Terraria developer just can’t stop putting out updates

We’re on the final stretch… again

Marco Wutz | Jul 4, 2023

Terraria developer just can’t stop putting out updates /

Terraria, a 2D sandbox adventure game, was launched in 2011 and sold over 44 million copies by 2022 after having been ported to pretty much every platform you can play video games on – even your toaster can run it. For developer Re-Logic that’s both fantastic and a little unfortunate, because even though the studio would love to work on a sequel, it basically felt forced to support the original game with updates for the last dozen years.

Originally, they wanted to call it quits in 2015 after patch 1.3, PC Gamer reported, but then fresh ideas sprang into the team’s heads and pulled them right back in. The aptly titled Journey’s End update in 2020 was the next attempt, but again failed to fully satisfy the studio. In 2021, Terraria won Steam’s Labor of Love Award for the best long-term support of a game, and that prompted Re-Logic into action to create another substantial patch, which it called Labor of Love… and was supposed to be the final goodbye.

You can already guess what’s happening here: They’re at it again. Terraria’s upcoming patch has initially been created to facilitate a crossover between it and Dead Cells, but once again grew in scope due to all the ideas the team came up with – and so instead of a small update, Re-Logic is looking at quite a big patch once more.

The head of Re-Logic recently quit Twitter, but in his last few posts explained that the studio had a hard time leaving Terraria behind, because “after twelve years the game still sells like hot cakes. There is so much demand it makes it hard to move on.”

Re-Logic has been trapped by its own success for over a decade, but is determined to make the jump at some point – not away from Terraria entirely, mind you. The studio wants to finally make that sequel that’s been on their minds in one way or another ever since 2013.

We’ll believe it when we’re playing it. If you haven’t grabbed Terraria yet for some reason, it’s currently 50% off in the Steam Summer Sale 2023.

Published Jul 4, 2023

MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg