With Millions of PC Players, PS4/Xbox One Getting This Colorful, Open-Ended Game

Free-to-play voxel game Trove is coming to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One this fall, publisher Trion Worlds announced today. The game launched for PC and Mac one year ago this month, and it has attracted more than 5 million players. Millions continues to play every month, and that success has opened the door to bring the game to console.

"It's really exciting for us to see the development and community over this last year has made it worth supporting and going to additional platforms like PS4 and Xbox One," executive producer Andrew Krausnick told GameSpot. "Being an action RPG, it's really well-suited to the [console] control scheme, and it's very drop in and play. You can play in a short session and get stuff done."

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Krausnick also told GameSpot that Trion has "learned a lot" about console game development with another one of its free-to-play games, Defiance. In addition to learnings on the tech and account management side, Trion has made steps forward in terms of gameplay--and Trove should benefit.

"Performance, matchmaking, and stuff like that," he said about how Trion's work on Defiance shaped Trove. "Actually, a number of the developers who have been working on Defiance are currently working on this Trove [console] version. So we've been able to use their expertise to make sure that it is a great launch."

Additionally, Krausnick mentioned that it helps that Sony and Microsoft are "a lot more focused" on free-to-play than ever before.

Here are some other things Krausnick told us about Trove's upcoming console version.

• Whether or not Trove's console version will require PlayStation Plus/Xbox Live Gold remains to be seen. Whatever the case, "We're at least doing some bonuses for people who hold those," Krausnick said.
• Will have microtransactions just like the PC version.
• Bonuses for people who played on PC? "It's something we're talking about," Krausnick said. "It's a cool idea. [But] we need to make sure it feels correct. We'd like to do that."
• No cross-play between console and PC. "We talked about it. We're not going to do it. The ecosystems are different places. We want to give our console players a fresh start with each other."
• Trove is a highly scalable game but it's not coming to last-gen or Wii U. "We want to be working at the latest place. We want to be where the action is," Krausnick said about PS4 and Xbox One.

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In a statement, Trion said Trove continues to be played by "millions of gamers" from more than 100 countries every month. Using the game's creation tools, players have made "thousands" of weapons, mounts, and costumes, among other items. You can see more of Trove's year-one statistics through the pictures in the image gallery above.

Finally, we asked Krausnick about the comparisons people often make to Minecraft. He said he believes people now understand how Trove is different from Microsoft's sandbox juggernaut, and it's those differences that are drawing players in and fueling its success.

"It's something we heard in the past, especially when we were kicking off," Krausnick said about comparisons to Minecraft. "We've really seen that the heart and soul of the game, coming from [the fact that] we enjoy these voxel games and us being RPG players and MMO players and like, we really want these other elements in here. We want to have this action combat, we want to be leveling up, we want to be grouping up with other people and have social groups and all that stuff. That really sets us apart.

"No one else is doing that. It's not something you're going to get in any other voxel games that are out there. We really attracted those players, and those are the ones who are sticking around and playing the game; those are the ones we're building it for."