Review
Minecraft
The most generous online game ever made, and one of the few where buying it is the last transaction.
No. 39 in The Noteworthy 50 · Sandbox
Terraria
Ten dollars, fifteen years of free updates, and more content than games costing seven times as much.
Terraria is often described as 2D Minecraft, which undersells it badly. Where Minecraft is about building and open-ended creation, Terraria is a progression game — a sequence of bosses, each gating the next tier of materials, each requiring preparation of arenas, potions, and equipment. It has more in common with an action RPG than a sandbox, and its combat is far deeper.
The content volume is the headline. Thousands of items. Dozens of bosses across two full difficulty eras, since defeating the Wall of Flesh transforms the entire world into hardmode and reworks the enemy tables. Fishing, building, NPC housing with happiness mechanics, events, invasions. For ten dollars this is arguably the best value in the medium.
Co-op
Multiplayer for up to eight is simple to set up and transforms the experience. Boss fights become co-ordinated encounters where one player builds the arena, another brews potions and everyone contributes to the gear check. A shared world across a few weeks with two or three friends is one of the great co-op experiences available.
The weaknesses are presentational and pedagogical. The interface is cluttered, the sprite work has aged, and the game is close to unplayable without the wiki open because it explains almost nothing about crafting chains or boss summoning. Accept the wiki as part of the game — everybody does — and there is very little to criticise.
What works
- Enormous content depth — thousands of items, dozens of bosses, real progression
- Every update since 2011 has been free, including several 'final' ones
- Co-op for up to eight players is trivially easy to set up
- A modding scene that extends an already enormous game indefinitely
What doesn't
- Presentation is dated and the UI is cluttered
- Progression is opaque without a wiki — the game explains very little
- Boss difficulty spikes sharply and repeatedly
- Mobile and console versions lag behind PC on updates
The Catch — what it will cost you
Nothing. Ten dollars, no DLC, no microtransactions, and fifteen years of substantial free content updates from a studio that has repeatedly announced a final update and then shipped another one anyway. It is the most generous track record in commercial gaming.
Who it's for: Anyone with ten dollars and a friend. Genuinely one of the best co-op games ever made.