Terraria’s fame has continued to reach new heights, especially due to the recent updates marking the supposed end of its 13-year run. With all the recent additions, tweaks, and changes made to the game, it’s not surprising that new players are flocking toward the sandbox survival title for beginner tips.
If you’ve just started the game, you’ll find it’s not just about building and exploring. Terraria can be quite a handful if you’re not used to combat and strategy. Although it’s quite easy to jump in and learn things on your own, there are some tricks that Terraria veterans have learned that will help you start your wonderful journey.
Best Tips For Terraria Beginners
Although the game is made to suit different playstyles, Terraria’s non-linear early game can leave new players scratching their heads. So before you accidentally fight the Wall of Flesh as your first boss, here are our 12 Terraria Beginner Tips for new and experienced players alike.
Explore The World Immediately
Chop wood, build a hut, and start exploring!
As soon as you log in, you’ll find yourself in the middle of the world’s surface with some basic copper tools. From here, you have a few choices on how to start your game: you can either spend your first 15 minutes building a beautiful house, or you can get your exploration on. While both of these are valid options, there’s one thing that makes building early a bit of a bad choice.
A Terraria day lasts for a full 24 real-life minutes (15-minute day and 9-minute night). This means that while you have a pretty starter base, you’ll be stuck inside that wooden hut for the next 9 minutes. You don’t have anything to fend yourself off from the Zombie and Evil Eye mobs that spawn at night.
Your best bet is to get around 150-200 wood, build a simple small hut, then find the nearest cave to spelunk.
Make Use Of Platforms
Remember the ridiculous amount of wood you got at the beginning? It’s time to put them to good use.
There are only a few items that you can craft without a Workbench: torches, bombs, campfires, and the almighty wooden platforms. While you may think that a simple wooden platform isn’t that exciting, it’s one of the few items that even old players can’t live without.
Platforms are your basic stepping blocks when caving. If you’re falling from a height, you can place a platform to break your fall so long as there’s a background wall. Lastly, you can never go wrong with fighting bosses in a platform arena.
You can also “phase” through thin, 1-block walls with platforms. This mechanic will help you get through your future base much easier.
Break Some Evil Orbs
Going either left or right will lead you to discover that some of your world is covered by either a red or purple evil. These challenging areas are known as the evil biomes: the Corruption and Crimson.
If you might think that you’re not that well equipped to be here, you are absolutely correct. While the evil biomes are supposed to be explored later, finding stray Shadow Orbs or Crimson Hearts might be the best early-game thing any player should try. These orbs contain valuable weapons and accessories to help your progress.
At this point, you will already have yourself some bombs that you’ve obtained from your initial exploration. If not, you can find bombs by breaking pots or inside some basic chests underground. This item is crucial for this expedition.
Beginner Tip For Destroying Orbs In Terraria Early
Make your way to the nearest evil biome and start your journey down to the depths. There will be very dangerous enemies here, but platforms are your friend. Some flying and climbing mobs can go up platforms, but they can’t pass down. This makes your wooden platforms a great shield from enemies from above.
Now, you can’t mine the walls in these biomes without an Evil Pickaxe or higher, but your bombs will be able to break them. Once you find your Evil Orbs, blow up the walls with bombs and break the orb with a hammer. Your first break will always be a gun, either the Musket or The Undertaker, which is great for beating your first boss.
Only break up to two Evil Orbs. Breaking the third will spawn your corresponding evil boss.
Grenades Are The Best Early Weapon
If you’ve picked up a bomb and have an empty house in your world, a Demolitionist will soon move in. This orange-bearded NPC will sell you some Grenades for a very cheap price. If your world already has a Demolitionist at this point, don’t hesitate to buy yourself a few hundred grenades.
This weapon, if used correctly, can kill every pre-hardmode boss, even the Wall of Flesh. Alternatively, after beating the Queen Bee, you can upgrade these into Beenades, which can shred Skeletron so fast you’ll forget you’re even fighting him.
While grenades are effective in the early game, they will be outclassed by hardmode weapons later on.
Portable Crafting Stations
It’s very frustrating to find that you’re missing things that you need for your exploration. It’s more frustrating to find out later that you had the things to make it but don’t have the crafting station to make it from.
This is one of the mildly infuriating things that happen in Terraria, but there’s a simple and foolproof solution for it. Always bring a spare workstation with you.
As a rule of thumb, it’s a good idea to bring a Workbench, Anvil, and Furnace along with you on your journey. Don’t worry about losing them, but be sure to pick them up when you’re done. This is especially good since Terraria doesn’t cause you to lose items on death by default unless you’re one of those Mediumcore players. This is a great Terraria beginner tip for players who hate traveling back and forth.
Some people will argue, though, that there aren’t enough inventory spaces for you to do this. And that’s why our next tip is…
Extra Storage Saves Lives
If you ever feel that your regular inventory space is not enough, you can buy a Piggy Bank from the Merchant NPC for extra storage. Just plop it down on a table, the floor, or better yet, a platform, and you’ll be able to get a full chest’s worth of inventory space from a single item. Better yet, the items stay in even after you break them to pick them up!
Getting a Piggy Bank early is a good way to master inventory management in Terraria. They’re your lesser, cheaper alternative to Void Bags which you’ll get later on after beating your first evil boss.
Another notable feature of the Piggy Bank is that it’s character-bound, similar to how an Ender Chest works. This means putting down a Piggy Bank in your base and carrying one with you will result in having the same inventory for both.
Farm Dayblooms
After engaging in combat and exploration, you’ll come across random potions scattered throughout the world. Some of these tonics and brews grant special abilities, such as increased jumping or glowing. While Terraria offers numerous potions, two stand out: Ironskin and Regeneration Potions.
These two potions are your basic staple when it comes to surviving your boss battles. They are easy to find in chests, but just exploring for them is not a sustainable solution.
That’s where your Dayblooms come in. These small flowers are abundant in the wild, but you’ll only find around 3-4 in any given forest biome. Picking up this flower results in getting seeds, which means you can farm them in your base.
Setting up a small farm of Daybloom is a good starting point as both the Ironskin and Regeneration potions share a Daybloom in their recipe.
Recall Potions vs. Magic Mirror
Spelunking can oftentimes lead to the discovery of Gold Chests. These chests contain accessories and items that are much better than your surface wood chests.
One of the items you can get from these is the Magic Mirror, which lets you teleport back to your spawn point a few seconds after using it.
This is an excellent item to have as it can serve as an alternative to Recall Potions which you can find in pots deep underground. But there’s one good reason why Recall Potions are sometimes a better choice than the infinite Magic Mirror.
While the Magic Mirror lets you teleport for an indefinite amount, the Recall Potion does not have a “wait time.” This means you can get out of sticky situations much better than when using a Magic Mirror.
While we’re on the topic of Gold Chests, here are a few more things you should keep an eye out for when looting them.
Basic Movement Accessories
Movement is integral to your survival in Terraria. Moving at a snail’s pace is sure to get you killed when fighting quick bosses like Skeletron or the Queen Bee. This is one of the reasons why setting out early to find loot underground is a great idea.
Keep an eye out for the Hermes Boots and Cloud in a Bottle, often found in Gold Chests. These accessories are valuable at this stage. Additionally, look for gem clusters and Skeleton enemies, as they’re important for crafting your first Hook. Fifteen gems can create a Gem Hook, while a Hook drop from a Skeleton and a chain is all you need for a generic Grappling Hook.
Finding these items early on guarantees a smoother pre-hardmode experience, with the Hermes Boots becoming even more valuable as you progress. Hooks aid in navigation, while boots and bottles enhance mobility.
Custom Biome Farms
Some materials only grow in specific biomes. A few notable examples are the Glowing Mushroom, which grows in the Glowing Mushroom biome, and Jungle Spores found in the Underground Jungle.
While it’s simple to find these biomes naturally generated in the wild, you can definitely bring the biome “home” with you.
Destroying the foliage in these biomes will give you Jungle Grass seeds or Mushroom Grass seeds. Planting these seeds in mud will cause them to spread, and enough of them (140 to be exact) will generate their custom respective biome.
This is particularly helpful for farming better healing potions or for growing your own Chlorophyte Ore in Hardmode.
Always Go Fishing
It’s not hard to fish in Terraria. All you need is a decent fishing rod and some bait, and you’ll be getting fish for food, potions, and even crates containing ores and accessories.
Fishing requires at least 75 blocks of connected water (1001 for oceans and 50 for honey) in order to work. Also, casting your line in different biomes results in different types of fish, which can be used for creating buff potions or food buffs.
When you first start, try your best to fish in the Ocean as you can get a chance to grab an early Reaver Shark, which bypasses the need to farm for a pickaxe before going to the Underworld.
Getting crates while fishing is also the best way to get biome-specific accessories, such as the Flying Carpet from Oasis Crates and the Jungle Monument loot from Jungle Crates.
It’s always worthwhile to fish in Terraria, and doing so will reward you with expansive loot.
Play Your Way
Playing the game on your own or with friends is entirely up to you. If you get stuck, there are multiple resources, such as the Official Terraria Wiki or the forums, with enough information to get your ball rolling.
These are just basic Terraria beginner tips on how to get started with the game. There’s so much more to learn in your Terraria journey. With over a dozen bosses and thousands of items to discover, there’s not one set way to play the game.
Whether you like building, fighting up close, or casting spells at a distance, Terraria has got you covered. Choose your own path and play your own story as you progress through the wonderful worlds YOU create.
