Terraria Beginner's Guide: The First Night, NPC Housing and Your First Boss

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1. Choose world and difficulty deliberately New worlds offer Journey, Classic, Expert and Master. Classic is a balanced first choice; Journey adds conveniences like item duplication and time control. Characters also have a death setting (Classic, Mediumcore, Hardcore); pick Classic for your first character.
2. Chop wood and build a Work Bench You start with a Copper Shortsword, Copper Pickaxe and Copper Axe. Cut trees first; the official wiki suggests about 200 wood on day one. Craft a Work Bench from the crafting list and place it to unlock new recipes.
3. Kill slimes for gel and make torches Slimes appear during the day and drop Gel. Gel plus wood makes Torches, which are required for housing and essential underground. Make plenty.
4. Build a simple house before sunset Zombies and Demon Eyes come out at night. Build a small room of blocks, back it with wooden walls, and add a door, a table (a Work Bench counts), a chair and a torch. If you run out of time, digging a few blocks down and covering yourself with dirt also works.
5. Talk to the Guide You start with an NPC called the Guide. Show him an item and he lists what it can craft and which station you need; his Help option gives advice suited to your progress. He is the first stop when you are stuck.
6. Build a Furnace and an Anvil Mine stone and copper, tin, iron or lead ore from nearby caves. Stone, wood and torches make a Furnace, which smelts ore into bars. Iron or lead bars make an Iron or Lead Anvil, where armor and better tools are crafted.
7. Go down and look for Life Crystals You start with 100 health. Each Life Crystal found underground raises max health by 20, up to 400 with 15 crystals. Break them with a pickaxe, and place torches as you descend to make the way back easier.
8. Add rooms for new NPCs New NPCs move in when certain conditions are met; the Merchant, for example, arrives when you carry enough money and a free house exists. Each NPC needs its own room, so a few valid rooms speed up your town.
9. Prepare for your first boss The Eye of Cthulhu is usually the first boss. Use a Suspicious Looking Eye at night to summon it. It can also appear on its own at night once a player has at least 200 max health and 11 defense and four town NPCs live in the world, so prepare before reaching that point.

• Memorize the housing rulesA valid NPC room must be fully enclosed, backed by player-placed walls, and contain a light source, a table-type item, a chair-type item and a door. It needs at least 60 tiles including the frame. The Housing icon in the inventory lets you check any room.
• Keep money in a chestClassic characters drop part of the coins they carry on death, and the share grows in Expert and Master. Money in chests is safe, so leave it at home before long trips.
• Use Smart CursorToggled with Left Ctrl, Smart Cursor targets blocks automatically while mining and placing. Tunnelling and chopping get much faster; turn it off for precise building.
• Make H a reflexOpening the inventory mid-fight to find a potion gets you killed. H drinks the best healing potion instantly, and it only needs to be in your inventory, not on the hotbar.
• A grappling hook saves livesA Grappling Hook lets you latch onto walls, escape pits and avoid fall damage. Equip it and press E. Cave exploration becomes much easier.
• Do not build next to evil biomesRooms too close to the Corruption or Crimson do not count as valid housing. Build your town away from them.
• Build an arena before the fightLong rows of wooden platforms give you room to move in boss fights. Nearby campfires and heart lanterns, which boost regeneration, make fights noticeably easier.
• Ask the Guide before sellingShow unfamiliar items to the Guide before selling them. A material that looks useless may be part of gear you will need later.
• Protect the GuideLetting the Guide Voodoo Doll touch lava in the Underworld summons the Wall of Flesh and kills the Guide. Doing it by accident before you are ready can push your world into Hardmode early.
• Keep the wiki openMost recipes are never explained in game. The official wiki (terraria.wiki.gg) shows what drops where and what it becomes, the safest way to get help without spoiling everything.

• Entering the first night without shelter: zombies and Demon Eyes quickly finish off a low-health character.
• Going underground without placing torches: you lose the way back and cannot see enemies in the dark.
• Carrying all your money: part of it drops on death, often somewhere dangerous.
• Starting with a Hardcore character: death deletes the character permanently, which is too harsh for a first run.
• Summoning the Wall of Flesh unprepared: the world switches to Hardmode for good and enemies suddenly get much stronger.

This guide was written for version: This guide reflects PC version 1.4.5 (1.4.5.8) as of September 2026; keys are default keyboard bindings and can be changed in settings.

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