Long is the list of those that simply prefer to play mods with Terraria, which previously meant that you needed to use a mod loader (tModLoader, to be precise) in order to get all of the files talking to each other as they needed to.
This frankly wasn’t ideal but it worked well enough if users were willing to hop through a few hoops in order to get a bit more content, such as being able to automatically sort inventories through interconnected storage boxes or bring a bit more content to a title that already has loads of it.
Then, Terraria: Journey’s End was announced: the final chapter in Terraria’s history that was far more long-winded than it could have originally been if Re-Logic didn’t opt to return to development, making it the classic title that it is known as being today. Now, on the Re-Logic forums, they’ve announced one more surprise as they continue slinging some polish and fixes at the last hurrah of the legendary side-scrolling roguelike survival/crafter.
Terraria will soon add workshop support, but only for texture packs and map sharing.
Within the blog post, they state that more traditional Terraria mods are not going to be supported, nor are they planning on it: mod support will remain solely within the domain of the tModLoader which, notably one might add, still does not support 1.4 content.
This means that many who prefer mods are still very much effectively locked-out of the 1.4 content unless they’re willing to play without mods, and there’s still no ready end in sight for those users.
You will be able to construct brilliant castles and villages and share those creations with the community on the Steam Workshop (which continues to grow in scope and execution alike since it was introduced by Valve in 2014). You will also be able to craft custom textures (much like custom resource packs for Minecraft) and use them to spruce up the aesthetics, but more logic-inclined mods are likely never to come to the Steam Workshop.
Re-Logic does not go further into why this is necessitated within their blog post. Feel free to mourn.
Re-Logic closes out the statement by announcing that they are hoping to have Terraria: Journey’s End in Alpha state by the end of 2020 for consoles: meaning that users that have been chomping at the bit to try golfing (and whatever else Re-Logic added that is far less important than golfing); they’ll announce something closer to Christmas.
It’s a bittersweet moment, knowing that Terraria will one day be considered officially ‘finished’ (with far more permanence than the first ‘finished state’), but all things must inevitably come to an end. Here’s hoping the End comes to consoles eventually.
