Terraria's biggest mod manager will require months before it's fully compatible with the 1.4.5 patch: 'Updating tModLoader to major Terraria releases is a huge undertaking'

Terraria's long-awaited 1.4.5 update finally arrived in January, digging up a treasure trove of new features like an overhauled crafting interface, a new world seed, updated visuals, crossover items with Palworld and Dead Cells, and a vast array of new objects, mobs, and secrets to discover. It's gone down a storm with Terraria' community, but there is one aspect to the update that players will have to wait a little longer for—mod compatibility.

This is because Terraria's mod support relies heavily on tModLoader, an open-source addon that facilitates both creating and playing mods. It's an enormously popular tool, with a user-base that rivals some of the biggest games. But as with many mod projects, the 1.4.5 update has produced compatibility issues that will take some time to fix.

This was explained by tModLoader's creators in a Steam post. "We know everyone is looking forward to tModLoader and mods having access to all of the new content and features as well," the modders wrote earlier this week. "We'd like to remind users that updating tModLoader to major Terraria releases is a huge undertaking."

For context, the modders pointed out that it took nine months to update tModLoader when the previous patch for Terraria—1.4.4—released. The good news is tModLoader's creators don't expect fully supporting 1.4.5 to take as long, as changes to the mod shouldn't be as extensive as they were for the 1.4.4 version.

"During that process, many large features were added to tModLoader to better support the capabilities of mods, which did extend the porting process quite a bit," the modders pointed out. "We don't expect quite as many large changes this time."

In the meantime, the modders request that the community be patient. The post is frank about whether mods will work immediately with 1.4.5. "The short answer to this is 'no'. Modders will, however, have ample opportunity to update their mods to v.1.4.5 before it is officially released, so as long as the mods you are using are still maintained by the modder, they should be available on v.1.4.5 once it has a stable release."

The modders also point out that tModLoader's existing support for Terraria 1.4.4 will remain in place, and that this version will continue to receive "maintenance updates" while work on 1.4.5 compatibility continues. When the time comes to implement support for 1.4.5, tModLoader's creators aim to ensure the transition is "as seamless as possible."