What if wind could push projectiles in Terraria?

What if wind could push projectiles in Terraria?

Those of you familiar with older Terraria versions 
might know that the North Pole’s snowflakes used to be affected by the direction of the wind. Back 
then, it was a popular trivia fact and especially unique, given that it was the only weapon affected 
by the normally passive and invisible force. While this effect has since been removed – 
being disabled on the North Pole from 1.4 onwards – there is evidence that the developers 
once had much more planned for this game’s wind physics. Within the game’s code, there is 
a hidden toggle called “windPhysics” that, when set, allows wind on the surface to 
actually move quite a few projectiles in the game – mostly weapon projectiles. Huh.
This is actually a fully implemented feature – this is in the game NOW – the only 
thing stopping it from working is the fact that it’s hard set to off in the game’s code. That’s 
it – otherwise, it’s a completely working feature. Therefore, if we can just flip this toggle 
on (which, honestly, is very simple), we can get a glimpse of what projectile wind physics 
could’ve looked like before they were scrapped. Was it a missed opportunity or are we better off 
without pushy wind? Well, we’re to about to see. Some of the effects of wind 
on projectiles are obvious. For slow or limited range weapons, shooting 
downwind will get you a lot more range than shooting upwind. For example, the Vampire Knives; 
on a blustery day, the latter can get double the range downwind versus upwind. Same goes for 
weapons like the Magic Dagger, Shurikens/Throwing Knives, or most bows (especially slower ones). 
The cap off in range can often be quite sharp. For the slowest limited range weapons, like 
the Magical Harp, shooting upwind can often be downright impossible. Even at the edge of 
the screen, where the Magical Harp gets the most velocity, you get a pitiful amount of range.
Weapons with non-gravity-affected projectiles, namely guns, are even funkier, as the projectiles 
continue to stay airborne. Instead of causing the projectiles to lose speed and then promptly 
hit the ground, the wind continues to affect the projectiles as they stay airborne. The 
wind can actually reverse the direction of the bullet and accelerate it downwind, which 
causes it to come back towards the player, essentially making a massive U-turn.
Wind does a bit more than just screw with weapon range though – it also 
leads to some… unintended behavior. The most glaring one is probably what it does to 
normally stationary projectiles: it causes them to “roll” – that is… MOVE. Glowsticks, Proximity 
Mines, the flames from Molotov Cocktails, and yes, even “Sticky” explosives are still affected 
by wind on the ground. This means they’ll keep rolling across the ground downwind until 
they hit some obstacle or are otherwise ended. I imagine that this would be rather inconvenient 
were this an actual feature… although throwing Molotov Cocktails upwind might actually 
be a really effective strategy with how the fire travels downwind like this.
Speaking of effectiveness, wind also makes a few attacks a lot less effective.
The “smart bounce” on Crystal Darts or Nano Bullets which auto aims toward enemies after 
a bounce is completely thrown off by the wind as it doesn’t account for it – don’t expect 
it to work as well with even a light breeze. Likewise, minions like the Pygmy Staff 
or Imp Staff which shoot things might be thrown off significantly by the wind 
too, causing them to miss more often. From just these few examples, I think it’s 
pretty obvious why wind physics (at least in this form) wasn’t added to Terraria 
when 1.4 released. It’s just… broken; note the sliding sticky grenades and the U-turning 
bullets – and even if it wasn’t, it’d be a massive departure from how the game has played since its 
release. Even if it were a fraction as powerful or affected only a subset of the projectile types 
this scrapped feature did, it would still affect gameplay in a way that just isn’t “Terraria-like”. 
I don’t think any of us want to predict the wind. We really didn’t miss anything in my opinion.
Although I don’t think it is a gameworthy feature, like many broken, old, and hidden parts of the 
game it is still fun to experiment with. You can easily play around with it using a small 
custom mod that you can write with nothing but tModLoader and a text editor, and the game 
even has another hidden variable that you can use to adjust the strength of the wind, 
too. I always encourage you to have fun. If you enjoyed this video, please consider 
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and if you’re interested in joining the community, my Discord server is in the description as well!
Either way though, thank you for watching, and good day and good bye. See 
you next fortnight to month.

What if wind could push projectiles in Terraria?
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What if wind could push projectiles in Terraria?