Welcome to the beginner’s guide on the Terraria Wiki by IGN. Terraria is a game focused on crafting, exploration, and survival, featuring procedural generation to ensure that each new game offers a distinct and unique world.
Terraria emphasizes the exploration of underground areas and mining to gather materials for crafting new items, buildings, and machinery. Set in an expansive 2D side-scrolling world, the game encourages players to delve deep into its environment.
The Terraria Wiki Beginner’s Guide is designed to assist you during your early gameplay, starting from your arrival on the surface to your first battle with the Eye of Cthulhu. We aim to enhance your experience of this vibrant, imaginative, and expansive game.
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Character and World Development
Contents
We have put together a comprehensive guide on character creation, but the gist is that the decisions you make are solely for aesthetic purposes.
For your initial gameplay experience, consider opting for Softcore Difficulty. While it may seem easy, it still offers a significant level of challenge.
When it comes to the size of the world, smaller and medium-sized worlds generally make it simpler to locate key elements.
Find Refuge
Terraria features a cycle of day and night. The creatures that inhabit the Overworld at night pose a greater danger compared to those that come out during the day. Therefore, it’s advisable for newcomers to build a basic shelter.
Utilize your axe to fell several trees in the background layer, then search for a spacious, flat area of land. If a suitable location is elusive, employ your pickaxe to level the ground. Next, construct a wooden floor that is a minimum of 20 blocks in length. Once your platform is ready, step onto it and erect walls and a roof to fully enclose your character, ensuring to leave a small gap above.
You still aren’t completely secure. To finalize your new home, it’s essential to construct a wall in the background layer. To do this, you’ll require a Work Bench. Access the Crafting menu, where you’ll see a limited selection of options, including the Bench. Create one and position it within your home. Once you’re standing right next to it, open the Crafting menu again. Being close to the bench will reveal several new options, including Wooden Wall background panels.
Create a sufficient number of panels to completely cover all the empty areas in the background layer of your home. Ensure there are no gaps, as this could allow unwanted elements to enter.
You find yourself confined within a house. Utilize the Work Bench to craft a Wooden Door, and take your Axe to carve out a three-block high opening in the wall for installation. Typically, monsters are unable to open doors, so as long as you keep your newly made door closed, you should be safe from disturbances.
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Create a Wooden Sword and a Wooden Hammer. The Wooden Sword offers a greater attack range compared to your basic Copper Shortsword, making it a more powerful weapon. Meanwhile, the Wooden Hammer is useful for tidying up your surroundings by breaking down crafted items, making it an essential tool during the initial stages of the game.
The interior of your home is dim. Venture outside to locate a Slime. Defeat it to obtain Gel, a crucial ingredient for creating torches. After collecting some Gel, return to your workbench to craft a few torches. Be sure to place at least one inside your home to illuminate the space.
Key Instruments
Although your Work Bench provides various useful functions, it’s essential to construct a Furnace and an Iron Anvil to enhance your crafting capabilities. To create these items, you’ll require Stone and Iron Ore, so it’s time to begin your mining efforts.
Prior to heading out, defeat several Slimes to collect the Gel they leave behind, and create a minimum of fifty Torches. Once you’re ready, exit your house (making sure to shut the door behind you) and look for a suitable spot to start a diagonal downward tunnel. Avoid the temptation to dig straight down, as this could lead to dangerous situations at this point in the game.
Once you’ve created a stair-step shaft approximately twenty blocks deep, transition to horizontal digging. Investigate any caves you encounter, whether they are above or below your shaft, and examine these caves for potential thin walls that may connect to other caverns. Your goal is to locate deposits of Copper and Iron. While you explore, be sure to place Torches to mark a path back to your base.
Eliminate any Slimes you encounter by utilizing narrow passages in the tunnels and caves for your protection. If you feel cornered by two foes, you can swiftly erect a Dirt wall to obstruct any dangerous routes.
If you come across any water pockets, there’s no need to worry. Drowning in Terraria is a slow process. Water moves in a downward direction, allowing you to reduce the size of pools or even drain them by redirecting the water into vacant shafts. Additionally, you can create an air pocket by digging a horizontal alcove into the bottom of a pool and then clearing a space above you. Since water cannot flow upwards, you can jump repeatedly to catch your breath.
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If you perish underground in any mode other than Hardcore Difficulty, the money and items you dropped will stay at the location of your death. Retrace your steps using your Torches to find the place where you fell and retrieve your belongings.
Once you’ve gathered 20 stone, return to your base and construct a Furnace. This useful station enables you to transform raw ore into Bars, which are essential for a vast array of Crafting recipes when used with the Anvil. After you’ve produced a sufficient quantity of Iron Bars, build an Anvil to access a wide range of new Weapons, Armor, and Tools.
Getting Ready for Combat
After acquiring an Anvil, begin utilizing your metal resources to craft your combat equipment. If your Iron stock is scarce, focus on forging an Iron Broadsword, complemented by Copper Armor, along with the finest Bow within your budget. Remember to also craft some Flaming Arrows. Provided you avoid delving too far into the third underground Strata, these weapons and armor will effectively aid you in battles against the foes you will face.
Make sure to thoroughly search the terrain for Mushrooms, which are edible items that can replenish your Health when consumed. These Mushrooms can be found growing in clusters across the Overworld.
As you progress through the game, you’ll find it beneficial to enhance your weaponry. We’re currently developing a guide to assist you with this.
Extend an invitation to the neighbors.
You are now the most well-prepared general contractor in Terraria, and it’s time to start planning the neighborhood. By constructing vacant homes that meet the required standards, friendly NPCs will move in and make themselves at home. These helpful individuals offer a variety of valuable services.
The structures you create ought to be situated close to your residence. Gather some timber to construct a spacious, flat foundation, along with walls, a ceiling, a rear wall, and a Wooden Door. To ensure your new inhabitant feels comfortable, include some furnishings. Typically, a Wooden Chair and a Work Bench will suffice. Additionally, incorporate a light source indoors, such as a Torch. Don’t forget to provide a designated area for the NPC to stand.
On the right side of your Inventory screen, you’ll find a convenient Housing Menu that lets you evaluate the suitability of any house for residency. Utilize this feature to inspect your house and ensure it’s prepared for visitors. After that, click the face icon in the menu and place it on the house wall to assign a specific NPC to live there.
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You should go ahead and build at least four houses early on in the game, all near your own home. If you’ve done everything right, NPCs will eventually begin to populate these homes, offering some truly useful services like [[ItemsItem> stores.
What comes next?
Equipped and formidable, you’ve contributed to society through community development. What adventures lie ahead for the bold adventurer?
The phase in Terraria where you acquire your initial equipment and prepare to battle the Eye of Cthulhu represents the most expansive part of the game. However, it can also be quite challenging. During this period, you must collect crucial information about the terrain and underground areas through exploration, and you may find yourself significantly underprepared for this task.
Hidden from view above are the Sky Islands, while below lie expansive caverns, subterranean jungles, and the realm of Hades. At one end of the map, a massive dungeon brimming with riches beckons, and lurking in the distance is the ever-encroaching menace of The Corruption, a widespread ecological blight endangering the entire realm.
The challenge for a new player lies in the fact that many of these regions are incredibly perilous to explore. As a result, a budding Terrarian should initiate their journey with a number of scouting expeditions, investigating the surface of the world and the initial two or three layers beneath, all while keeping a vigilant watch on their Health bar.
Navigating the Overworld is quite manageable for a beginner equipped with iron weapons and armor made from copper. Make sure to gather plenty of torches and construct shelters to protect yourself from the night. As long as you avoid confrontations with the Dungeon guardian and steer clear of the Jungles and the Corruption, you should be alright. You’ll recognize the Corruption by the eerie purple hues that surround the area. It’s best to head in the opposite direction.
As you journey through the area, take the opportunity to investigate the caves and the unique features of the Terrarian landscape you come across. Be cautious of steep drops, as they can inflict significant damage. Keep in mind that you can utilize basic materials such as dirt, rock, and timber to construct bridges over obstacles that are otherwise unpassable.
As you delve into the depths below, aim to discover numerous accessible caves. Your goal is to locate valuable ores such as Iron, Silver, and Gold. Additionally, keep an eye out for Crystal Hearts. These incredibly beneficial items can be found within caves, and when broken, they unveil a Life Crystal that provides the player with an additional permanent Heart Container.
Be on the lookout for wooden chambers that house Golden Chests. These chests frequently hold potent magical artifacts and elixirs. Remember to break them open with a hammer and gather the contents after you’ve looted. They serve as excellent storage solutions for your home.