Terraria update 1.2 is out today, here’s what’s new

‘Chest sizes have been doubled’ is not referring to character creation

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We knew it was coming today, so now it’s time to celebrate. After almost two years since Terraria 1.1 brought hard mode and the Megashark to the open world title, update 1.2 adds a huge amount of content, and is bound to suck former addicts back into it in order to discover everything.

Some of the most notable additions are the mini-map that shows each tile with the most illumination it has ever had, the possibility for a pyramid to spawn during world generation, eight new non-player characters to add to town, and four new bosses to fight. The full list of additions and changes can be found below.

Bug Fixes:

  • You can no longer craft items or money by placing items in the trash
  • You can no longer sell your gold to NPCs
  • Music box/chest duping no longer works
  • Bunnies/Goldfish spawned from statues no longer drop money during a Bloodmoon
  • Equipping items to the social slot in German no longer crashes the game
  • The game will no longer create a random password during multiplayer world generation
  • You can now reforge in all languages
  • Active blocks will no longer become inactive with a chest on them
  • Fixed a bug that would cause a suitable house to be unsuitable
  • Fixed a lot of bugs that were not listed

Mechanics and Gameplay:

  • Enemies now have a health bar
  • There is now a map, mini map, and overlay that only shows tiles the brightest they have ever been
  • The map can be toggled using tab, m, or through the map icons
  • “M” has been remapped for the map feature
  • “J” is now the default button for mana use
  • There is now an extended crafting menu that will show everything you can craft
  • Some items now stack to 999
  • Character slots have been increased to 1,000
  • World slots have been increased to 1,000
  • The starting female clothes have been modified
  • There are several new hairstyles
  • Character creation has been remodeled
  • Chest sizes have been doubled
  • Your inventory space has been increased by 10
  • You no longer need to jump to ascend single blocks
  • The hammer is now used for creating slopes, halftiles, and breaking walls only
  • The axe is now only used for chopping down trees and giant mushrooms
  • Pickaxes will now remove blocks, placeable objects, and items such as Life Crystals and chests
  • You can now paint any solid tile or item
  • Dye slots have been added
  • You will now start with 10 mana
  • You can now craft early game magic robes and staves
  • Bricks, wood, stone and glass all now blend together
  • Mana Crystals only require 5 fallen stars to craft, down from 10
  • If water touches a halftile it will create a waterfall
  • Your world has a chance to get alternative ore as a replacement for copper, iron, silver, and gold
  • Your world has a chance to have a replacement for the Corruption
  • Your world has a chance to get alternative ores as a replacement for Cobalt, Mythril, and Adamantite
  • Your world has a rare chance to have a pyramid or living tree spawn during world generation each containing their own loot table
  • There is a new hardmode jungle temple
  • There are now beehives that can be found in the jungle
  • There are now several new backgrounds and tree variations your world has a chance to generate
  • Water will now change color based on the biome you are in and depth underground
  • Ropes are now found early game and can be used to craft rope coils for traversing the world
  • Chains can now be placed and used as a rope mechanism
  • Mushroom grass/seeds can now grow and spread above ground
  • There are now 3 colors for wires
  • Actuators can be used to make any solid tile active and inactive
  • There is 1 new liquid type that can be found in the Jungle
  • There are several new fountains that will change the color of water when they are placed nearby
  • Pearlstone bricks no longer spread hallow
  • Rain and blizzards have been added
  • There is a new snow biome with unique treasures and items for normal and hardmode
  • Enemies no longer trigger underground pressure plates
  • There are new pressure plates that can only be triggered by certain things such as the player, enemies, or both
  • Clowns will no longer blow up tiles
  • There are several new buffs and debuffs
  • There are now mini Capture the Gem addition to the game. You can craft large gems that draw a gem icon above the player holding the gem and if the player is killed the gem will be dropped next to their corpse
  • There are 2 new hardmode events
  • Werewolf form has been buffed and can take place every night
  • Broken armor debuff only lasts 2 minutes, down from 5
  • You now use a pickaxe to remove armor from a mannequin
  • Players no longer take double damage in pvp
  • Items of the same type will now stack when next to each other
  • When using a gravitation potion your world will invert rather than your character
  • You can no longer become invincible when touching fire blocks
  • Increased speed at which you can buy stacks of things

Graphical Changes:

  • The sun is now brighter
  • Midnight is now darker
  • The sky has a smooth gradient
  • There are several items that have had graphical upgrades such as gems, colored torches, Minishark, Muramasa, Aqua Scepter, Starfury, etc…
  • There are now stalagmites, icicles, moss, plants, rocks, and other “piles” added to enhance the environment
  • There are several new mini caves that can be found with unique backgrounds
  • Each biome will now have chests and pots with unique graphics
  • The dungeon now has 3 unique textures/colors and furniture
  • Hell houses have been remodeled
  • Floating islands have been remodeled
  • Each biome will now have unique textures and wood types:
  • Corruption: Ebonwood
  • Jungle: Rich Mahogany
  • Crimson: Shadewood
  • Hallow: Pearlwood
  • Each brick now has its own unique texture
  • Each brick wall now has its own unique texture
  • Torches are now animated and can be placed on walls
  • Common enemies such as demon eyes, skeletons, and zombies have all been given graphical variations
  • There are several new tombstones
  • All objects in the game that sparkle will now sparkle with a corresponding color

Recipes/Items:

  • In total there are over 1,000 new items
  • There are 10 new ores
  • There are 4 new wood types
  • There are 31 new brick types
  • You can now imbue melee weapons
  • There are several new arrow and bullet types
  • There are several new crafting stations
  • There are several new wands used for crafting new bricks and brick walls
  • You can now craft bricks, walls, and furniture out of several new materials:
  • Slime, Bone, Mushroom, Living wood, Flesh, Silt, and many more!
  • You can now craft Jester Arrows
  • There are 12 new wing types
  • There are several new vanity sets
  • There are a lot of new rare drops added to enemies
  • You can now craft stained glass
  • There is an item in hardmode that allows you to change biomes
  • There is an item in hardmode that allows you to increase your max health
  • There are 29 new tinker combinations
  • Several new items have been added to the game that are used for crafting dyes
  • Starfury now acts as a melee weapon and has had its damaged increased
  • Aqua Scepter has been redesigned and does slightly more damage for less mana
  • Water bolt has been redesigned and does slightly more damage
  • Vilethorn does more damage and uses less mana
  • Magic Daggers have been buffed
  • All of the old classic armors can be found as rare drops and have the same stats as their current counterparts and count towards set bonuses
  • Items that were called dyes previously for crafting have been changed to thread
  • Chests now have larger loot tables
  • You can now make picks instead of drills and axes instead of chainsaws in late game tiers
  • Increased the drop rate of souls
  • There are over 50 paintings that can be collected randomly throughout the world
  • Jungle armor no longer requires gems
  • The amount of meteorite required for crafting has been decreased
  • Meteorite armor has more defense and does more damage
  • Silt and slush can be extracted into useful materials, items, and money
  • Each boss has a rare chance to drop a placeable boss trophy
  • Hooks can now be crafted out of gems
  • Depth meter is no longer craftable
  • Stars can now be crafted with bottles to make a new light source
  • Floating island chests no longer require a key
  • Gems and bars can be placed
  • Items made from hellstone now require less hellstone

NPCS:

  • There are 8 new friendly NPCs
  • There are 4 new bosses
  • There are over 100 new enemies
  • Friendly NPCs will sell different items depending on certain conditions such as time of day or biome they are living in
  • Hardmode bosses have a chance to spawn on their own to help players progress through the game
  • Current hardmode bosses now do slightly less damage and have had their health decreased
  • There is a rare spawn mini boss that can be found during blizzards in the above ground ice biome
  • There are over 15 new pets that can be found in chests and dropped rarely off enemies
  • Early hardmode enemies now do less damage and have less health/defense.
  • Skeletron can now be summoned and has a small loot table

Music:

  • There are 15 new tracks for the game, 3 of which are from the console version of the game
  • Day theme 2 will loop into day theme 1 to add variation above ground
  • Desert, ocean, glowing mushrooms, dungeon, and space all have their own tracks now
  • Ice biome has an above and below ground track

Performance/Miscellaneous:

  • The game now only loads assets when needed, reducing the amount of RAM used
  • Optimized tile data to reduce RAM usage
  • There game will now ask you if you want to use UPnP to automatically port-forward when hosting multiplayer
About The Author
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Darren Nakamura
Darren is a scientist during the day. He has been a Destructoid community member since 2006, joining the front page as a contributor in 2011. While he enjoys shooters, RPGs, platformers, strategy, and rhythm games, he takes particular interest in independent games. He produced the Zero Cool Podcast for about four years, and he plays board games quite a bit when he can find willing companions.
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