The company was founded as Trion World Network, Inc in 2006 by Lars Buttler,[3] previously serving as Vice President for Global Online at major Americanvideo game publisherEA, and Jon Van Canegham, previously serving as Executive Producer at South Korean 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."[citation needed]
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 Gamigo.
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.[5] Trion Worlds CEO Lars Buttler has stated that Rift has a budget of "over US$50 million".[6] The game was officially released in 2011 in the United States on March 1, Australia on March 2 and throughout Europe on March 4.
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 MMOopen worldshooter, 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." [citation needed]
End of Nations, originally a free-to-play MMORTSvideo game developed by Petroglyph Games, is now being developed in house at Trion Worlds and is now a MOBA RTS hybrid. End of Nations is currently planned for a simultaneous North American and European release. It was in the alpha phase of development when it was put on hold in November 2013.
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.[7][8]
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.
On June 30, 2015, Trion announced they were publishing South Korea’s Ginno Games' Devilian in Europe and North America.[9]Devilian 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.[10][11]
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.[12][13] 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.[14]
^Walker, Joseph (December 14, 2011). "Gaming's New Frontier After Zynga". WSJ. Archived from the original on January 31, 2015. Retrieved February 22, 2019. a little-known start-up called Trion Worlds Inc. A gaming company founded a couple of years earlier by Lars Buttler, a former Electronic Arts executive, Trion had yet to release a product.
^Crossley, Rob (August 27, 2010). "Trion's first game budget 'over $50m'". Archived from the original on March 29, 2016. Retrieved March 21, 2011. Rift: Planes of Telara is already very ambitious because it is over $50 million in development
