Day and night cycle



The day and night cycle of the Terraria world allows players to track the rising and setting of the sun and moon. When the sun sets, the day music fades out and the night music fades in, and vice versa for the moonset. In surface biomes, more enemies spawn during the night. Nocturnal enemies will run or fly away when the day starts at 4:30 a.m.

Many bosses can only be summoned and fought during night, after 7:30 p.m.

The exact time can be displayed by equipping a Gold Watch or GPS, or checked from a Grandfather Clock.

Note that the Sun in Terraria rises in the West (left) and sets in the East (right), as confirmed by the Goblin Tinkerer. When a Goblin Army or the Frost Legion begin approaching, the messages shown in the chat hold true to this rule.

Trivia

 * You can grab the sun or the moon on the title screen and move it around. This won't have any effect during gameplay once you've entered a world.
 * Before a formal server software was released for Terraria and while it was necessary to open a second window of Terraria to host a server, you could drag the sun or moon around to directly change the time of day within the server.
 * If you are wearing sunglasses, the sun will appear to be wearing some too. Unequiping the sunglasses will cause it to revert back.
 * A minute in real life is equal to an hour in Terraria. Similarly, one second in real life is equal to one minute in-game.
 * The rising and setting of the moon and sun are opposite to real life.