The making of Terraria for consoles — Part 1, Signing the deal
Terraria was released on console (Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3) in March, 2013, over 10 years ago. Man, time flies.
I was deeply involved in these versions: I pitched the idea of bringing Terraria to console and mobile to the leadership at 505 Games, I reached out to Re-Logic (the developers of Terraria on PC) and negotiated the license, and I hired the original console development team, Engine Software. I supervised the development, the release, and updates to the console versions for several years (what we’d now call “live ops”).
The Xbox and PlayStation versions of Terraria — and the many other console versions that have come out since — have gone on to sell many millions of copies. Terraria is now one of the best-selling games of all time, right behind the original Pokémon, which is pretty humbling.
There’s a good chance that the console (and later mobile) versions of Terraria will be the most successful things I ever work on, which is a strange feeling. They’d certainly be hard to top. But Terraria has given people, I hope, a lot of joy. And I’m grateful for my small part in that.
Ten years later, I figure it’s worth looking back on the experience. I really don’t think Terraria’s success on console was a foregone conclusion; it took a lot of very hard work to make those versions playable, much less fun.
And I’m proud of all that work. So I figure why not talk about it?
Naturally, in order to talk about Terraria, I first need to address the 800-pound gorilla.
Minecraft
In the ancient days of 2011, it was hard to ignore the growing behemoth that was Minecraft. It had already become immensely popular in indie PC gaming circles, and by the end of the year it was released on Android and iOS (the “Pocket Edition”), with immediate success. Thus began Minecraft’s journey into mainstream audiences and pop culture zeitgeist.
It is very (very) hard to remember, but at that time, PC gaming was much more niche than it is today. Steam had a fraction of its current audience. Most of the “big” PC games — World of Warcraft, The Sims, Civilization, etc. — were primarily sold at retail. And most PC games simply didn’t get released on console. For the few that were, it was often in a simplified, more accessible version, such as Civilization Revolution.
And there were good reasons for this! Game consoles were not as powerful as gaming PCs, and console audiences were comparatively casual.
Also, importantly: a keyboard and mouse was a very different type of input than a game controller. The differing inputs encouraged different types of gameplay — and, ultimately, different types of game genres. For example: there were a lot more strategy games and first-person shooters on PC (which play well with a mouse), and a lot more platforming and 3rd-person games on console (which play well with a controller).
Anyway. All that’s to say that, in 2011, it was usually not commercially advisable to bring a PC game to console (or vice-versa). And there were some well known examples of these PC-to-console ports going badly — StarCraft 64, Quake III on PlayStation 2, and so on.
However, given Minecraft’s popularity, it wasn’t exactly a surprise that a major console publisher would try to bring it to console. But most people were skeptical — myself included.
At that time, Minecraft on PC was quite punishing for a casual gamer: there was no tutorial, and the start of the game made it easy to immediately get lost and die. The controls and UI were clearly designed around keyboard and mouse, and Minecraft’s opaque crafting system practically required having a wiki open in a separate desktop window.
There was, however, some evidence suggesting that the game could work on console. Over the course of 2011, three games that were clearly “inspired” by Minecraft (but inferior) came out on the “Xbox Live Arcade” online store: FortressCraft, Total Miner, and CastleMiner. None were smash hits, but they all sold surprisingly well.
This was the background for the 505 executive team asking me if I had any thoughts about this strange new “sandbox” genre, and whether there might be an opportunity for us to do something in this space.
My response: “You know what? I think there is.”
Terraria
Early in 2011, another sandbox game had come out on PC that was also starting to make some noise in the indie PC scene: Terraria. While many critics wrote it off as just another clone — “2D Minecraft” — something about its formula was uniquely compelling and kept people coming back.
In particular, Terraria’s combat was much more interesting than Minecraft’s, with lots of different weapons and armor. Boss battles offered a fun challenge you could play over and over. And its 2D world was easy to navigate, and made it straightforward how to progress (“dig down”). The game also had tons of cool stuff you could craft or collect — furniture, rocket boots, NPCs, and so on.
Importantly: it was pretty easy to pick up and play. Moving around felt more-or-less like Super Mario or Metroid (the developer’s previous project had literally been a Mario fan game called “Super Mario Bros. X”). And the look of Terraria was instantly familiar to Nintendo audiences, loosely modeled on pixel art JRPGs.
Terraria had sold surprisingly well for an indie title — hundreds of thousands of copies — and had a dedicated fanbase who followed its updates.
But despite its success, Terraria’s creator, Andrew Spinks (also known as “Redigit”), announced in early 2012 that he was going to end development on Terraria. He wanted to recharge, spend time with his family, and move onto another project. Which is fair enough.
But to my eye, Terraria still had potential — and in particular, I thought the game could do well with console and mobile audiences. After all, its look and feel was inspired by old Nintendo games.
It wouldn’t exactly be trivial to take the game to those platforms — the controls and UI were still very keyboard-and-mouse focused, and the game had some rough edges: no tutorial to speak of, and a difficult early game which, like Minecraft, meant that many folks needed to check a wiki or get advice from other players.
But it was possible, I thought.
I reached out to Andrew and asked if he’d be interested in having 505 Games bring the game to console and mobile. He was open to it, especially since he didn’t want to do it himself. (Which I figured made sense, given that he was trying to move on.) He confessed to me years later that he didn’t think Terraria would work at all on console or mobile, and that we’d fail miserably — a fact I take enormous pride in.
Anyway: we negotiated deal terms to bring Terraria to other platforms. I got the 505 leadership on board, and I got a schedule and budget proposal for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 from Engine Software, whom I’d worked with on a couple movie games for Nintendo DS.
The deals were signed, and we kicked off development.
Continued in Part 2.
