It's officially the end of an era, folks – beloved Terraria mod Calamity is officially coming to a close, with developers confirming they'll no longer be continuing development on the fan project from here on out.
Terraria first launched on PC in 2011, with Calamity following in 2016. It quickly grew to become the survival-sandbox game's most iconic mod, with millions of downloads worldwide.
Heck, it's even spurred spin-off mods (don't ask me how many I've browsed myself) and a downright massive fan community. It's caught the attention of Terraria developer Re-Logic itself, too.
So much so, in fact, that the studio previously invited the mod's team to work for it, asking, "Which of you wants to work for Re-Logic and get paid for your work?" It comes as quite a blow then, to learn that Calamity is coming to an end.
The news comes after the modders behind the years-old project's announcement on Discord that "we've come to announce a very difficult decision: we will unfortunately be ceasing all development of Calamity."
They elaborate, citing "the troubled past of Calamity's development" as one reason. "At this point, many of us have felt personally betrayed time and time again after being promised something better that never ended up coming. We're just tired at this point, and almost all passion we had for the mod has been soured, with many of us having chosen to leave as a consequence."
They don't delve further into the details here, but the post goes on.
ggfrom r/CalamityMod
"Most of us want to simply move on and would be far happier working on our own projects that aren't and won't be tied to something with what we feel is an irrecoverably tainted reputation," it reads, likely referencing accusations that have been making rounds online about some of the mod's leads and whatnot – a situation I'd argue is worth a quick Google as it gets quite dark and might be a tad too heavy here.
There's also the topic of asset removals, which said accusations have spurred. Put simply, a plethora of folks associated with Calamity have pulled out or rebranded, leaving the team looking for… well, a lot more than just new leads.
"Ceasing development is frankly the closest thing we can do to fulfilling everybody's requests" when it comes to the asset debacle, as the devs state – which is obviously not an easy decision to make.
As for the future… it's uncertain. "In terms of where things will go past this, due to legal concerns, no reuploads or forks of Calamity can be made and uploaded (for the sake of clarity, this means that things such as Fables, addons, and such are fine)," writes the team. "Past that, though, we don't really know."
Right now, it's impossible to tell as Ozzatron – the most recent mod lead – would need to work with the devs.
Apparently, however, "he's not responded to anything in the development server recently, and we're hoping to get back in contact soon to resolve all of this." Things aren't looking great, though.
The devs do end on a bittersweet note, thanking fans for their support: "This journey has been long, bumpy, rough and chaotic, yet it's still been wonderful despite that." It's tough to read, even as a casual Calamity enjoyer myself.
This certainly isn't the end that any of us expected, but considering how heavy the allegations seem – and, again, I would advise caution if digging into the situation further – the devs don't have much else that they can do here, likely.
Need something to look forward? Browse through our roundup of the best new games coming this year and beyond for fresh titles to wishlist.
