction and take prodigious notes on all points of confusion,” the designer said. Introductory tutorials presented the mod system. 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 equip the modification,” he said.

Filling a Significant Gap

Warframe’s mods allow players to create stupidly powerful synergies that turn the screen into a blitz of numbers. But "The Teacher" isn’t really about that. There will be some long-time players 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.

“There’s lots of little tweaks 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 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. “However, the goal isn't to explicitly tell players, 'oh yeah, actually on a base level mod, you only got a low probability to proc an elemental effect.' How can you teach this mechanic effectively?”

Experienced players 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 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.”

Significant Investment

“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 clearly enthusiastic 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 ongoing struggle with its own player onboarding process. There are many intricate mechanics that players don’t need to worry about — and won't encounter until much later. And others, like modding, that scale in complexity depending on how much time you want to invest. A previous patch improved the introductory experience 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 early game experience doesn’t stay locked in 2013. Beginners can find their way — even if they miss the menu prompts.