Terraria May 2025 Update

Hello Terrarians! 🌳

Firstly, we want to wish a very happy birthday to Terraria! The 16th of May marked fourteen years since the game was released on Steam - congratulations to the Re-Logic team for this amazing milestone! 🎉

This month has been dominated by preparations for UK Games Expo 2025, one of our favourite tabletop game conventions (not just because it’s 45 minutes from our office, but that does help!). You’ll find full details below, as well as updates on pre-production components, biome tile art and lots more...

Let’s dig in! 😀

🎪 Visit Us at UKGE 2025, Stand 2-714

From Friday 30th May to Sunday 1st June, the Paper Fort Games team will be at the UK Games Expo in Birmingham, UK. Last year, we met loads of you at the show, and we’d really love to see you again; if you’re attending the convention, please swing by stand 2-714 to say hello and check out how the game has developed since UKGE 2024. 

We’ll be running multiple demos of the game every day of the convention, as well as bringing our daily giveaways, beanbag toss, slime balloons and King Slime photo cutout; we can’t wait to see you there!

👀 Latest Pre-Production Components

In anticipation of UKGE, we’ve been working with the Gameland manufacturing team to produce as many close-to-final components as we can for demos at the convention. This has involved lots of preparation of print files, reviewing of proofs and discussions with the factory, but we were very keen to have up-to-date copies to show at the event.

Last year (and until very recently), we were using a handmade version of the game for demos and development, featuring laser-cut tokens, generic dice and 3D-printed miniatures; this year we’re delighted to be showing off the game’s production-quality components (though Chris is a little sad at not being let loose on the laser as much this year…)

You’ll be able to see the game’s organiser trays, die-cut punchboard pieces, moulded plastic miniatures, printed transparent cards, wooden character pack, spiralbound Bestiary/ Crafting Menu, full-art card sleeves and much more. We have received many of these components in advance, and Gameland are going to be bringing a few of the remaining components direct to the show. Below is a selection of the new bits and pieces; it’s wonderful to finally see the tokens and tiles as punchboards!

Gameland also sent us this video of the spiralbound Bestiary/ Crafting Menu sample, complete with the foiling on the covers!

🎬 Gameplay Videos

Getting our hands on these latest production-quality components will also give us the chance to do something we’ve be wanting to do for a long while - make new gameplay videos! With the game’s rules in flux due to playtesting and our development copy of the game getting a bit ropey from all the handling/ stickering/ scribbling we’ve subjected it to, we haven’t been in a position to make a video that shows off the game in the way it deserves – until now! Once we’ve recovered from UK Games Expo, we’ll be organising a filming session; let us know in the comments if you’d prefer a full playthrough, bitesize overviews of different aspects of the game, or something else!

🎨 Biome Tile Art Update

If you’ve been reading the Development News section of our recent updates, you might remember that we made the decision to remove half-blocks from the game. They were causing some confusion with movement, digging and line of sight rules, so they’ve been taken out. The game’s biome tile squares are now either full or empty. This required an update of the biome tile art by George, but we’re really happy with the result; it has allowed simplification of the rules while maintaining organic aesthetic of the tiles:

🔲 Shadowboxes

The lovely folks over at Artovision recently reached out to us about making a 3D shadowbox version of the Terraria board game cover art; if you were at PAX East at the start of May, you might have seen it on show at their stand. 

Artovision make the official Terraria shadowboxes and they were keen to add the board game’s box art to their collection. The team kindly sent over a sample of the shadowbox and it looks amazing; it’s going straight up on the wall at Paper Fort Games HQ!

📝 Development News

Here’s what we’ve been focusing on this month:

• Rulebook: The rulebook rewrite is ongoing – it’s taking a little longer than anticipated but it’s worth spending time on. The good news is that it’s simpler, and shorter! 
• Card wording changes: We’ve been going through the wording on every card with a fine-toothed comb to ensure consistency, simplify concepts and shorten text where possible. We’re currently replacing commonly used terms (such as draw, discard and scrap) with icons so it’s easier to parse a card’s effect at a glance.
• Bosses: As well as streamlining Boss behaviours and mechanics, we’ve been trying out a new idea that make a boss’s spawned ally more than just another enemy token in the world. We’re testing a new mechanic whereby Allies powerup their Boss via a ‘buff’ track – players will have to decide how to move Allies on this track to balance rewards and boss buffs. The wrinkle is that an Ally gets added each turn, forcing Allies already on the track into new spaces. We’ll have more about this next month, but here’s a sneak peek of the prototype cards:

🚢 A Note on US Tariffs

A quick reminder that you can read our mini-update published last month for information on US tariffs; the situation is still in flux and discussions are ongoing with Re-Logic, with our manufacturing team and with fulfilment partners to find the best way forward. We'll keep you in the loop via Kickstarter updates, so keep an eye on your inbox!

📅 Updated Timeline Reminder

As per our March update, just a reminder that we’ve updated our fulfilment estimate to August 2025. You can read more about the updated timeline here.

👋 We’ll Be Back in June!

Thanks very much for reading this month’s update, for your ongoing support and for making this game possible.

If you’re at UKGE, we’ll see you there! Please bear in mind it'll take us a bit longer to respond to emails/ message/ comments while we're away but we'll get back to you as soon as we return to the office! 

Until next time, Terrarians! 😊

-The Paper Fort Games team