How to play Terraria for beginners: the first hour, step by step

Terraria looks like a sandbox game and plays like a boss rush. There is no quest log, no map marker telling you what to do next, and no tutorial. What there is, is a world that gets harder every night, and a set of bosses you can fight in almost any order. The difference between a smooth first hour and a corpse run is entirely down to five things, in this order.

1. Get a shelter before sunset

Surface enemies spawn in the dark, and the first night is the most dangerous one in the game because you have no armour and nothing to fight with. Dig a small room about twenty blocks down, wall it in, and put torches up before the sun goes down.

Two details matter more than they look:

• Place torches every 10 to 15 blocks as you dig. Enemies cannot spawn close to light. If you space torches out along the tunnel you are creating, the tunnel stays clear the whole way down, and you end up with a lit route home instead of a lit hole.
• Use background walls. A hole in a dirt wall lets zombies walk straight in from behind you. Building a wall panel takes a fraction of a second and stops that entirely.

You do not need a fancy base on night one. A square room with a torch, a door and some background walls is enough. You will replace it by tomorrow.

2. Mine copper, then iron

Copper is your first tier. It gives you the first pickaxe upgrade, the first armour set and the Work Bench. Iron comes after and unlocks the Anvil, which unlocks chests, buckets and most of the early accessory game.

The rule that keeps first-hour runs alive: never dig straight down. Fall damage and lava are the two things that end most early runs, and both come from vertical mistakes. Dig at an angle, or bridge across gaps as you go, and keep a torch on the wall you are working.

3. Build one house per NPC

This is the step that new players get wrong most often, and the symptom — "my NPCs won't move in" — sends people to forums every single week. A room needs four things:

• Background walls
• A light source (a torch is enough)
• A chair and a table
• A door

And the room needs to be at least 4 by 8 tiles. Give each NPC their own house: two NPCs sharing one room means neither of them moves in, and it is the single most common reason a guide fails.

Since version 1.4.5, villagers can also turn up without a spare house, which quietly changed early game for everyone. The practical consequence is that building two or three empty rooms early is now worth your time — the Guide arrives without you having to empty a house for him first.

4. Craft the Work Bench and basic tools

The Work Bench is made from 10 wood and is the unlock that matters. With it you get wood platforms (cheap vertical mobility), torches in bulk, doors, chests and chests-with-rooms, which is the whole starter kit.

Before you go looking for a boss, make sure you have a pickaxe upgraded past copper and a sword, and that you are carrying a spare set. There is no way to respawn your gear in the first hour.

5. Take the Eye of Cthulhu

The Eye is the right first boss, for three reasons: it drops a Suspicious Looking Eye so you can fight it repeatedly, it only moves when you are not looking at it, and it teaches you the boss-pattern rhythm that every later fight assumes you know.

Summon it at dusk with a Suspicious Looking Eye, which demon eyes drop during the night. Full set of copper armour is enough on Classic. On Expert, bring a ranged weapon as a backup — you will not out-swing it.

The four mistakes that end runs

1. Breaking three Shadow or Crimson Orbs. The moment the third orb breaks, the Eater of Worlds or the Brain of Cthulhu is on you, with no armour, no weapons and no warning. Do not break them "just to see".
2. Digging straight down. You will fall into lava or take fall damage. It is a one-second habit that saves entire runs.
3. Two NPCs in one house. Neither moves in, and you will spend an hour wondering why.
4. Going to Hardmode on day three. After the Wall of Flesh the world changes permanently and the difficulty curve jumps. You can do it. You probably should not on your first run.

Questions