Re-Logic Announces Terraria: Journey's End at E3!

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Good day Terrarians!

As you hopefully noticed, we had some pretty big news to share at E3 today! During the PC Gaming Show, we revealed live to the world that the in-development 1.3.6 update is no more... the next update to Terraria will in fact be the fourth major update we have developed for the game, which we are calling Terraria: Journey's End!

For those that were unable to watch the reveal live, we have shared the teaser trailer below - along with some key details and a bit of what we expect will be your FAQ. As we always do, we have left out a ton of juicy details and other content and features that will be included with Terraria: Journey's End. Some of those have or might be spoiled between now and launch, but others will remain a secret until you have the update in your hands later this year. So, without further ado... we present to you Terraria: Journey's End!



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KEY FEATURES REVEALED THUS FAR

  • Terraria: Journey’s End includes a full re-visit to all elements of Terraria. Over time, some things may have felt left behind or made obsolete by newer content. No more! Old things made new and new elements added to flesh out the overall experience – think you know all there is to know about Terraria? Think again!
  • Terraria: Journey’s End will include over 800 new items for players to find or craft!
  • Terraria: Journey’s End adds new foes to defeat and challenges to overcome as you seek fortune and glory.
  • Terraria: Journey’s End will see a full revamp of world generation – including overall improvements and a handful of new mini-biomes to explore.
  • Quality of Life improvements abound in Terraria: Journey’s End! From Block Swap to the Void Vault, these will ensure that the player spends more time doing what they enjoy most – and having more fun at the same time.
  • Terraria: Journey’s End will see the addition of an in-game Bestiary. As players defeat higher numbers of any given foe, they will learn more about them – from key statistics to even what each foe can drop as loot!
  • Terraria: Journey’s End will bring the hallowed game of Golf to Terraria. Golf? That’s right, Golf. Trust us, it is insanely fun – so get your golf skills up to par now!
  • Terraria: Journey’s End will add an all new difficulty mode. Beyond the existing Expert Mode, this is intended to be a true challenge for the most experienced and skilled Terrarians – a true gauntlet for the best of the best. Will your gaming skills and creativity be up to the task?
  • Terraria: Journey's End adds in all new and enhanced weather effects.
In case you missed any spoilers along the way (outside of the trailer above), we have created a spoiler compendium for your viewing pleasure. You can find that by clicking the link below:



….and that’s just what we have in so far – the team is going to remain hard at work over the next several months to not only perfect what we have in and planned now, but to also add in a handful of other surprises and features that we will share with everyone in the coming months. Stay tuned and watch our official Forums/Discord/Twitter/Instagram/Facebook for regular spoilers and reveals in the run-up to the launch of Terraria: Journey’s End!

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TERRARIA: JOURNEY'S END FAQ
Q: So, is Journey's End the same as Terraria 1.4?
A: Yes! This is the fourth major update to the game, continuing in the tradition of 1.1-1.2-1.3

Q: Will Journey's End cost extra?
A: For owners of Terraria on PC (Steam/GOG/Etc), Journey's End will be a free update - this continues our long-standing tradition of providing substantial free content to our fans.

Q: Will Journey's End come to Consoles? Mobile? Switch?
A: Eventually, yes - but likely not at the exact same time.

Q: When will Journey's End release?
A: We expect to have this update out prior to the end of the year. However, as we always say... it will be ready when it is ready.

Q: What happened to 1.3.6?
A: As we got further and further into development, we started to realize that 1.3.6 was reaching a tipping point... one where if we decided to add in a handful of big ideas we have had for some time, it would really feel worthy of a 1.X tier update.

Q: Why call it Journey's End instead of 1.4?
A: Our current plan is for this to be the crowning update to Terraria. We do not currently have any plans to tackle additional updates, outside of fixes and maybe a few tidbits here and there to shore things up.

Q: So, what does that mean for Terraria? Re-Logic?
A: Terraria will remain the vibrant and amazing game that it always has been! There is plenty more coming down the road for Console/Switch/Mobile (including some things we have not revealed just yet), and with the available mods - plus any future mods - on top of what is a VERY robust core game, we are confident Terraria will be trucking along for many, many years to come. Of course, we will stay involved with all of you - you make this possible, and we always enjoy hanging out.

For Re-Logic, this means that we will finally be tackling our second title. We do not yet know what this will be - and it may not even be a Terraria title - so expect a time of silence from us on that front until we are ready to share more what we decide to pursue. :)

Q: You said the spoilers and trailer don't show everything in Journey's End. What else can we expect?
A: From additional content to some really cool features, we only wanted to share some selected things at this point (plus there is only so much we can pack into a 90 second video!). We have spoiled more in the previous months and will continue to do so as we head to launch. As always, we will leave some surprises in there for you to discover on your own!
Well, this is it. The last update, the end of a great journey of a world called Terraria.
I'm not ready for it to be over. Just like that.
What a way to go.
 
Regarding the debate on how to play Terraria, what I personally like is exploring, collecting and gathering materials/equipment, fighting monsters, and massive elaborate base building. Inventory management is an unfun speedbump along the way to doing more of those fun things. Storing stuff from the last haul and/or constant stops midway through to move stuff to the mobile storage items gets in the way of exploration and monster fighting, and having to dedicate a huge section of every base to walls of chests to hold it all limits building freedom for functional bases. I don't really like making the main floor of every base ever a warehouse, but having to travel further out of my way every. single. time. I need to store or retrieve something is even more annoying.

So bottom line, inventory management is the eternal pebble in my Terraria shoe, and the one thing I always hope for updates to improve the most. It would be glorious if you simply had so many storage slots you never again needed to stop and toss some blinkroot in the garbage just to free up space for other things. It would be great if you only had to place more chests in bases for additional decorations or design reasons rather than needing raw additional storage space. And as is, I don't really see how having to do either is at all a meaningful part of the challenge or experience of Terraria.

Well, larger stack amounts have been shown off. The new Void Vault item will be useful with item management, too. I wouldn't be suprised to see more inventory managment features later on.

Hey, that is some good news. Thanks for sharing, and consider me a little more hyped. Exactly how much depends on exactly how many items get their stacks increased and by how much, but any stack size increases mean more stuff in less slots, and thus effectively more space in chests and player inventories.

With that said, the ideal new stack sizes would be 9999 max for everything, if you ask me. And before anybody argues about limits on displayable numbers, the game can already display a 4 digit stack size as-is, and the numbers fit fine. As for why stack sizes that big are needed, well, if anybody has tried building a truly huge base, then you appreciate how fast you can go through 999 of something. And even if you don't personally mine, store, and place many thousands of units of stone and such, it's still no skin off your nose to make things more convenient for those of us who do.

That's not the reason why "higher resolution visuals" aren't going to happen. The game looks the way it does because that's how the developers want it to look. It's an explicit throwback to SNES-era visuals, just done on a much larger scale.

Asking for "higher resolution visuals" out of Terraria is like asking for Schindler's List to be in color. It is the way it is because it's supposed to be that way.

First, I'm not so sure that Terraria's sprite sizes were a choice made on aesthetic principle rather than practical limits to begin with. Remember that the average screen resolution has changed since Terraria released, I for one sure wasn't running 2560x1440 back then. Along with weaker hardware at the time, I'd say the original sprite sizes made a lot more sense technically when the game was first started. And beyond that, while the game went on to be a huge success, it started out as a shoestring indie title by all evidence, in which case, smaller sprites may have simply been the best they could do with the art budget available. Again, if you remember original Terraria, the visuals were just plain rougher all around. Although the overall sprite sizes never changed, tons of stuff has been retouched and improved since then. As such, between technology and limited starter budget, I think Terraria's sprite sizes may very well have been more of a practical choice than an aesthetic one.

But with that said, it's still quite possible you're right that the sprite sizes are exactly what the developers want them to be. Even if that's the case though, while they have every right to make the game how they want, the consumer is still equally free to have their own preferences. And this consumer wants higher resolution visuals. (And has for a long time now.) Don't get me wrong, I very much like the overall colorful cartoony style of it all, and the 2d pixel vibe. I don't want it to be more realistic, or gritty, or grey. I just want character sprites to be more than about two dozen pixels tall, not to mention individual tiles to be more than 8 pixels across. Keep the overall style the same and double the resolution of individual assets and I'd be a happy camper. SNES era visuals are also my little kid gamer happy memories nostalgia zone, but even when I was playing games like Chrono Trigger back then, with no idea what exactly "pixels" or "resolution" meant, I still would have liked it if the characters looked closer to the amount of details the drawings on the covers and instructions manuals had. Or in other words, I'm personally nostalgic for the old SNES colorful and stylized art direction, but not the technical limitations.
 
On stack sizes, I saw a picture once of someone using a modded stack of bullets to avoid running out and having to get more, and that stack size was seven digits long. If stack size of a million can fit in one of those slots, legitly or not, a perfectly legit stack size of "9999" can fit no problem
 
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Question - Does this mean that super mega sized maps are off the table completely now? I was wanting a map that would take an hour to fall through a hellavator!
 
The difference is that Terraria is a very progression-focused game, so any time something is added, it feels like it adds more possibilities, more neat loot to find, etc.
With Minecraft, however, most of what they add is... Let's face it: Window dressing, and nothing more, with no useful purpose. A lot of the blocks they add don't even feel all that great for building with. Minecraft also has a more convoluted crafting system.

But yes, this is set to be the last major update. And honestly, I think Terraria stopped being a "simple game" long ago. The core concept is simple, yes, but there's a lot you can do. Again compared to Minecraft, you have only a few things you can really DO in vanilla, and instead of adding more to do, they just add more... things, most of the time. One (Terraria updates) is very satisfying, as it gives you drive to re-explore the whole game from top to bottom. The other (Minecraft updates) is... Disappointing, and usually just makes me groan personally, and wonder how they'll manage to somehow make the game run even worse while completely rewriting internal code the 17th time to utterly break every mod in existence for seemingly zero benefit to the end users.

*COUGH*
Anyway, yes.
I think with this update, Terraria will be in a wonderful spot: Enough real content to continue to be exciting time and time again, all the old clunky mechanics revisited at once to make everything feel fresh and modern without losing its charm, and devs who're really in-touch with the community still around to fix any bugs that come up, maybe even implementing small ideas here and there as time goes on.
Yeah man, totally agree. Also, like your sig. Suggestion; Ask people to suggest on other people's suggestions on your suggestions suggestions... of suggestions? Derp .________.
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I just hope that golf can deal damage based on speed or something. Golf only playthrough? Elaborate contraptions that put golfballs up to such insane speeds that they can 1shot the Dungeon Guardian? Event-themed minigolf that can actually beat said event? GOLF.
Remember, the defence is (supposedly) infinite, 1 DMG no matter what. maybe an elaborate 'ping pong" setup where the player teleports up and down, and the balls bounce back and forth/up and down on pink slime blocks? that might work, though difficult to start probably.
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Question - Does this mean that super mega sized maps are off the table completely now? I was wanting a map that would take an hour to fall through a hellavator!
PHHHT *juice sprays across monitor* YOU WANNA TAKE A DAY TO MAKE THAT HELLEVATOR?!
 
This is an assertion you keep making but have no evidence for. The game absolutely is not designed around a base or singular location of any kind. You can just as easily progress without making a "base" (there are a variety of ways of accessing NPCs). You can progress without even using chests entirely, only keeping items which you want to use at the current moment. People CHOOSE to hoard large amounts of items and people CHOOSE to place all NPCs in one location as that is their chosen style of play. This sort of play is neither strictly enforced nor required.

I feel like we're kind of talking past each other. I'll say something like "Significant aspects of the game are built under the assumption that you will have frequent trips back to base," but you seem to read that as "He believes that this sort of play is strictly enforced and required by Terraria."

That's not what I'm saying.

As an analogy, consider the average small car. You can drive one more or less anywhere the wheels will take you. On-road, off-road, through your neighbor's house, wherever. However, it is clear from the engineering of the car that you are expected to drive it on a road. If you start going through a forest, you will quickly find that your driving experience is severely curtailed by frequent breakdowns and maintenance.

The makers of the car do not "enforce or require" that you drive on a road. But it is clear from the design of such a car that road driving is actively encouraged and expected.

By contrast, the design of a tank is a lot more... liberal about where you're expected to go. If you want to take a drive through your neighbor's house, the tank will have a lot easier time of it than a car. Both vehicles are theoretically capable of going anywhere, but one of them is clearly better designed for that. The other one is designed for less road damage and better gas mileage.

That is the kind of thing I'm talking about. Not hard "enforce and required" rules, but soft "encouragement".

Consider Shadow Orbs/Crimson Hearts. Why bother surrounding them in blocks that you need a higher-level pickaxe for? After all, you can just bomb through them, right? If it's so easy to get through them that you don't even need gear you craft from mining, why not just make them mineable with a copper pickaxe from the start?

Because new players, generally, will not think to use explosives to get through the stone (or, more specifically, they will usually encounter explosives after they've already invested time in the underground). So the "barrier" encourages new players to do the things you need to do to get a pickaxe that can mine it. New players are encouraged to go exploring in the underground, which helps them learn the game. They learn how to navigate the space and fight stuff. They learn how to build stuff. They'll likely get the components for a grappling hook or maybe find one. They'll get the hearts and armor they need to actually survive a boss fight. And so forth.

The fact that a barrier can be bypassed doesn't make that barrier meaningless or nonexistent.

By limiting your inventory, you make it hard for someone to explore without stopping to store stuff away (not impossible. Just difficult and unnatural; humans are instinctively hoarders). And because travel is not instantaneous, having a centralized place for such storage is entirely natural. And because dying puts you at the world spawn point, and because the surface has the least-dangerous enemies, putting that centralized place near spawn makes logical sense. Having all of the NPCs near each other and near your storage place makes sense, because the player needs to frequently contact them.

The game does not make you do this. But you cannot say that players are not encouraged by the game's design to do it. Not every player will, but most players do. Especially players who do not know the game yet.

I had a very difficult time learning Terraria 1.1. Before I found the Wiki, I didn't understand basic things like building NPC houses or what progression looked like. Crafting was a rather confusing concept for me. And so on.

But even I managed to figure out the idea of harvesting chests and bringing them back to the world spawn, building a base around them. I didn't need to be told to do that. I didn't need to read about it on the Wiki. The game certainly didn't "strictly enforce or require" me to do it. But I did it anyway.

And I'll bet you did too. Just like most people did on their first playthrough. Because the game encouraged us to do so. By doing so, the game got easier/more manageable.

And because the designers know that new players will almost certainly do this, they can design aspects of the game to expect this behavior. They create bosses best fought in more open areas or in specialized arenas, which are easier to build on the surface than underground. The Corruption/Crimson are designed to be entered from the surface. They created a dungeon that is very difficult to get into (especially for a new player who is still trying to understand what's going on) unless you go through the main entrance... which is on the surface. And so forth.

Yes, you can choose alternate ways to handle all of those things. You can kill bosses anywhere. You can use explosives to get into Corrupted/Crimson chasms. You can Reaver Shark your way into the dungeon. Etc. But you cannot tell me that the game's design does not encourage the player to confront these challenges from the surface.

Sandboxes still have design; they're not just a bunch of features that get thrown into a blender.

These particular designed aspects of Terraria, ones which expect you to tackle certain problems from the surface? They exist because the limited inventory design encourages players to make the surface their home. Take away the inventory limits, and new players will be far less frequent visitors to the surface. And that will impact how they deal with problems. It will make it harder for them to solve certain issues if they don't see the surface as a natural place.

Yes, players who've been playing the game for years will have no problems with dealing with an infinite inventory. They know how the bosses work and how the game flows, and they have all the knowledge needed to manipulate it as they see fit.

The people who will be negatively affected are the ones who have no experience or knowledge in playing the game.

So if the current game were to be adjusted to allow for infinite inventory, maybe it should be something that drops from an enemy in the world. Maybe it could be a reward for beating Master Mode Moon Lord (though that's a bit extreme, but it would definitely get me to play Master Mode...). That way, the process of getting new players to understand the game won't be affected.
 
I feel like we're kind of talking past each other. I'll say something like "Significant aspects of the game are built under the assumption that you will have frequent trips back to base," but you seem to read that as "He believes that this sort of play is strictly enforced and required by Terraria."

That's not what I'm saying.

As an analogy, consider the average small car. You can drive one more or less anywhere the wheels will take you. On-road, off-road, through your neighbor's house, wherever. However, it is clear from the engineering of the car that you are expected to drive it on a road. If you start going through a forest, you will quickly find that your driving experience is severely curtailed by frequent breakdowns and maintenance.

The makers of the car do not "enforce or require" that you drive on a road. But it is clear from the design of such a car that road driving is actively encouraged and expected.

By contrast, the design of a tank is a lot more... liberal about where you're expected to go. If you want to take a drive through your neighbor's house, the tank will have a lot easier time of it than a car. Both vehicles are theoretically capable of going anywhere, but one of them is clearly better designed for that. The other one is designed for less road damage and better gas mileage.

That is the kind of thing I'm talking about. Not hard "enforce and required" rules, but soft "encouragement".

Consider Shadow Orbs/Crimson Hearts. Why bother surrounding them in blocks that you need a higher-level pickaxe for? After all, you can just bomb through them, right? If it's so easy to get through them that you don't even need gear you craft from mining, why not just make them mineable with a copper pickaxe from the start?

Because new players, generally, will not think to use explosives to get through the stone (or, more specifically, they will usually encounter explosives after they've already invested time in the underground). So the "barrier" encourages new players to do the things you need to do to get a pickaxe that can mine it. New players are encouraged to go exploring in the underground, which helps them learn the game. They learn how to navigate the space and fight stuff. They learn how to build stuff. They'll likely get the components for a grappling hook or maybe find one. They'll get the hearts and armor they need to actually survive a boss fight. And so forth.

The fact that a barrier can be bypassed doesn't make that barrier meaningless or nonexistent.

By limiting your inventory, you make it hard for someone to explore without stopping to store stuff away (not impossible. Just difficult and unnatural; humans are instinctively hoarders). And because travel is not instantaneous, having a centralized place for such storage is entirely natural. And because dying puts you at the world spawn point, and because the surface has the least-dangerous enemies, putting that centralized place near spawn makes logical sense. Having all of the NPCs near each other and near your storage place makes sense, because the player needs to frequently contact them.

The game does not make you do this. But you cannot say that players are not encouraged by the game's design to do it. Not every player will, but most players do. Especially players who do not know the game yet.

I had a very difficult time learning Terraria 1.1. Before I found the Wiki, I didn't understand basic things like building NPC houses or what progression looked like. Crafting was a rather confusing concept for me. And so on.

But even I managed to figure out the idea of harvesting chests and bringing them back to the world spawn, building a base around them. I didn't need to be told to do that. I didn't need to read about it on the Wiki. The game certainly didn't "strictly enforce or require" me to do it. But I did it anyway.

And I'll bet you did too. Just like most people did on their first playthrough. Because the game encouraged us to do so. By doing so, the game got easier/more manageable.

And because the designers know that new players will almost certainly do this, they can design aspects of the game to expect this behavior. They create bosses best fought in more open areas or in specialized arenas, which are easier to build on the surface than underground. The Corruption/Crimson are designed to be entered from the surface. They created a dungeon that is very difficult to get into (especially for a new player who is still trying to understand what's going on) unless you go through the main entrance... which is on the surface. And so forth.

Yes, you can choose alternate ways to handle all of those things. You can kill bosses anywhere. You can use explosives to get into Corrupted/Crimson chasms. You can Reaver Shark your way into the dungeon. Etc. But you cannot tell me that the game's design does not encourage the player to confront these challenges from the surface.

Sandboxes still have design; they're not just a bunch of features that get thrown into a blender.

These particular designed aspects of Terraria, ones which expect you to tackle certain problems from the surface? They exist because the limited inventory design encourages players to make the surface their home. Take away the inventory limits, and new players will be far less frequent visitors to the surface. And that will impact how they deal with problems. It will make it harder for them to solve certain issues if they don't see the surface as a natural place.

Yes, players who've been playing the game for years will have no problems with dealing with an infinite inventory. They know how the bosses work and how the game flows, and they have all the knowledge needed to manipulate it as they see fit.

The people who will be negatively affected are the ones who have no experience or knowledge in playing the game.

So if the current game were to be adjusted to allow for infinite inventory, maybe it should be something that drops from an enemy in the world. Maybe it could be a reward for beating Master Mode Moon Lord (though that's a bit extreme, but it would definitely get me to play Master Mode...). That way, the process of getting new players to understand the game won't be affected.
Why is this so long?
 
I guess I ought to chip off the rust at some point huh? Been forever since I played Terraria.
Perhaps 1.4 might rekindle my burnt out spirit on this game.
 
Terraria = my home away from home......my second life even if it's an artificial one :)...........thank you for creating such a beautifully made game
 
if this is journeys end then after that the modders wouldnt have to bother about their mods being outdated
 
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Personally I don't care about inventory management, its just not a real issue right now (at least for me). Increasing stack sizes to 9999 is ridiculous...one thing is having more use for chest slots...but that's way too far. You'd be able to finish Terraria way too fast that way taking out a nice chunk of playability :eek:
If anything I'd suggest a chest that is maybe 3 blocks wide that has 2 more rows, that'd be nice and also makes them able to fit in something other than a 2 wide space.
If you guys want such out-there ideas such as infinite storage and 9999 stacks, there are mods for it. :p
 
I feel like we're kind of talking past each other. I'll say something like "Significant aspects of the game are built under the assumption that you will have frequent trips back to base," but you seem to read that as "He believes that this sort of play is strictly enforced and required by Terraria."

That's not what I'm saying.

As an analogy, consider the average small car. You can drive one more or less anywhere the wheels will take you. On-road, off-road, through your neighbor's house, wherever. However, it is clear from the engineering of the car that you are expected to drive it on a road. If you start going through a forest, you will quickly find that your driving experience is severely curtailed by frequent breakdowns and maintenance.

The makers of the car do not "enforce or require" that you drive on a road. But it is clear from the design of such a car that road driving is actively encouraged and expected.

By contrast, the design of a tank is a lot more... liberal about where you're expected to go. If you want to take a drive through your neighbor's house, the tank will have a lot easier time of it than a car. Both vehicles are theoretically capable of going anywhere, but one of them is clearly better designed for that. The other one is designed for less road damage and better gas mileage.

That is the kind of thing I'm talking about. Not hard "enforce and required" rules, but soft "encouragement".

Consider Shadow Orbs/Crimson Hearts. Why bother surrounding them in blocks that you need a higher-level pickaxe for? After all, you can just bomb through them, right? If it's so easy to get through them that you don't even need gear you craft from mining, why not just make them mineable with a copper pickaxe from the start?

Because new players, generally, will not think to use explosives to get through the stone (or, more specifically, they will usually encounter explosives after they've already invested time in the underground). So the "barrier" encourages new players to do the things you need to do to get a pickaxe that can mine it. New players are encouraged to go exploring in the underground, which helps them learn the game. They learn how to navigate the space and fight stuff. They learn how to build stuff. They'll likely get the components for a grappling hook or maybe find one. They'll get the hearts and armor they need to actually survive a boss fight. And so forth.

The fact that a barrier can be bypassed doesn't make that barrier meaningless or nonexistent.

By limiting your inventory, you make it hard for someone to explore without stopping to store stuff away (not impossible. Just difficult and unnatural; humans are instinctively hoarders). And because travel is not instantaneous, having a centralized place for such storage is entirely natural. And because dying puts you at the world spawn point, and because the surface has the least-dangerous enemies, putting that centralized place near spawn makes logical sense. Having all of the NPCs near each other and near your storage place makes sense, because the player needs to frequently contact them.

The game does not make you do this. But you cannot say that players are not encouraged by the game's design to do it. Not every player will, but most players do. Especially players who do not know the game yet.

I had a very difficult time learning Terraria 1.1. Before I found the Wiki, I didn't understand basic things like building NPC houses or what progression looked like. Crafting was a rather confusing concept for me. And so on.

But even I managed to figure out the idea of harvesting chests and bringing them back to the world spawn, building a base around them. I didn't need to be told to do that. I didn't need to read about it on the Wiki. The game certainly didn't "strictly enforce or require" me to do it. But I did it anyway.

And I'll bet you did too. Just like most people did on their first playthrough. Because the game encouraged us to do so. By doing so, the game got easier/more manageable.

And because the designers know that new players will almost certainly do this, they can design aspects of the game to expect this behavior. They create bosses best fought in more open areas or in specialized arenas, which are easier to build on the surface than underground. The Corruption/Crimson are designed to be entered from the surface. They created a dungeon that is very difficult to get into (especially for a new player who is still trying to understand what's going on) unless you go through the main entrance... which is on the surface. And so forth.

Yes, you can choose alternate ways to handle all of those things. You can kill bosses anywhere. You can use explosives to get into Corrupted/Crimson chasms. You can Reaver Shark your way into the dungeon. Etc. But you cannot tell me that the game's design does not encourage the player to confront these challenges from the surface.

Sandboxes still have design; they're not just a bunch of features that get thrown into a blender.

These particular designed aspects of Terraria, ones which expect you to tackle certain problems from the surface? They exist because the limited inventory design encourages players to make the surface their home. Take away the inventory limits, and new players will be far less frequent visitors to the surface. And that will impact how they deal with problems. It will make it harder for them to solve certain issues if they don't see the surface as a natural place.

Yes, players who've been playing the game for years will have no problems with dealing with an infinite inventory. They know how the bosses work and how the game flows, and they have all the knowledge needed to manipulate it as they see fit.

The people who will be negatively affected are the ones who have no experience or knowledge in playing the game.

So if the current game were to be adjusted to allow for infinite inventory, maybe it should be something that drops from an enemy in the world. Maybe it could be a reward for beating Master Mode Moon Lord (though that's a bit extreme, but it would definitely get me to play Master Mode...). That way, the process of getting new players to understand the game won't be affected.

I'm really not so certain that inventory limits are the only way to encourage players to build a base, the added danger of night time monsters alone is a great incentive to build a place to hunker down for the night. That's sure what caused me to first start building, and well before I was running out of inventory space at all no less. And while the game clearly does expect the player to build proper houses for NPCs, I don't really think the design cares one bit whether those homes are centralized or spread out all around the map. Sure, getting enough NPCs in one place suppresses spawns, but that doesn't matter as far as population or accessing individual NPC services go, it just makes things more convenient. I diverge on a few other points as well, but in any case, I don't really agree that tightly limited inventory management is the glue that holds the Terraria experience together. However, I do appreciate your thoughtful response either way. You may see the inventory matter differently than I do, but it's clear you've given it a lot of thought as well.

With that said, I would absolutely be 100% happy with your final suggestion of making increased stack sizes, expanded player character inventory space, and larger chests into things that you earn with progression. (It's even what I've loooooong intended to do if I ever had the resources to make my own dream explory-buildy game.) Rewarding exploration with upgrades are what make progressing through games fun, and it makes perfect sense to increase the player's inventory capacity as they progress in the game and encounter more and more things to store. Terraria's already sort of done this in that stack sizes have been increased here and there over time and player/chest storage has already been expanded once already, the problem is that those increases haven't even come close to matching the rate at which additional items have been added to deal with. (And I know some people hate comparing Terraria to Minecraft, but its updates have always had the exact same problem of more stuff, same inventory space.) Way back at release inventory wasn't nearly the hassle it was now - your character's inventory space was proportionally closer to the amount of things that existed, and a few chests were plenty for a base. Adding inventory upgrades to progression would be a great way to make your carrying capacity expand as the amount of things to carry expands, and make for more of the most exciting discoveries: Permanent character upgrades. I've always thought Terraria didn't have enough of those anyway.

And as long as I'm ranting about making dealing with all the stuff in Terraria easier, how about having two hot bars you can swap between at the press of a button. That way one could be focused and weaponry and such, and one could be focused on building materials, reducing the hassle of swapping said stuff in and out every time you want to switch between exploration/combat time and the sort of elaborate building when you're placing many different types of materials, furniture, etc. Random Blood Moons/Eclipses interrupting base building would be so much less annoying that way, if nothing else.

Finally, on a very different note, fingers still crossed on a pressure plate that's activated exclusively by pressing down while standing on it. You know, like you do to fall through platforms. That'd be more convenient that clicking on switches, (especially in combat situations,) while still allowing for teleporters that aren't activated simply by running across them. That's been on my wish list for multiple updates now, and I wouldn't think it'd be all that complicated to implement.
 
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