After taking a year off and porting the game to consoles, the team that brought us Terraria is preparing their first major update in twelve months. Whether you believe they earned their year-long sabbatical or maintain the somewhat entitled opinion that we deserved this update “sooner” and that Re-Logic somehow “sold out” by developing a version for PSN and Xbox Live, the fact remains they’re back and their first big update is almost here. A complete list of additions can be found here on the Terraria wiki but to quickly summarize, the next update will include the following:
- Pets: As in the console release, players can now summon little seizure-inducing familiars to follow them around if they wish. Pets are optional and require items that can only be found in chests but provide a buff for the players that seek them out.
- A new/expanded biome: 1.2 sees the addition of the revised snow biome, including frozen underground caves, biome-specific props, and a handful of new ice-themed monsters. Winter is coming Terraria…
- Diagonal blocks and the ability to climb gentle slopes: Self-explanatory really, this will allow players to navigate more of the world without having to smash the space bar every few seconds.
- More equipment: In short, everything that was developed for the console versions is being ported back to the PC and added to a huge pile of stuff that console gamers will likely see in their next update. The three console tier armor sets are confirmed to be in the next update as is a rocket launcher with the capability to destroy blocks.
- More furniture: Water colors and block dyes have been confirmed, giving those of us who like to decorate and create funky pixel art even more options. A new crafting station, the cooking stove, is confirmed but its function remains unknown. Additional traps for those who like to construct elaborate mazes of doom for the rage-inducing Goblin Army event are rumored but unconfirmed.
- More enemies: Viking skeletons and Eskimo zombies have been confirmed, and the inclusion of the console armors means that the console boss Ocram is probably among the “2-4 new boss monsters” rumored to be included in the next update.
- Minimap: While it is relatively difficult to get truly lost in Terraria due to the game’s two-dimensional plane, at least compared to Minecraft, a map that automatically charts the player’s explorations will help with large-scale construction and navigating certain areas such as the Dungeon.
So, that sums up the highlights of the next big update. It is highly probable that current worlds are incompatible with the new changes but that’s nothing new. There remains no word on whether or not there are any plans to overhaul the game’s multiplayer component into something more user-friendly for less computer-savvy individuals as of yet. More if that changes, Terraria 1.2 is set for release sometime in July.
