Hey everyone, I wanted to share a bigger update on Dynamic Worlds, my tModLoader mod that regenerates your world terrain without throwing away the playthrough built on top of it.
The basic idea is still the same: fresh terrain, same playthrough.
Dynamic Worlds saves world progression, regenerates the terrain, then restores the parts that matter so you can keep playing instead of abandoning a long-running world every time it gets mined out or fully explored.
The attached video shows the same build being carried across a bunch of different regenerated world seeds, which is probably the quickest way to show what the mod is going for in practice.
I also have a longer walkthrough video up on YouTube now if you want the rundown on the mod's major features and systems.
What’s live right now:
- Manual regen with /regenworld [seed]
- A real loading-screen regen flow instead of freezing gameplay in-place
- Automatic world regen that can now be enabled or disabled in config, with a configurable interval in in-game days
- Reality Anchor for preserving exact tiles, walls, liquids, wires, actuators, and chest/dresser contents
- Reality Eraser for forcing spaces like tunnels, arenas, and shafts to stay empty after regen
- Structure Anchor for preserving full builds as zones instead of tile-by-tile
- Preserved NPC housing when a valid saved home survives
- Bed spawn handling with safe fallback behavior
- Vanilla pylon repair after regen
- Shared overlay visibility for anchors, erasures, and structure zones while holding any world tool
A few questions people have been asking, now that more of the systems are live:
Does regen happen while I’m still in the world?
No. It does not keep running while you move around or break things in live gameplay. The mod saves, exits into a loading-screen-style regen flow, rebuilds the world there, restores preserved data, and then loads you back in automatically. That avoids a lot of the obvious desync and “what if I mined something mid-regen?” problems.
Can I disable automatic regen and only trigger it manually?
Yes. Scheduled regen can be turned off entirely in config, and you can still just use /regenworld whenever you want.
Can it change the world evil?
Yes. If you turn off Preserve Evil Type, regen can reroll the world evil. If you leave it on, the current evil is preserved.
How do pylons work?
Preserved vanilla pylons are repaired after regen so they function again, but they are not currently auto-moved to a matching biome. So the mod fixes preserved vanilla pylons, but it does not currently relocate them to “the correct biome” for you.
Will this work on older worlds, including old 1.3 worlds?
If the world still loads in your current Terraria/tModLoader setup, Dynamic Worlds can still snapshot and regenerate it. It uses current worldgen, though, not historical 1.3 generation, so it won’t recreate old 1.3 terrain rules exactly.
Will houses end up underground or floating?
That was a big concern in earlier feedback, and it’s one of the reasons Structure Anchor was added. It preserves full builds as zones and restores them onto the new terrain. It also bridges small support gaps underneath instead of creating a giant dirt pillar all the way to the ground. That said, it does not fully sculpt an entire hill or terrain shell around your house. If you want surrounding terrain preserved too, you should anchor that terrain as well.
What about NPC housing and towns?
Town NPC roster, names, respawn positions, and preserved housing are restored when a valid saved home survives. So if you preserve a town build properly, NPC housing is a lot more reliable now than it was in the earlier versions.
How does it handle modded structures and mod compatibility?
It works best when you keep the same mod list installed before and after regen. Modded tiles, walls, and town NPCs can often survive if their source mods are still present. Compatibility is weaker for unusual tile entities, custom pylons, and major worldgen-overhaul mods. For content mods that hook into normal worldgen, regen can often replay that worldgen, but restoring progression/state for large mods is still more variable than vanilla.
Will preserved storage keep modded items?
Preserved chest and dresser contents are intended to support modded items through tModLoader serialization, assuming the same mods are still installed. That said, external storage systems or highly custom storage mods are less guaranteed than vanilla chests/dressers. In other words: preserved chests and dressers are the safer path.
Single-player or multiplayer?
Right now this is a single-player utility mod.
Current mod compatibility
Right now, Dynamic Worlds is a single-player mod first. It works best when you keep the same mod list installed before and after regen. In general, modded tiles, walls, town NPCs, and modded items stored in preserved chests or dressers have a good chance of surviving correctly as long as their source mods are still present. The weaker areas are custom pylons, unusual tile entities, external storage systems, and major worldgen-overhaul mods, since those tend to rely on more custom behavior than vanilla does. Vanilla pylons are repaired after regen, but the mod does not currently auto-move them to a valid biome. So the short version is: normal content mods are the best fit, while heavily custom worldgen or storage systems are more experimental.
Future plans
The main focus going forward is improving restore support for more complex objects and modded content, especially around tile entities and world-specific systems that vanilla handles differently from standard tiles. I also want to revisit biome-aware pylon placement in a more polished way, expand compatibility with unusual modded structures, and keep improving how preserved builds sit on regenerated terrain. There are also a couple of planned config ideas still on the table, like preserving more world-shape details and biome-specific features, but I’d rather land those carefully than rush them in half-finished. Calamity specific compatibility updates are also on my radar.
If you want to check it out:
Steam Workshop
If anyone tries it, I’d love feedback, bug reports, and edge cases, especially around larger mod lists, preserved towns, and weird worldgen combinations.
by paidmonster2