Trion Worlds was an American video game developer. It focused primarily on MMOs, particularly of the MMORPG and MMORTS genres. The company was founded in 2006 by Lars Buttler and Jon Van Caneghem, who had each previously worked for NCSoft
History
The company was founded as
Trion World Network, Inc in 2006 by Lars Buttler,
previously serving as
Vice President for Global Online at major
United States video game publisher
Electronic Arts, and Jon Van Canegham, previously serving as Executive Producer at
online
video game company
NCSoft. The two left their respective jobs to pursue the founding of a company that could "define a generation of interactive entertainment by fundamentally revolutionizing the way games are created, played and distributed."
After the founding, the company immediately began development on the Trion Platform, a server technology through which it claims both Trion and "external partners" will deliver games, and is claimed to be less heavily client-based and enable large-scale battles.
Trion also begun early development on their first MMORPG, then titled Heroes of Telara, which would go on to be renamed Rift: Planes of Telara, until finally being released as Rift in March 2011.
In 2011, in addition to the renaming of Heroes of Telara to Rift: Planes of Telara, Trion World Network, Inc. renamed itself as Trion Worlds, Inc.
In October 22, 2018, Trion Worlds was acquired by WildTangent.
Trion Worlds disbanded on October 26, 2018.
Products
Rift
In 2006,
Trion began development on
Heroes of Telara (now known simply as
Rift), an MMORPG. The game would go on to undergo extensive alpha testing, with beta testing finalizing the stress test portion of development.
Trion Worlds CEO Lars Buttler has stated that
Rift has a budget of "over 50 million".
The game was officially released in 2011 in the
United States on March 1,
Australia on March 2 and throughout
Europe on March 4.
Defiance
In 2010,
Trion and
Syfy announced a deal in which a
video game and related television series would be produced. In 2011, the game was revealed to be
Defiance, an MMO
sandbox game shooter game, and released for Microsoft Windows, Steam, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on April 2, 2013. The official press release states that the game "interconnects with a global television program by Syfy, cable’s premier imagination-based entertainment channel. The first live gameplay demo of Trion and Syfy’s visionary concept debuted at the annual industry event (E3), and was announced as the "first interconnect video game and television series."
End of Nations
End of Nations, originally a free-to-play MMORTS
video game developed by
Petroglyph Games. Later development switched to in house at Trion Worlds and changed genre to a MOBA RTS hybrid. End of Nations was planned for a simultaneous
North American and
release. It was in the alpha phase of development when it was put on indefinite hold in November 2013.
Archeage
Trion acquired the western markets publishing license for
ArcheAge. Archeage, following beta periods in South Korea and Russia, was released on September 16, 2014, for Europe and North America.
Trove
Released on July 9, 2015, Trove is a voxel-based MMORPG developed and published by Trion Worlds. There are 17 playable classes, each with unique play styles and their own themed biome. A large amount of content (including dungeons, lairs, and equipment) is player-submitted. Adventure worlds are randomly generated on spawn, with dungeons scattered throughout various biomes. Players can join clubs to access a club world where building progress is saved and can be protected from non-club members.
Devilian
On June 30, 2015, Trion announced they were publishing
South Korea’s Ginno Games'
Devilian in Europe and North America.
is a fantasy MMO where players play a half-devil known as a Devilian which has two forms — a normal characters and a devil form. On March 5th 2018 Devilian was shut down permanently in North America and Europe.
Atlas Reactor
At PAX Prime 2015, Trion Worlds announced
Atlas Reactor, a multiplayer turn-based tactics game set in the future. It is a team-based game in which a team of players compete against another team in simultaneous turns.
Atlas Reactor launched on October 4, 2016, and became the first game to be integrated with Discord, allowing players to control the Discord client while in-game.
Investors and partners
Trion has multiple investors, including The
Time Warner Investments Group,
Comcast Ventures, Bertelsman Digital Media Investments, Rustic Canyon Partners, Trinity Ventures and DCM, with
Hewlett-Packard listed on their website as a "strategic partner". In addition,
Trion has also partnered with
United States video game developer
Petroglyph Games, American
cable television channel
Syfy, and video game publishers Sony Computer Entertainment and
Ubisoft.
In October 2018 Trion was acquired by German online games publisher, Gamigo.
External links
