Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

Minecraft meets the traditional MMO in Trion Worlds’ free-to-play Trove

Add as a preferred source on Google

Trion Worlds is no stranger to taking a well-established idea and making it its own. The company’s first MMO Rift was heavily inspired by World of Warcraft, but the game’s titular Rifts planted the seed for many of the “world events” seen in modern MMOs. Later on, Trion’s Defiance married FPS and MMO mechanics years prior to Destiny.

If you’re a big MMO fan, chances are fairly good that you’ve already heard of Trove, which officially launches today. The voxel-based “MMO Adventure,” as Trion calls it, has been around in open beta form since November of last year. As of today, the game has officially been released.

Recommended Videos

The game’s blocky look and building mechanics certainly bring Minecraft to mind, but Trove has more in common with a standard MMO than with Minecraft’s open-ended building style. As opposed to different servers, Trove takes place in one vast open world.

“Trove started out as two guys who had been working on Rift,” Trion CEO Scott Hartsman told VentureBeat. “They had been working on Rift for a lot of years, and they asked if they could go start a passion project. It took them about six weeks, and they put this prototype together. We said, ‘There’s something there.'”

Like a traditional MMO, the game features different character classes. The latest, which is being introduced with the official launch of the game today, is the Tomb Raiser. As the name implies, this class raises skeletons from the dead to aid it in combat.

The official launch of Trove is about more than the version number ticking over to 1.0. This also marks the launch of the game on Steam, which is sure to see more players flocking to the game. Trion plans to continue to add new features in addition to keeping the game fresh with content, and PVP combat is planned for the future.

For a more in-depth look at Trove, take a look at the first five hours of the game from Trion’s perspective on the official website.

Kris Wouk
Former Contributor
Kris Wouk is a tech writer, gadget reviewer, blogger, and whatever it's called when someone makes videos for the web. In his…
Ghost Recon could finally be making the comeback fans have been asking for
A three person squad stands on a bridge in Ghost Recon Frontline.

If you're a Ghost Recon fan, you've probably gotten used to one thing over the past few years: waiting for rumors to turn into announcements, waiting for leaks to be acknowledged, waiting for Ubisoft to say... well, anything at all about the future of one of its biggest tactical shooter franchises. Thankfully, that silence finally seems to be ending.

Ubisoft has confirmed that it will share Ghost Recon news on August 6, when the series celebrates its 25th anniversary. The announcement arrived shortly after fresh leaks began circulating online, prompting the company to post a brief message telling fans that more information is just around the corner.

Read more
The AI game-dev boom has a dark side: fewer jobs for the people starting out
Solo creators are thriving with tools like Claude Code and Copilot, but entry-level game roles are disappearing.
Man playing a video game on a desktop with glowing red and blue lights

AI is making it easier than ever for a single person to build a game. That sounds like a win for creativity, and in many ways, it absolutely is. But there is a catch. As generative AI tools help solo developers and small studios do more with fewer people, the same shift is making life tougher for writers, artists, concept creators, and junior programmers trying to break into the gaming industry.

AI is giving solo developers superpowers

Read more
ONEXPLAYER’s new handheld packs AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 388 and liquid cooling at an eye-watering price
The X2 Mini Pro is now available directly from the company with premium specs to match its premium cost.
ONEXPLAYER X2 Mini Pro Featured

Gaming handhelds have become more powerful every year, but they're also getting increasingly expensive. The new ONEXPLAYER X2 Mini Pro takes that trend to an entirely new level. Following its crowdfunding campaign, ONEXPLAYER has begun selling the X2 Mini Pro directly through its online store. The premium handheld starts at $2,499, while the fully loaded configuration with 64GB RAM, a 2TB SSD, and the optional Frost Bay liquid cooling system climbs to a staggering $3,229. Deliveries are expected to begin in August.

Desktop-class hardware in a handheld

Read more