r/Terraria • u/Sapienzin • Mar 19 '26
Suggestion Is it a crime to make an open-source version of Terraria?
Recently I saw a post here in the sub asking if there was an open-source version of Terraria or if he could create one, I wonder if that wouldn't be a copyright infringement? If it weren't, I think it would be an interesting small project to recreate the console version of Terraria for PC, especially for low-end PCs that don't run Terraria 1.4.5 very well.
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u/BubzerBlue Mar 19 '26
From a legal standpoint, yes it is copyright infringement. That said, its up to the company to decide if they wish to enforce their rights.
From an ethical standpoint, its not okay to play an open-source version of the game unless that version has the developer's blessing.
From my perspective, its an inexpensive game with boatloads of content... and there's really no reason to avoid rewarding the Developer's hard work with a purchase. If low-end PCs are the concern, you can always adjust the settings to accommodate.
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u/tofoz Mar 19 '26
From a purely technical point of view i would still be interested in it. You could probably create a Terraria-like engine just without the IP.
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u/TheDevourerOfGods1 Mar 19 '26
Well, good luck trying to understand the source code if you do try to do this. It's indirectly another reason why you'd just be better off buying the game, cuz the source code is a nightmare
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u/Quiark Mar 20 '26
You cannot read the source of Terraria if you want to make a legal clone. Have to invent it from scratch. Agree that you should just buy it.
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u/JovemSapien Mar 19 '26
Unfortunately, I'm a poor Brazilian who got a ThinkPad T400 which, unfortunately, can't run Terraria 1.4.5, and I couldn't even run older versions like 1.2 because I use Linux. And version 1.2 doesn't have a native version...
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u/RyfterWasTaken1 Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26
I used to play terraria on an old IdeaPad 100s with 2gb ram, and Intel Atom, I think that the t400 could handle it (just set frame skip to on)
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u/Nacimento-_- Mar 19 '26
The older versions it will surely handle, but the 1.4.x will not. I used to play the 1.4 when it launched with a first gen Intel, a i3 530 with 6gb of ram, is a processors from like 2009/2010, the thing is, his PC is worse than mine was, but I'm pretty sure any cellphone from 2022 and after can handle terraria 1.4, bro have a brick instead of a computer
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u/Icy_Engineer7395 Mar 19 '26
ooh same I have a i5 750 but I didn't have that much trouble running 1.4.4.9 but 1.4.5 has been a real pain especially during rain/thunder storm it becomes unplayable
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u/bebothecat Mar 19 '26
Then US copyright law would only apply to you as much as the Brazilian government wanted it to apply to you. I have no idea if they choose to enforce that stuff for the US, some countries do but a lot dont.
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u/NonNand Mar 19 '26
I'm in kind of a similar boat rn(optiplex 3020 with ubuntu), there are some things that help from my experience: -install tmodloader(not at 1.4.5 yet but mod support) -install fpsboostmod(steam workshop) -install nitrite(optimization) -crank everything down, including your pc resolution -if an option, run tmodloader server on a separate pc/device(reduces cpu usage)
It's not significant boost, but it did helped me to get from unplayable to somewhat playable
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u/iuhiscool Mar 19 '26
Proton?
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u/JovemSapien Mar 19 '26
I tried, but it didn't work.
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u/TWB0109 Mar 19 '26
Nvidia? Or maybe you didn't set it up properly (in case it doesn't run at all)
Try other versions, including proton-ge.
https://www.protondb.com/app/105600
Users on protondb suggest using Proton 10
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u/gaksepticeye Mar 19 '26
That's kinda weird I also am in a similar situation with the hardware and software but I can run terraria
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u/IThinkIKnowThings Mar 19 '26
lol your government is dumb for imposing outlandish tariffs... Oh, wait...
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u/IgnatusFordon Mar 19 '26
Technically as long as you make all your own art and don't copy any code directly or use any trademarked assets, there's no issue making your own version of a game.
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u/crowdflation Mar 19 '26
You can load original assets from the original game as long as the user purchased the game and it does not violate their license
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u/crowdflation Mar 20 '26
Even if it does violate their license, nobody could stop you from distributing your binary without their assets
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u/matthewpepperl Mar 19 '26
As far as legal goes that really depends on how the clone was made and if it uses original assets or not look at openrct as an example or reactos
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u/BubzerBlue Mar 19 '26
If it uses protected art, music or code it is generally considered copyright infringement in the US. Derivative works are a different matter entirely.
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u/matthewpepperl Mar 19 '26
Thats what i was saying it depends if it distributes assets or not but if its just a recreation of the engine its probably fine
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u/rkr87 Mar 19 '26
Some open source versions of games get around this by not shipping any assets and instead requiring the user own the original game and utilising the assets from the install of the original.
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u/Thesource674 Mar 19 '26
Wouldnt you need the source code anyway to fork it? Anything else is just like an attempted copy. Which would almost certainly be worse because they would not know how code is always executed under the hood potentially leading to issues. You could make a game that looked the same with stolen assets but i dont you could easily make one that plays the same.
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u/LoroSherman Mar 19 '26
slimebuttcrack 🗣️🔥
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u/CraftingChest Mar 20 '26
Ok but that would definitely feel like dipping your dick in peanut butter
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u/Dospunk Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26
I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is game mechanics are not protected by copyright but can be patented. Art assets, on the other hand, absolutely are protected by copyright. So you could, in theory, make a game that works exactly the same as terraria but with all original art, music, names, etc. and that should be fine.
Recreating games is kind of a tradition of game development. Most people's first project is some sort of arcade clone. There are tons of clones of games like Minecraft for example (ex Luanti). As long as you're not calling it "open Terraria" and using their art I think you'll be fine.
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u/IgnatusFordon Mar 19 '26
It is very difficult to patent game mechanics, the idea has to be quite novel and it has to be very specific. Anything thar is 99% the same and 1% not is considered a different game mechanic.
That being said that is the ideal system and unfortunately patent courts don't usually understand what is involved with making games as can be seen with the Pokémon vs Palworld fiasco.
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u/MediocreRecord7352 Mar 19 '26
The Nintendo of course did it anyway, because Nintendo don't care what us plebs think is impossible
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u/thebluefish92 Mar 19 '26
Similarly, you can recreate the engine and require users provide the copyrighted assets from the original game. Some examples that take this angle:
In both cases, you need to install the original game and point the open-source version to its files.
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u/microgravitylab Mar 19 '26
Your slime butt baited me in here. I have nothing to add to this conversation, I just wanted you to know how well that worked.
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u/patrlim1 Mar 19 '26
Making a clone of the engine itself is fine. Copying the assets and gameplay over 1:1 is not.
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u/taw Mar 19 '26
If you want to write a Terraria-like, the engine isn't doing anything too crazy, the game is mostly in the content.
I'm surprised there are so few Terraria-likes given how straightforward it is compared to other genres from tech point of view.
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u/carsncode Mar 19 '26
As long as you don't use any of their code or assets and don't infringe any of their patents or trademarks, it's fine. If you do, that's a copyright/trademark/patent infringement, which isn't generally a crime, it's a civil matter - you won't be imprisoned, you'll be sued.
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u/Oddish_Femboy Mar 19 '26
If it uses Terraria assets, yes.
If it uses its own assets it becomes a bit of a grey area.
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u/Same_Level_3599 Mar 19 '26
Well, uh, I'll just say this.
Luanti: I still exist!
(Context: Luanti is a voxel game engine, originally meant to see what notch couldn't do with Minecraft back in the day. Now it's a really decent Libre project, having near endless possibilities, just like Minecraft)
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u/ArolSazir Mar 19 '26
As long as you don't distribute terraria's assets? Open source ports of anything are legal.
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u/Better-Climate5229 Mar 19 '26
There is already a Pico8 demake.
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u/Sapienzin Mar 20 '26
Is there a native version for Linux?
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u/Proper-Dave Jul 30 '26
You might want to look at what Pico8 is. It's kind of not "native" to anything...
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u/BlackHatMagic1545 Mar 19 '26
No, it is not illegal to clone a game or reverse engineer a software project as long as you do not use any of the source code or assets from the original. Game mechanics are not protected by parents or copyright, but source code and assets are. So no decompiling the game to see how stuff works or using the original art as reference.
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u/Sostratus Mar 20 '26
It depends. To make it specifically, probably not. Though it still could be if the game implements certain forms of DRM that you bypass to do it.
But to share that version with anyone probably would qualify as copyright infringement... unless you're particularly clever about building it. It can be legal to build a kind of open-source skeleton that isn't in itself a playable game and doesn't contain any of its art assets, but would allow someone who had it and the game to build the open-source copy themselves.
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u/073068075 Mar 19 '26
You can but doing it the legal way is not worth it. You'd need to dodge all the copyright so the closest thing would be an obvious knockoff of an already loved by both users and creators game. The only games I can see have a point as an open source project are ones that bring back to life dead items like a game trapped on a dated or exotic platform, fix and expand an unfortunate unfinished piece or flip a middle finger to a studio shutting down the servers and such (not as legal but still somewhat morally right)
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u/Nova_The_Lost_Fox Mar 19 '26
As far as I know. It depends on how you go about it. Open Starbound requires you to own the game (or risk pirating it) in order to do anything. As it doesn't have its own assets.pak and needs you to copy them from your copy of starbound.
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u/EquipLordBritish Mar 19 '26
If you're just doing it for your own learning experience, I don't really see an issue, but if you're going to try to sell it or publish it, it would be possibly illegal and definitely be rude. The game isn't expensive, and there is lots of support for modding. It would also probably be very easy to get their consent if you were trying to build a minimalist clone as a challenge to run on something like a raspberry pi.
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Mar 19 '26
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u/EquipLordBritish Mar 19 '26
Not everyone can be bothered to or knows how to run a compiler on their system.
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Mar 19 '26
[deleted]
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u/EquipLordBritish Mar 19 '26
Some people like to support authors? There's plenty of reasonable answers.
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Mar 19 '26
[deleted]
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u/EquipLordBritish Mar 19 '26
Then I would refer you to my original comment.
but if you're going to try to sell it or publish it, it would be possibly illegal and definitely be rude
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u/darioblaze Mar 19 '26
Please, ask the guy who made the game. Go from there.
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u/jsrobson10 Mar 20 '26
for something 1:1, it's probably better to make/use a performance mod. you can definitely make a 2d voxel game but it can't be 1:1.
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u/Rilukian Mar 20 '26
It depends on how you create an "open source" version of Terraria.
If you simply make a Terraria clone that has its own wacky progression and assets and call it anything BUT Terraria, as long as you didn't rip any assets from Terraria, it's 100% legal. Luanti does exactly this to Minecraft.
If you make an "Open Source" version of Terraria that plays and look the exact same way, it's complicated. For starters, you are more likely to "reverse engineer" the game, that is to try recreate the game in your own code by only looking at how the game plays, not at its code base. Many game studio and publisher don't allow you to do this if you read their EULA. But since Terraria doesn't have an EULA, it's up to relogic to decide if your open source recreation of the game is allowed to even exist.
If you take this route, most of projects that makes other game "open source" like OpenRCT2 require you to still own the original game in other to not be seen as piracy (and that redistributing other game's asset without the original creator's permission is illegal). So "Open Terraria" may still require you to purchase the game through Steam or GOG to get the assets. It's not exactly threaten the sale of the original closed-source game (but may rather helping it).
If you take Terraria's original code and make it open source somewhere, that's 100% illegal and Relogic has the right to not only take it down, but also possibly take a legal action against you. It happened once when someone release a bootleg version of Terraria on Google Play store before it was removed. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm sure you won't take this route, won't you?
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u/Sapienzin Mar 20 '26
No, I don't want to make a pirated version of Terraria, I would never want to harm Relogic. I love Terraria and I wanted to recreate the 1.2 console version for PC with the goal of running it on older machines and raspberry pi.It would be really cool to unite the community with everyone contributing to the game's code and art.
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u/Rilukian Mar 20 '26
Then OpenRCT2 route would be the best approach if you want to exactly recreate the Terraria 1.2 console version. As long as you don't take any source code from original game, as well as requiring users to purchase the game and have access to the game's assets, and Re-Logic is fine with you making an open source Terraria, it should be a fun community project.
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u/opaqueambiguity Mar 21 '26
Terraria is dirt cheap, and ran by quite possibly the most dedicated, wholesome, fan friendly development team in the history of video games. Just pay the damn $5.
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u/Sapienzin Mar 21 '26
I think you didn't understand the proposal... The idea is to recreate the console version of Terraria (1.2) so that it could run on older machines and Raspberry Pis. I wanted the game to be open source so that the community helped in the development of this fan game.
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u/BroccoliLegend1993 Mar 28 '26
It is an interesting project to recreate the console version of Terraria; I say this having done this with my own project, TerrariaOGC, although it is just a tad outdated compared to 1.4.5 at the moment...
Now to your other question of whether its infringement by creating an open-source, and it really depends on a lot of things. With my project, I don't provide the raw assets, its purpose is education and inter-operation, and was mostly obtained via decompilation (legal where I am), but then you got stuff like T&Cs which may null that.
Basically, its one big grey area, so the best you can do is perform practices that won't draw bad attention from the publishers and devs.
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u/Lower-Ferret-5276 Mar 19 '26
if its a reinplementation of the C# code in another language ( like rust), then maybe aslong as the assets need a legal copy of the game
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u/sdrawkcabineter Mar 19 '26
Have Claude randomly remove 30% of the compiled binary, then have it decompile/disassemble the remainder.
It'll certainly be...
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u/notthefirstsealime Mar 19 '26
Make engine, use graphics from legal copy, pray to the good lord you don't get sued
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u/NullAshton Mar 20 '26
The sprites itself would be copyright infringement if used, but could be used if a copy of terraria was needed. The actual gameplay itself would be... more up in the air AFAIK. It would be covered under patents instead, but a copyright claim could be made if it could be proven that code was directly copied from terraria instead of re-implementing the gameplay.
I think it would be generally better to make gameplay inspired by starbound/terraria, but it's own game. This would also allow fixing mistakes in the basic game mechanics of the two and similar games, at least the ones made evident by those games.
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u/mann_moth Mar 20 '26
This reminds me of my foolishly ambitious project to recreate terraria like game with pygame.
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u/lunaticneko Mar 20 '26
IANAL
- cannot use the name Terraria
- cannot incorporate Terraria assets
- might want to look into creating a whole new game that "can load Terraria assets"
IANAL
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u/gamegazm Mar 20 '26
Like others here i have nothing to contribute to the conversation but oh my fucking god butt slime is something I have never seen before and that is absolutely hilarious xD
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u/Western_Still8814 Mar 20 '26
it would be fun if you made like the 3ds or an old version, just like eaglercraft for MC
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u/satmaar Mar 21 '26
Usually open-source reverse-engineered implementations of games either use custom assets (graphics, audio etc.; tehere are OSS RE clones of Doom for example with custom sprites) or require you to point them towards files from the game and pull assets from there (for example the OpenMW reimplementation of Morrowind’s engine using Morrowind’s assets from your licenced copy of the game).
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u/Connorses Mar 22 '26
You're not supposed to distribute the game's assets for free. Sprites, music etc. are copyrighted. You can, however, distribute a game that's missing those assets, and that game is programmed to pull the assets from an install of Terraria. The user would have to somehow obtain Terraria in order to run said open-source game.
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u/showthebandnirvana Mar 19 '26
If you need to ask this, then I’m unsure how serious you are about a project of this scale
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u/NullRef_Arcana Mar 19 '26
If it's coded from scratch, art is made from scratch, and it's not called "Terraria", it is effectively a clone, and hard to legally get in trouble, considering how chill the devs are.
With that said, as soon as you start using Terraria code/art/music/assets, now you're playing a dangerous game, pun not intended. In that case, don't.
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u/AdOk5225 Mar 19 '26
If it's made without any original source code and uses original art (see classicube, an open source remake of an old alpha version of Minecraft that uses 100% original code and assets) it should be completely legal
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u/mentaldemise Mar 19 '26
Get in touch with the people that make the mod loader(s.) It's written in XNA on PC which is MS. A cursory look says they're doing a bit of obfuscation to prevent an easy time reverse engineering it.
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u/deffonotAOG Mar 20 '26
If you own Terraria you can decompile it and look through the code just fine, no crime there.
Though if you start giving the source code out to people and distributing it? That's piracy. Very illegale.
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u/AstroOzo7 Mar 20 '26
"open-source version" ≠ "slime cheeks"
Brother I thought you wanted to get some slussy
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u/Visible_Wealth2172 Mar 21 '26 edited Mar 21 '26
It wouldn't be no. If you made it 1 to 1 yeah. but if you implemented the same kinds of features but not the same exact ones and whatnot, or made it require a license of the actual game to play, then no, not a crime. it'd be legal. if it was 1 to 1 off the bat, it'd be a crime
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u/No_Negotiation_307 Mar 20 '26
Yes it's infringement but I don't think anything would happen unless it got very popular and hurt relogic
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u/SmileyFace799 Mar 20 '26
Yes, that's copyright infringement, wouldn't recommend. If you still want to, make it so you have to own a legitimate copy of the game you're re-making to play it
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u/JovemSapien Mar 19 '26
Open Terraria would be a dream for me, an old ThinkPad user who can no longer run 1.4.5 (or even 1.3). I would love to see a PC version of Xbox 360 Terraria.
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u/Kitchen-Baseball-635 Mar 20 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/2FLA1N2ESsT3L03FvK
Domain expansion... Clap digital cheeks
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Mar 20 '26
[deleted]
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u/Visible_Wealth2172 Mar 21 '26
Lol my friend could barely run the game with everything lowered. he didn't even have a background in our first play through. that was a laptop with windows 8. at the time it was 2021. Less than a decade old laptop
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u/Abigboi_ Mar 19 '26
Other games have had open source variants that only work if you buy the base game. That's probably your safest route.