On a whim, I downloaded and started playing Trove a few days ago, oblivious to its launch this week. I had previewed it a little during the alpha and kept one eye on it while playing other things, but hadn’t paid close attention to any of the game’s updates through beta and leading up to release.
Suffice it to say that I’ve been completely floored by what’s now on offer with Trion Worlds’ kooky voxel-based MMORPG. Its whimsy and kooky sense of style is matched with a pretty solid gameplay loop and a variety of well-realized features. Here are five reasons why you should be playing it right now!
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It’s Hilarious
Trove handily combines a number of genres with a kooky sense of humor that is playful as it is charming. The result is a gestalt that is equal parts fantasy, science fiction, and The Lego Movie, with a pinch of Saint’s Row 4 or Crackdown thrown in for good measure. It has a go-anywhere, do-anything kind of attitude, allowing you to build, destroy, adventure, and craft to your heart’s content.
My character, for example, is currently doubling up on the Neon Ninja and Dracolyte classes, and likes to wear an Eye of Sauron on his head and use a Tron-looking lightsaber. He can also jump eighteen times in a row before landing. It’s that kind of game.
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It Captures the Essence of MMORPGs...
Trove’s gameplay loop is fairly straightforward: enter a game world, seek out dungeons and monsters, level up your classes, rinse and repeat. It’s the same thing we’ve been doing in MMOs for years, but it’s so cleverly distilled and addictive that you can’t help but keep playing.
The game’s classes are inventive, combat is fun and action-oriented, and there are what feel like a zillion cosmetic styles to collect and things to craft. It’s tempting to call Trove “MMO-lite,” but in truth, it feels like the best of MMO gameplay without all the bloated features that are sometimes tacked on to modern MMORPGs.
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...and Voxel-Based Sandboxes
I’ve played a little Minecraft, and now Terraria, and I get why they’re so popular. Voxel sandboxes are fun, and allow your imagination to run rampant without many rules or guidelines to restrict you.
Trove captures the essence of what makes those games tick, and packages it neatly within its own framework. If you like to build, you can do so in the gameworld or on your own home Cornerstone. If crafting is your thing, there are so many items and resources for you to discover, deconstruct, and create. If you just like to run around and burrow through blocks and obsessively mine resources like I do, you can do that too. It’s great!
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It’s Cooperative
Trove encourages and rewards participation. Its tutorial will eventually lead you to create or join a Club, which is like a guild with its own buildable Club World. It also makes space for you to smoothly play along with other randos, with a nice zoom-to button so you can easily teleport to your friends’ locations. I would like a bit more functionality from the friends and Club features, but hopefully that’s in the pipeline.
Trion’s game also seems to have a vibrant community, which is of paramount importance for such an open-world sandbox as this one.
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It’s Officially Live, and Free
True, Trove has been “out” and taking money for some time now while in open beta, but there’s nothing like an official launch to reinvigorate a player base and invite in new people. You can feel the zeitgeist in the game world and and on the forums around the release right now, and it’s a fun time to be a part of it.
It’s also true that not every game out there that purports to be free-to-play is worth playing. Trove certainly is, and it’s free enough that I haven’t yet spent a dime, but want to, simply to support its continued development. Trion has just implemented a refer-a-friend program too, so it should be easy enough to get your guild to try it out with you, and earn rewards in the process.
Trove is super fun to play and charming besides, and well worth your time. Give it a go!
Are you playing Trove this weekend? Let me know!
