Welcome to our guide to the best Terraria builds. Among the game's many systems, there are few as poorly explained as the Terraria classes system. In fact, it's hardly mentioned at all, its existence may even be news to you. If you're in that camp, or you're just looking for a refresher, below is our breakdown, along with the equipment you should be keeping an eye out for.

What Terraria classes are there?

There are four main classes in Terraria. Rather than being based on stats or anything that a traditional RPG would use, your class is defined by your equipment. While it's possible to mix and match these classes, it's rarely wise to. 

There's is a fifth class—one that uses throwing weapons—it gets outclassed so quickly you're better off sticking to one of the others. These are your four main classes:

Melee

In most cases, melee characters are close-range fighters who hit things, but that's not always the case in Terraria. While some of the weapons this class uses are designed for close-quarters combat, we also get boomerangs, and projectile-firing swords. Melee armour boasts the highest defensive values in the game, so this is a great class for beginners.

Ranged

Ranged characters use a combination of bows and guns to deal huge damage quickly. What's more, you have special weapons that turn your arrows into bees, or fire piranhas. That might sound cool, but you'll need to grind to keep on time of crafting your special ammo stocks.

Magic

Terraria mage builds offer some frankly obnoxious spells. This includes ray guns, short range spikes, and controllable fireballs—and that's just the early game. Later on you'll wield massive beams of light, meteor showers, and a rainbow gun. While mages can unleash high damage, their relative lack of armour means you needplenty of healing potions in your inventory.

Summons

If you prefer to delegate tasks rather than do the dirty work yourself, this is the class for you. Summoners call on spiders, imps, and dragons to do their fighting for them. That said, you'll need a backup weapon if enemies get dangerously close. Summoner is the closest you'll get to a mixed class, and it's handy for farming specific ores.

Getting started

You'll need to wait a while before you can properly choose your class: it's unlikely you'll get class-specific armour until you've taken out the first few bosses. Your best bet is to create some gold or platinum weapons and armour and stick to that until you've defeated the first major targets. 

A good way to get a good weapon early is to dig underground and raid chests you come across; just use whatever feels good or drops with decent stats. It's also worth grabbing any stars that fall to increase your mana and hunting down life crystals to boost your maximum health. Both actions will make you more powerful, and mana is essential to Mages and Summoners.

You should get some good drops from any of the bosses you fight up to the Wall of Flesh. Try to farming Queen Bee for some of the best possible gear at this early stage: she drops some of the best weapons pre-Hard Mode.

Getting to grips with the Wall of Flesh

Hell is approaching fast, so now you can start thinking about your desired class. Class-specific armour should be cropping up for you to unlock, and weapons will be buffed when you find them. This is the kind of gear you want when you're preparing to take down the Wall of Flesh, and some of it will see you through the early stages of Hard Mode too. A fair warning for budding summoners, it's a tough pick at this point. 

Melee

Weapons: Cascade (dropped by enemies in The Underworld after beating Skeletron), Starfury (found on floating islands).Armour: Molten Armour (crafted using Hellstone Bars).Accessories: Feral Claw (Jungle chests) for all, String (crafted with Cobweb) and Counterweight (bought from Travelling Merchant or Skeleton Merchant) for yoyos.

Ranged

Weapons: Minishark with Meteor Shot (purchase the gun from the Arms Dealer and craft the ammo from Meteorite Bars and Musket Balls), Molten Fury (crafted with Hellstone Bars).Armour: Necro Armour (crafted with Bone and Cobweb).Accessories: Whatever is available. 

Magic

Weapons: Space Gun (crafted with Meteorite Bars).Armour: Meteor Armour (crafted with Meteorite Bars).Accessories: Celestial Cuffs (crafted by following this guide)

Summons

Weapons: Imp Staff (crafted with Hellstone Bars).Armour: Bee Armour (crafted with Bee Wax).Accessories: Whatever you want. 

Getting to grips with Hard Mode

So things will be getting bad right about now. It turns out that sacrificing someone to summon a Wall of Flesh really hurts your karma. Welcome to Hard Mode. Your first task is to try and take out the Mechanical Bosses, which are upgraded versions of fights you'll have completed already. You can get great equipment by just running around and farming the new ores, but keep an eye out for the following drops, too. 

Melee

Weapons: Shadowflame Knife (drops from Goblin Summoner in Hard Mode Goblin Invasion), Amarok (drops from Snow Biome enemies in Hard Mode).Armour: Adamantite or Titanium Amour with the Helmet (crafted from the corresponding bars).Accessories: Warrior Emblem (drops from Wall of Flesh), Yoyo Bag (crafted with this recipe)

Ranged

Weapons: Onyx Blaster (crafted with Shotgun, Dark shard, Soul of Night) and an Endless Musket Pouch (requires four stacks of 999 Musket Balls).Armour: Adamantite or Titanium Amour with the Headgear (crafted from the corresponding bars).Accessories: Ranger Emblem (drops from Wall of Flesh) 

Magic

Weapons: Sky Fracture (crafted with a Magic Missile, Lights Shard, Soul of Light)Armour: Adamantite or Titanium Amour with the Mask (crafted from the corresponding bars).Accessories: Celestial Cuffs, Sorcerer Emblem (drops from Wall of Flesh) 

Summons

Weapons: Spider Staff and Queen Spider Staff (crafted with Spider Fang).Armour: Spider Armour (crafted with Spider Fang).Accessories: Summoner Emblem (drops from Wall of Flesh) 

Preparing for Plantera

So you've beaten the upgraded bosses, what's next? Well, now you've got access to all the Mechanical Boss items and drops, so now it's time to upgrade further for the fight against the mighty Plantera. The good news is there's new ore to mine with your fancy Pickaxe. The bad news is Summoners can fall behind here again. It may be worth jumping to a different class until you've bested Plantera. 

Melee

Weapons: Yelets (dropped by Jungle enemies), Terra Blade (follow this recipe).Armour: Chlorophyte Armour with Mask (crafted using Chlorophyte Bars).Accessories: Warrior Emblem, Yoyo Bag, Mechanical Glove (this recipe).

Ranged

Weapons: Megashark (this recipe), Daedalus Stormbow (dropped by Hallowed Mimics).Armour: Chlorophyte Armour with Helmet (crafted using Chlorophyte Bars).Accessories: Ranger Emblem, Avenger Emblem (this recipe), Magic Quiver if using a bow (drops from Skeleton Archers).

Magic

Weapons: Sky Fracture, Crystal Serpent (fishing in the Hallow) .Armour: Chlorophyte Armour with Headgear (crafted using Chlorophyte Bars).Accessories: Celestial Cuffs, Celestial Emblem (this recipe here), Sorcerer Emblem.

Summons

Weapons: Optic Staff (crafted with Black Lens, Lens, Hallowed Bars, Soul of Sights), Queen Spider Staff.Armour: Spider Armour.Accessories: Summoner Emblem. 

Taking down the Golem

With Planetera down you now have access to the jungle temple, which leads to the tough Golem fight. If you've been grinding hard then you could ease through this stage, but it depends on your gear, and luck. Here, summoners are viable again: in fact, they're just as useful as the other classes. 

Melee

Weapons: Terra Blade, The Eye of Cthulu (drops from Mothron during a Solar Eclipse)Armour: Chlorophyte Armour with Mask.Accessories: Warrior Emblem, Mechanical Glove, Yoyo Bad with a Yoyo. 

Ranged

Weapons: Megashark, Pulse Bow (purchased from the Travelling Merchant)Armour: Shroomite Armour with the headpiece that boosts your chosen weapon (crafted using Shroomite Bars).Accessories: Ranger Emblem, Avenger Emblem, Magic Quiver.

Magic

Weapons: Magnet Sphere (drops from enemies in the Dungeon after Plantera), Rainbow Gun (found in the Dungeon's Hallowed Chest, which can be unlocked with a Hallowed Key, which drops from enemies in the Hallowed Biome).Armour: Spectre Armour with the Hood for healing and Mask for DPS (crafted using Spectre Bars)Accessories: Celestial Cuffs, Celestial Emblem, Sorcerer Emblem. 

Summons

Weapons: Deadly Sphere Staff (drops from Deadly Spheres during a Solar Eclipse), Staff of the Frost Hydra (Found in the Frozen Chest in the Dungeon, open it with the Frozen Key which can drop form any enemy in the Snow Biome)Armour: Tiki Armour (purchased from the Witch Doctor when you have the Pygmy Staff in your inventory)Accessories: Summoner Emblem, Papyrus Scarab (by combining the Hercules Beetle and Necromantic Scroll), Pygmy Necklace (purchased from the Witch Doctor when you have the Pygmy Staff in your inventory and it is nighttime), Hercules Beetle (bought from the Witch Doctor with the Pygmy Staff is in your inventory and the Witch Doctor is in the Jungle), Necromantic Scroll (dropped by Mourning Wood in the Pumpkin Moon event). 

Grinding special events

Once you've conquered the Golem you're getting pretty close to the end. Now is the best time to grind the game's special events, like Frost Moon and Martian Madness. Both can take numerous attempts , but each piece of upgraded equipment will help your chances. 

One of the things that helps all Terraria classes is the UFO mount, which you can get from the Martian Madness event. Above all, it lets you fly, which is reason enough in our book. 

Melee

Weapons: The Eye of Cthulu, Influx Waver (drops from Martian Saucer in the Martian Madness event).Armour: Beetle Armour (which is obtained like this).Accessories: Warrior Emblem, Mechanical Glove, Avenger Emblem, Yoyo Bag. 

Ranged

Weapons: Chain Gun with Chlorophyte Bullets (gun is dropped by Santa-NK1 during the Frost Moon), Xenopopper (dropped by Martian Saucers during the Martian Madness event).Armour: Shroomite Armour.Accessories: Ranger Emblem, Destroyer Emblem (crafted by combining Avenger Emblem and Eye of the Golem).

Magic

Weapons: Magnet Sphere, Razorpine (dropped by Everscream during Frost Moon events).Armour: Spectre Armour.Accessories: Celestial Cuffs, Celestial Emblem, Sorcerer Emblem. 

Summons

Weapons: Xeno Staff (drops from Martian Saucer in the Martian Madness event), Staff of the Frost Hydra.Armour: Tiki Armour.Accessories: Summoner Emblem, Papyrus Scarab, Pygmy Necklace, Hercules Beetle, Necromantic Scroll.

Beating Moon Lord

This is where to get the best armour in the game, but not quite the best weapons. Grab the building blocks for the armour by destroying Pillars that help summon the Moon Lord. Beware: it's tough at this point in the game, especially in Expert Mode. 

Melee

Weapons: Solar Eruption (crafted with Solar Fragments).Armour: Solar Flare Armour (crafted with Solar Fragments).Accessories: Warrior Emblem, Destroyer Emblem, Mechanical Glove, Yoyo Bag.

Ranged

Weapons: Phantasm (crafted with Vortex Fragments).Armour: Vortex Armour (crafted with Vortex Fragments).Accessories: Ranger Emblem, Destroyer Emblem, Magic Quiver. 

Magic

Weapons: Nebula Blaze (crafted with Nebula Fragments).Armour: Nebula Armour (crafted with Nebula Fragments).Accessories: Celestial Cuffs, Celestial Emblem, Sorcerer Emblem. 

Summons

Weapons: Stardust Dragon Staff (crafted with Stardust Fragments).Armour: Stardust Armour (crafted with Stardust Fragments).Accessories: Summoner Emblem, Papyrus Scarab, Pygmy Necklace, Hercules Beetle, Necromantic Scroll.

Messing around in endgame

Congratulations, you've made it to endgame. Now your focus should be to prepare your character for Expert Mode, and beyond. All the best weapons drop from the Moon Lord fight, so just farm it for those. 

Basically, just go and mess stuff up or play around with the best Terraria mods. That's when things get even more extreme, transforming Terraria into a different game, entirely. 

The fourth major Terraria update is on its way to us at some point near the end of this year, and it’s bringing more content than you could fit in a thousand chests. It's also planned to be the final big update for Terraria, hence the name: Journey's End.

The Journey’s End update will be free to those who own Terraria—as is always the way—and will be revisiting nearly everything in the game, making wide ranging changes that would be major even if there weren't any new content. But there is: over 800 new items are being added.

In case you’re keeping count, that’s an increase of roughly 120% over what's in the game currently. Some of these will be things you can stumble across in your adventure, while others will be craftable.

What's being added in Journey's End?

The official blog post breaks down the additions, though it doesn't go into too many specifics. Here's what's planned:

• 800 new items
• New enemies and challenges
• "A full revamp of world generation"
• New mini-biomes
• Quality of life improvements
• An "in-game Bestiary" which will record "key statistics" and loot information about the enemies you kill, with your knowledge increasing with more kills.
• Golf
• A new difficulty mode that will be "a true gauntlet for the best of the best"
• "All new and enhanced weather effects"

New enemies are exciting for sure, though whether or not that means new bosses remains to be seen. The new challenges bit could be relating to the special events like the Pirate Invasion and Frost Moon, which would almost definitely mean new bosses, but we have to wait for confirmation. 

There’ll be some new mini-biomes too which are coming in along with a new world-generation system. What these are is a mystery, but you can probably expect more nests and dungeons if what we have now is anything to go by. 

Perhaps the two biggest new features are the ability to play golf and another even harder difficulty mode called Master Mode. If you’ve ever made it through Expert mode then you know just how challenging Terraria can be, so to ramp it up even more is going to take some doing. Maybe we’ll be getting a new accessory slot and special items to go with the new mode, or maybe it’s just for the masochists out there. Golf, on the other hand, should be a pretty chill experience.

Terraria: Journey's End is coming later this year. There are "a handful of other surprises and features" that haven't been announced yet, so we'll be keeping an eye out for more.

We originally reviewed Terraria in 2011. Because it has changed significantly since then, we decided to review it again. You can find our original review here. For more on why we've chosen to re-review certain games, head here.

I was deep underground, far from home, looting one of the many abandoned homesteads left to be discovered in Terraria's ever-generous bounty of nooks, crannies, alcoves, and recesses. To my left I found a twisted bit of minecart rail, populated exclusively by a nest of extremely territorial face-eating bugs that seemed eager to prove that my loose assemblage of iron-hewed armaments weren't cutting the mustard anymore. Whatever. This cabin seemed safe. Sure it was covered in musty spiderwebs, and broken furniture, but there was a golden chest on the top floor and a loom I was excited to take back to my modest township on the bottom. What could possibly go wrong?

As it turns out, nothing was going to go wrong. There wasn't a scripted boss encounter or an interrupting dirge of story exposition lying in wait for any adventurer who breached the walls. That'd be extremely un-Terraria. However, I managed to find something even scarier. if you're an idiot like me, you might not notice the underground reservoir of water above the roof until you inadvertently jam your pickaxe through the last brick keeping it at bay.

The building flooded in seconds, dowsing all of my torches, leaving me in total darkness. I took a few moments to admire the truly unique mess I'd made of everything before pulling out a glowstick (which stay lit underwater), swimming to the foyer, and flinging open the door, which sent the water rushing outwards and away from me. It was a completely improvised solution, in the face of a completely dynamic problem—eclectic dungeoneering, powered solely by the infinite potential of a player's arsenal. That is the essence of Terraria.

Crafting mines

There was a time, back in the already-difficult-to-remember 2011, when Terraria released to Steam and was immediately dogged by comparisons to Minecraft. And it is similar, if 2D. These are two games about digging and building and crafting, supported by a ravenous community willing to pour hundreds of hours into exactly one universe for the rest of their lives. But things have changed since then. Notch sold off Minecraft to buy a house in Calabasas, and today his work is played primarily by nine-year-olds and YouTubers who make videos for nine-year-olds. Terraria, on the other hand, attracts very particular fans, and today it feels like the world at large has determined this little 2D side-scroller is a modern classic.

Terraria's core structure remains pretty much the same as it was during its initial unveiling. You create a character, and enter a randomly-generated world (albeit one that's guaranteed to have a few core recurring elements). There's a day/night cycle, which means you'll immediately be under siege by zombies and floating eyeballs as soon as the sun goes down, so your first order of business is to put your starting set of copper harvesting tools to work and construct a house (complete with a table, chair, and light source). Once you have a place to keep you safe at night, the world is pretty much your oyster. You trot across the earth's crust to find some entry points into the vast network of underground caverns below your feet. You'll mine, and chop, and kill enterprising bad guys, and return home with iron, and tin, and buckets of loot sourced from benevolent wooden chests. You'll construct layered workstations to forge your harvest into better weapons and gear, you'll build more houses that will attract new NPCs, who will sell you exotic items or offer fresh haircuts, you'll eventually no longer fear the night, and will cut through zombies like cotton candy.

Unlike Minecraft, Terraria is very much focused on combat, moreso than building. The dungeons you'll skulk through continue to present new challenges and new enemies the lower you go, and while the pure act of digging can get a little grindy at times, there's a wonderful splendor to dipping your toes into an uncharted grotto, thousands of miles below sea level, that will never get old. (Seriously, you can talk to people who've sunk 500 hours into this game, and they're still not sure if they've truly seen everything.)

Metamorphosis 

But here's the thing: everyone who starts to play Terraria eventually confronts the mind-boggling reality that the digging, and building, and combat they're enjoying are hilariously quaint when compared to the stuff people are experiencing in the mid-to-late game. Yes, you might feel cool once you've crafted your first grappling hook, or dredged up your first pair of double-jump boots from the depths. But inevitably, you'll stumble into a YouTube video of a dude in feathery angel wings with a chain gun soaring across the night sky at a million miles an hour, taking aim at a screen-filling Lovecraftian monstrosity. Suddenly, this rudimentary digging game morphed into Gunstar Heroes. 

The progression system in Terraria—the way you're able to gear up, or unlock its world-altering bosses—are intentionally opaque. Meaning; you could spend hours without realizing that, like, there are floating islands above your head, or that you can build a lightsaber if you harvest enough bars of meteorite metal, or that you can summon an evil robot Santa Claus with a cursed Christmas present (he drops a unique gun called the "Elf Melter"). That perpetual sense of discovery is what I love most about Terraria. I love knowing that all those tantalizing secrets are buried into the dark corners of the sandbox as soon as I enter—it makes this game feel truly bottomless. Between Breath of the Wild, Monster Hunter, and Dark Souls, the industry at large has acknowledged the magic of letting players stumble into stuff without a waypoint or an itinerary. So, let it be known that Terraria was mining that feeling first, long before the triple-A intelligentsia caught up.

I can't find exact numbers, but I believe there was something like a couple hundred items in Terraria at launch. Today, that number is over 3,000, and it seems likely that Re-Logic will continue to support the game for the rest of time. Over the past couple of years the studio has introduced new bosses, new events, 4K support, and an exacting "expert" mode that makes it much more difficult, as well as the usual tweaks, balances, and hotfixes. That being said, I do think we might be at a point where a foundational engine overhaul might be necessary. Terraria still looks pretty, and Re-Logic has stepped in to polish water effects and some other cosmetic stuff, but the sprites themselves remain limited. It's 2018, so maybe it's time to give our characters an actual climbing animation, and maybe it's time to change that awful low-res vocal clip whenever we take damage. 

The crafting menu is also fairly dated. There's no tech tree to be found in the pause screen, instead your only in-game recourse is to ask the "guide" (the first NPC you meet in Terraria), who will give you a list of items that a specific doodad in your inventory can be used as an ingredient to build. This is a policy that makes Terraria a wiki-heavy game. You will be doing a ton of alt-tabbing if you're looking to outfit yourself with a particular loadout, which can be fun and annoying in equal turns. Perhaps someday Re-Logic will make that information more accessible, but I understand if the company feels like that might contradict some of Terraria's core values.

Digging forever

Overall though, it's impressive how good Terraria feels, all these years later. It shifts between dungeon-crawling, resource-gathering, base-building, and firefights with ease. The combat is simple and satisfying, and there's a real joy to equipping yourself with heavy artillery after spending far too long with a copper broadsword. It also packs one of the most impressive physics engines you'll ever find. Sand and silt billows and accumulates in realistic ways; water and lava slowly fill empty spaces once you've sprung a leak; arrows and shurikens are tugged to the earth by gravity. It lets you solve problems without resorting to videogame logic. I can't think of many other 2D games that let me save my skin by opening the door of a flooded house. 

Terraria looks a little intimidating from the outside. That's an affliction we all deal with when we examine a legacy product, under a watchful stream of patches and updates, with an international fanbase so deeply ingrained in their own culture that they might as well be speaking a different language. Undoubtedly, you'll do some googling and be confronted with ersatz terms like Hardmode and corruption, and Insane Cultists, and crystal hearts. It is those overwhelming moments where we all want to regress back into our happy place—the games where we've already put in the work to know what we're doing.

What I will say is that Terraria can truly be whatever you make of it. You can download a checklist that will fast-track you through all the optimal crafting paths or boss strategies. Or you can simply get lost in the transcendental meditation of digging, and finding cool stuff, and doing more digging. Kill the brain of C'Thulu with a revolver, or find a nice bookcase and proudly mount it on the second floor of your apartment. Whatever it is, Terraria will find you.

Terraria: Otherworld has had a rough old time since developer Re-Logic announced it in 2015. A year later it was revamped, and last year co-developer Engine Software was dropped from the project. So it's not entirely surprising that the game—which was a more focused, strategic spin-off of Terraria—has now been cancelled.

In a blog post, Re-Logic explained that Otherworld was a long way behind schedule, and still far short of the game the team wanted it to be. "Taking the massive amount of work that would be remaining to complete along with the extensive time it would take to get that done, and how that would greatly interfere with the pursuit of other projects on behalf of Re-Logic, it becomes clear that this leaves things in a very undesirable state," it said.

"At some point, we have to be honest with ourselves and realize that Otherworld simply is never going to reach its potential in any sort of reasonable time or fashion."

It admitted that it shouldn't have announced the project at such an early stage, and that it will only talk about games "in which we are fully confident in regards to timing" in the future. It also said it was a mistake to partly outsource development to another team, and that future projects are likely to be kept in-house.

While Otherworld will never see the light of day, some of its best ideas will make it into the studio's future games, Re-Logic said. Finally, it said that the cancellation will not impact the active development of Terraria, which continues as planned.

Welcome to our roundup of the best Terraria mods. In the years since Terraria's release, the sprawling survival sandbox has been treated to countless players, a vast number of updates and thousands of user-made mods—a list which spans the suitably sublime to the outright bizarre.

The following Terraria mods offer but a smattering of our favourites, which add new soundtracks, items, settings and overhauls to Re-Logic's two-dimensional adventure playground. Heck, there're even mods in here which transform the game into fully-fledged RPGs, so you're bound to find something that tickles your fancy. Have fun experimenting!  

For more on Terraria check out our Terraria review. The game has sold more than 20 million copies, and has the honour of featuring in our round up of the strangest patch notes in PC gaming.

Tremor 

Download here

Let's start big, shall we? The Tremor Mod Remastered is one of the best Terraria mods out there, and is as close to a total conversion as you're likely to get. Packing over 522 items (including weapons), seven NPCs, loads of mobs, and six new bosses, the mod's seven-person team isn't kidding when it says "our goal for the mod is to make Terraria even bigger and to fill it with even more content than it has." Furthermore, Tremor adds exclusive expert mode treasure which should keep even the best Terraria players/intrepid loot hunters going for some time.   

imkSushi's crafting mod 

Download here

Terraria is a game about growth—about building up your character, your skills and, crucially, your chances of survival. Crafting plays a very large part of this and while there's something to be said about perseverance and successful scavenging, imkSushi's mod lets you craft whatever the heck you want, whenever the heck you like. This quality of life addition makes items that are usually found in chests and drops readily available, therefore this naturally this suits action-oriented players. It even lets you buy boss-summoning items from NPCs, so long as you've previously defeated the adversary in question.   

N Terraria 

Download here

Terraria is already a time-sink to rival any RPG, but this entry in our best Terraria mods, N Terraria, turns it into a fully featured roleplaying experience with all of the trappings: classes, races, a level system, NPC companions and even quests. It’s got it all. It’s a perfect way to add some longevity to what is already a very deep game. It also makes the game harder than Adamantite, but it’s all part of the charm.  

TerraFirma 

Download here

TerraFirma is the premier mapping tool for the curious adventurer. This invaluable tool pulls the world map out of your save and makes it viewable, taking the guesswork out of spelunking for resources. You can also use it to sneak a peek into chests, search for statues or even find the underground desert.  

Terraria Overhaul 

Download here

Don't be fooled by its generic name, this ambitious undertaking adds a bunch of new gameplay mechanics—targeting everything from combat to seasons, dodge-rolls, electricity systems and player movement. Terraria Overhaul describes itself as a "huge" mod, and that feels like an understatement.  

Thorium 

Download here

The grandmaster of Terraria overhauls. Tremor, as featured elsewhere on this list, is a great mod—excellent, even—however Thorium is above and beyond the best there is. Think new bosses, new NPCs, new enemies, new items, a new multiplayer healer class, new just about everything you can think of—this 'un upgrades Terraria's vanilla state in just about every way imaginable. What's more, bosses harness unique attack patterns and have a tendency towards projectile offence, which makes expert mode only suitable for those with utmost skill and a cool temperament. Or at least a replacement keyboard/control pad.    

TerraSavr 

Download here

Another utility for our best Terraria mods round up, TerraSavr lets you fiddle with your items: point it at your Terraria.plr and you can edit your character’s variables, imbue your items with buffs or—if you’re a filthy cheat—give yourself new items.

This isn’t limited to shiny new gear either, the tool makes every item in the game searchable and from there you just click and drag it into your inventory. It’s web based, so you just click the link and get to work.

Calamity 

Download here

Like Tremor and Thorium, Calamity adds a ridiculous amount of new stuff by way of both standard and unique weapons (melee, ranged and magic), armour loadouts, items, and accessories. The mod also flaunts five new types of mineable ores and tiles, not to mention ten new bosses—each with its own distinct strengths and weaknesses. While perhaps not quite as sophisticated as the overhauls noted above, creator MountainDrew runs regular polls on the mod's tModLoader page where he or she asks for suggestions regarding what to add next.    

Super Terraria World  

Download here

Super Terraria World has been around for a couple of years, but has continually impressed with the speed in which it's grown. This mod transforms the base game into a fully realised RPG (it bills itself as a "standalone MMORPG overhaul mod") including intricate quests, skills, NPCs and all that's expected from a role-playing adventure lark. Once a part-time endeavour, its creators have recently launched a Patreon with the aim of pushing its boundaries further still, and its most recent update—number 1.12a—launched alongside an official trailer. This mod is ideal for those not just after extra mileage in Terraria, but also additional structure.  

Legend of Zelda Wavebank  

Download here

After a hundred hours or so, you might start itching to change the music. There’s a lot of different music mods for Terraria, but I use the great Legend of Zelda Wavebank, which adds classic tracks from Ocarina of Time. There are a whole lot of other choices on the Terraria forums, including original compositions and renditions of the Mario and Halo soundtracks.

Installation is easy. Go to Terraria’s content folder. You’ll need to make a copy of the file Wave Bank and move it somewhere safe, then drag the sound pack into the folder and make sure it’s called Wave Bank. Voila. The game will start playing the music from the pack next time you launch.

tModLoader 

Download here

tModLoader's creator describes it as a mod to make mods, which makes it a vital resource for anyone interested in modding Terraria. It follows in the footsteps of the discontinued tAPI, and helps modders keep their creations compatible with one another.

Not quite as sexy as a total conversion, rebalancing or slew of new items, but tModLoader helps keep new mods ticking along years after Terraria's release.

Most patch notes are boring. Fixed a bug that stopped a menu from opening properly. D.Va's Defense Matrix doesn't last as long. Wukong's attack speed is 10 percent slower. That's the usual stuff, chronicling important but dull balance changes across years of a game's life. And then there are patch notes like this: "Added cat butchery." "Made all undead respectful of one another." "Tigerman does not have ears."

That's the good stuff.

Those are the kinds of wonderfully crazy patch notes Dwarf Fortress has given us over the years. Determined to top the absurdity of Dwarf Fortress's bizarre changelogs, I put on my deerstalker, grabbed my magnifying glass, and set out to find the strangest patch notes in the history of PC gaming. These absurdities are the result. 

Rimworld

Alpha 12

• Colonists will visit graves of dead colonists for a joy activity. 

Alpha 16

• New alert: Unhappy nudity 

Alpha 17

• Raiders will no longer compulsively attack doors. 

---

Conan Exiles

Patch 15.2.2017

• Rhinos should no longer try to walk through players 

Patch 15.2.2017

• Emus now give less XP 

Patch 23.02.2017

• Players can no longer use chairs to travel great distances 

Update 24

• Imps, ostriches and other non-humanoids no longer go bonkers if you hit them with a truncheon 

Update 25

• Seeing dead people can now lead to great rewards 

Update 28

• Fixed a small issue where a player in some instances could walk underwater. 

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Rust

Update 149

• Bucket no longer hostile to peacekeepers 

Update 152

• Pumpkins only have 1 season (instead of 7) 

August 28, 2014

• Bald inmate digging grows hair bug fixed 

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Terraria

1.2.0.2

• The game will no longer look for the square root of zero. 

1.2.1

• Mice can no longer spawn in hell 

1.2.3

• Red Stucco no longer spreads corruption. 

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The Sims 4

02/04/2016

• Sims carving pumpkins or working at a woodworking table will no longer ignore Sims who die near them. 

02/04/2016

• Babies will no longer send text messages congratulating your Sims on their marriage, engagement, or pregnancy. 

01/12/2017

• Confident children will no longer get a whim to practice pick-up lines. 

05/25/2017

• Babies will no longer change skin tone when they are picked up. 

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Don't Starve

January 29th 2013

• Darts and poop won't magically accumulate at the world origin. 

October 1st 2013

• You can no longer trade with sleeping pigs. 

November 19th 2013

• You can properly deploy or murder captured butterflies 

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Ark: Survival Evolved

254.9

• Beers can no longer be eaten by Dinos 

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The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

1.2

• Taking items from dead owned creatures is no longer a crime 

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World of Warcraft

1.3.0

• The quest NPC Khan Jehn no longer becomes confused and unresponsive 

1.4.0

• Roast Raptor now has an more appropriate inventory sound 

2.1.0

• Fixed an error where some characters appeared to be drinking while standing up 

2.4.0

• Zapetta will no longer become confused about whether the zeppelin in Orgrimmar is arriving or leaving 

3.1.0

• Yaaarrrr! now has a detailed tooltip 

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Uplink

1.314 

• Fixed : Dead or jailed people don't answer their phones 

1.35 

• Fixed : LAN Spoof progress graphic overflow 
• Fixed : Time freezing and unclickable buttons on computers running for several weeks

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Everquest

July 10, 2001 

• Reevaluated the values of the various fish fillets 

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August 15, 2001 

• The Giant Tree Flayer is now Large instead of Tiny 

December 6, 2001 

• Fixed a bug that was preventing characters from being bald 

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Two Worlds 2

1.4

• Horse behaviour - improved 

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Battlefield 1942

1.2 

• Bots do not jump in and out of vehicles anymore 

--- 

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

1.02 

• Dead party members will no longer show up later in the game. What with thembeing dead and all 

--- 

Black and White

1.1 

• The word "Death" no longer said when villagers die of old age
• Creature doesn't become constipated if you punish him for pooing 

--- 

No One Lives Forever 2

1.3 

• Fixed problems with camera rotation after slipping on a banana 

--- 

Hitman: Codename 47

Patch 1 

• Dancer in "Gunrunner's Paradise" is no longer confused by dead bodies 

The Terraria 1.3.5 update, with support for 4K graphics, interface scale and zoom sliders, new language localizations, and a good number of bug fixes, is now live. Developer Re-Logic said the update isn't content-heavy, but "will provide a solid foundation from which we can execute our other secret Terraria update plans—and we are pretty sure you will find those exciting!" 

"This update represents one part of the team's vision for what we have called 1.3.5 to this point, and is focused on polishing and fixing up some issues that have needed addressing as well as bringing some long-requested features to the game," the studio wrote. "Admittedly, it is a bit light on "more content", however, we wanted to go ahead and get these ready-to-go features out to players now rather than making everyone wait until all of the other stuff is completed." 

There are some new pieces of furniture in the update and a couple of armor sets, but the big hook is the 4K support and the ability to adjust the scale of the interface and zoom in and out on the gameworld. For non-English-speaking players, the "professional localizations" are probably pretty nice too: The game now supports Russian, Simplified Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese, and Polish, along with German, Italian, French, and Spanish. 

"The other part of this update will be focused on a list of things that the team feels needs a fresh look (rebalancing/tweaking/polishing) as well as some areas that we feel were overlooked or forgotten when we were working on the past several updates," Re-Logic wrote. "For now, enjoy these handful of goodies (especially our non-English speaking fans), look forward to a second round to come... and towards even bigger things down the road." 

The full patch notes are below.   

Features:

• Greatly improved rendering and overall gameplay on resolutions larger than 1080p
• Added Zoom and UI scale sliders in the in-game settings menu
• Added most of the main menu's settings to the in-game settings menu
• Dungeons in newly generated worlds now contain new furniture
• Added a crystal furniture set, and expanded other furniture sets
• Added Arkhalis's and Leinfors' developer armor sets
• NPCs who are manually assigned to a room will attempt to return to it when they respawn after being slain
• Improved stability on Mac OS X and Linux
• Improved visuals on many different things
• Improved Retro lighting consistency

Fixes:

• Fixed settings button overlaying the armor icon
• Fixed inconsistent naming for Sand Poacher and Granite Golem banners
• Fixed banner buff list extending beyond screen limits
• Fixed hand drawing over backhand glove and shield accessories for female characters
• Fixed Sparky painting and several other rare paintings not naturally spawning properly
• Fixed a certain multiplayer crash
• Fixed sign mouseover text staying on cursor permanently when in Options and Camera menus
• Fixed a world generation crash on Linux
• Fixed a number of minor grammar issues in NPC dialog
• Fixed a certain exploit
• Fixed trapped Granite and Meteorite Chests dropping the wrong item upon breaking
• Fixed Vortex Monolith not selling for as much as it should
• Fixed crash when linking items with invalid prefix ids in chat
• Fixed Pumpkin Shirt and Robot Shirt causing leg skin to disappear when equipped
• Fixed Defender's Forge closing instantly if opened from below
• Fixed Terraria thinking it has focus when it did not have focus
• Fixed Grand Design and Multicolor Wrench emitting light on use
• Fixed auto-creating a world from the server causing it to always use the same seed
• Fixed Platinum Candelabra not sitting properly on other objects
• Fixed Goblin Tinkerer being slightly smaller than intended
• Fixed petrification death messages being broken for a long while now
• Fixed Wall Creeper dropping gore when blood and gore are off
• Fixed Xeno Staff's selling price, now consistent with the rest of Martian loot
• Fixed crash when mousing over chests and dressers in the map view
• Fixed settings button colliding with 6th accessory dye slot
• Fixed Corrupt Thorns almost never generating
• Fixed multiple issues with platform/block interaction
• Fixed pillars of dirt appearing above the Underground Desert sometimes
• Potentially fixed an issue where Marathon Medalist would cause FPS drops.
• Platforms from 1.2.4.1 and above now emit particles when destroyed
• Virtual Keyboard should no longer appear unless a Gamepad is being used
• Using Quick Heal to consume restoration potions now properly inflicts mana sickness
• Defender's Forge now has highlight outlines

The wait for Terraria: Otherworld is ongoing, but in the meantime it's well worth catching up with the first game, which is 40% off today on Steam's daily deal. 

If you don't mind doing a lot of mining, Terraria is a expansive, absorbing open world sandbox game, and one of the best games to come out of the Minecraft craze. While '2D Minecraft' is an easy way to capture the game's essentials, under the surface it's actually a really cool sandbox RPG with exciting weapons and armour, and huge apocalyptic bosses.

It's also great in multiplayer, and there's a busy modding scene. It's a lot of game for £4.19 / $5.99.

It's been a couple of years since the announcement of Terraria: Otherworld, the followup that is not a sequel to the 2011 crafting-and-survival game Terraria. Developer Re-Logic hasn't had much to say about it since, but today it took to its forums to share some "important news." The good news is that the game is still in the works; the bad news is that co-developer Engine Software has been dropped from the project for reasons unknown, and that means it may take a little (or maybe a lot) longer than expected to get things done. 

"Our team had a clear vision for this game—one that we shared with all of you with much shared excitement—and, as much as we hate to say it (and in spite of all of the reforms we tried last year) the current state of the game is still equal parts far from that vision and well behind schedule," Re-Logic wrote.

"As a result, we have made the decision to move on from having Engine Software continue development of Terraria: Otherworld. Re-Logic has possession of the game (code, art, sounds, etc.) as it exists today, and we have been examining the array of options available to us to get TOW to a place to where we can confidently deliver on the vision and expectations we all have for this game. After taking a good hard look at everything, we feel that a new and fresh start/direction is the only way Otherworld will ever reach its full potential at this point." 

Pipeworks, which has been working since last year on the console and mobile version of Terraria, has now been brought on as the "development partner" on Otherworld. The two studios will "examine the entire game, from top to bottom, to see how it fits with our high expectations and core vision for this project," and while Re-Logic didn't commit to updated release timing, it did warn that the "quiet period" will likely go on for awhile longer while Pipeworks gets brought up to speed. It also promised that "a full refresh of all of the Otherworld public-facing locations" is on the way—even the Terraria: Otherworld logo is changing. 

"Come whatever may, quality is simply not something we are willing to compromise on to make a quick buck. It may be painful in the short term, but our sincere hope is that it will pay off for everyone in the long term," the studio said. "Clearly, had we known this would be the scenario way back then, we would have held off on announcing the game until a later time—but such is game development. That said, we are really happy and confident with the new team and new plan—and cannot wait to get back on track." 

Re-Logic said it would share more "very soon," but added that it "will not delve into some areas out of either respect or confidence or the unknown."   

If Minecraft were on the Super NES, it might look something like Terraria, Re-Logic's lovely crafting sandbox RPG that launched around six years ago on PC. While the popularity of most games dwindles over the years, Terraria's fanbase has only grown in size, so it comes as little surprise to hear that it's sold over 20 million copies since its release.

Interestingly, 8.5 million of the 20.5 million copies sold have been in the last 18 months, since version 1.3 was unleashed on PC. That update is coming to consoles and mobile platforms shortly, the announcement post reveals, so if you're not playing it on PC you'll soon be able to tinker with Terraria's latest evolution, which has been gestating on desktops and laptops for a year-and-a-half now.

In the years since its release, Terraria's NPC, enemy, boss and biome counts have ballooned massively, while extra modes, events and other bits have been added to the ever-expanding sandbox too. If you're one of its 20+ million players, you might want to take a look at our Terraria mod roundup.