Contrary to what some players might think, Terraria Journey mode is an excellent pastime for newbies and veterans alike. This is the easier mode available, having several fantastic features that make your life much easier. It is especially great for players who don’t want to struggle against challenging bosses and just want to create lovely structures.
In many ways, Terraria Journey mode is similar to Minecraft’s Creative mode. The developers paid homage to this game by putting “Creative” in numerous places within the source code. Anyway, if you’re more interested in building than fighting, this is the right difficulty for you.
Terraria modes at a glance
Here are all the Terraria modes (difficulties) at a glance:
- Journey (Players get extra equipment at the start of the game. You also gain access to Research and Duplication, making your life significantly easier when building structures)
- Classic (This is the game’s default mode. Unlike Journey mode, you drop money when killed)
- Mediumcore (Mediumcore is significantly more difficult. Besides money, players also drop items when they die, making the playthroughs quite excruciating for inexperienced gamers)
- Hardcore (The playthrough ends when you die)
It is worth noting that the game also has two additional difficulties called pre-Hardmode and Hardmode. Once you kill the Wall of Flesh boss, the game automatically turns into Hardmode. Basically, the map remains the same, but you now unlock new ores, bosses, and other content.
Terraria Journey mode basics
You can choose Journey mode before making a new character and world. Although this is an easy mode, it actually provides much more options. It is also worth mentioning that you can fine-tune the challenge with difficulty sliders.
Keep in mind that the world seeds are different for this mode compared to others. Furthermore, the game doesn’t allow you to transfer the Journey character into other modes, thus preventing potential exploits.
The mode is excellent for learning the basic mechanics and getting acquainted with bosses and content. Even if you get stuck, you can easily reduce the difficulty, making it easier to overcome tough fights. When you start the game, you get extra resources and better equipment, including:
- Iron Pickaxe (instead of Copper Pickaxe, allows you to mine higher-tier ores straight away)
- Iron Axe (instead of Copper Axe, allows you to chop wood faster)
- Iron Shortsword (instead of Copper Shortsword, much better offensive stats)
- Iron Hammer
- Finch Staff (beginner summoning staff, which you get for free on Journey)
- Torch (100)
- Rope (100)
- Grappling Hook
- Magic Mirror (allows teleporting back to base without using Recall Potion)
- Fledgling Wings (excellent low-tier wings that make it easier to move around the map)
Just having this equipment at the start of the game makes everything much faster. Having Fledgling Wings from the get-go is especially incredible. Otherwise, you’d have to visit Floating Island to get them or wait until Hardmode.
Journey mode Power Menu
Although previously mentioned items are fantastic and all, Power Menu is the feature that completely changes the game. This option is located in the left upper corner, just below the inventory. It consists of:
- Duplication
- Research
- Time
- Weather
- Personal Power Menu
- Infection Spread
- Enemy Difficulty
Duplication
In this menu, you can duplicate any item you’ve previously researched, whether it’s a material bar, item, armor, equipment, or something else. To make life easier, all these objects are placed in 11 categories, giving players quick access to just about anything. You also have a search bar that allows you to find a specific item.
Research
Before using Duplication, you need to perform Research. Each item in the game requires a specific number of units to research. Keep in mind that an object vanishes from your inventory as soon as you place it in the research tab. However, this isn’t important as you can instantly duplicate it and create any number of units you want.
It is also worth mentioning that the Research tab is bound to a specific character. When you start a new Journey mode game, your previous progress vanishes, and you have to research all the items once again.
Time
Time is a neat feature that allows you to manipulate certain events. For example, the Blood Moon can only start in the evening, and it lasts the whole night. With this option, you can freeze time, speed it up, or change it to one of the four default presets (dawn, noon, dusk, or midnight).
Weather
The Weather tab allows you to change wind and rain. You can speed up the wind and change its direction. You can also fix this feature, forcing the wind to blow in the same direction and at the same intensity. Similarly, you can use Weather to control the amount of rain. Like the wind, you can fix the rain to be at the same level.
Personal Power Menu
If you don’t want to be bothered by the enemies, you have the option of going to the Personal Power Menu. Within this tab, you can turn on Godmode, which grants you invulnerability, quick mana regeneration, immunity to drowning, and knockback. You can still be affected by debuffs, but they won’t cause damage.
Personal Power Menu also allows you to increase placement range, making it easier to create structures. The enemy spawn rate slider allows players to disable spawns or increase them at ten times the normal rate.
Infection Spread
This is our favorite Journey mode feature. You can use it to stop the infection spread. However, it won’t convert blocks back to their previous state.
Enemy Difficulty Slider
The Enemy Difficulty Slider option is an interesting feature. By default, the slider is placed at 0.5 times difficulty (monsters are half as strong as the Classic mode monsters). You can increase it to 3 times the difficulty, which would be on par with Master mode.
It is worth noting that, as you increase difficulty, much better items start dropping from enemies. In other words, it allows you to get Expert and Master mode exclusive weapons and armor. This is an awesome feature that allows players to experience all the content within the game with minimal effort.
Cool features and interesting tricks
Although Journey mode might seem a bit basic, there are a few awesome things you can do with it. For example:
- In Journey mode, the achievements are unlocked in the same manner as in other modes. You can play on this difficulty when you’re looking to quickly unlock all the achievements.
- One of the coolest tricks you can pull off is manipulating the difficulty. For example, you can start a boss fight with Enemy Difficulty Slider all the way down. As the boss is on his last legs, you can increase it to three times the difficulty, which would allow you to get Master and Expert mode exclusives.
- In the same manner, you can unlock the 6th and 7th accessory slots with this trick just before consuming Demon Hearts.
- As you have the Duplication menu available at all times, you won’t need the regular inventory in the majority of situations.
- If you’re going to increase time speed, make sure to remove Infection Spread beforehand. Otherwise, you might struggle with excessive Corruption, Hallow, or Crimson.
- On the other hand, the time freeze option can prevent certain events from occurring.
