Trove’s Product Lead Henrik Answers Questions About The Game’s Past And Future

Trove, the adorable little voxel MMORPG that started life under the Trion Worlds banner, is celebrating ten years of blocky biomes, dragons, and adventure. Of course, a lot has happened with the game over the last decade, not the least being a transition to gamigo’s library of games. Change is to be expected. After all, a decade is a long time. During those ten years, the game has had its ups and downs, and a dedicated community that has been there throughout all of it.

Now, the Trove team is celebrating the game’s big milestone, and as part of that, they offered us a chance to ask a few questions of the team. Our questions were answered by Product Lead Henrik.

Gamigo is also celebrating the anniversary with a giveaway, and offered us the chance to give away some goodies. You can claim your goodies via the giveaway page.

MMOBomb: First off, congratulations on Trove’s 10th anniversary. With a decade of adventure and exploring, the team probably has plenty of fond – and maybe not-so-fond – memories. Can you tell us of a favorite moment, either from the development process or perhaps player reaction to something the team came up with?

Henrik: Thank you for the congratulations! It’s very much appreciated, and yes, our time with Trove has always been intense with its ups and downs. Funnily enough, one of the greatest moments we had was just a short while ago, when we moved to new servers. We received a lot of community feedback about the quality of the game experience and have been planning on moving to better servers for quite a while. Such a move is not to be taken lightly, though, and comes with many considerations such as moving the databases while assuring data integrity and keeping the Trove running during this time.

We spent a lot of time on the preparations, had our expected initial hiccups, and are very happy about all the great feedback we received from our players.

MMOBomb: How has the game changed over the years, and how has your approach to developing it changed?

Henrik: Trove is a truly unique game covering a wide variety of settings and genres. We’re fortunate to work on a title that doesn’t take itself too seriously and yet delivers captivating core gameplay. This special combination creates room for creativity and gives us the freedom to sprinkle in modern elements—like pop culture references—that continue to make us smile time and time again. From that perspective, you could say Trove hasn’t changed too much—it has stayed true to its original spirit and playful identity.

That said, some features needed to evolve. Certain systems began to impact gameplay in unintended ways, like the Shadow Tower, which became almost meme-worthy for how often it would stress our servers on Mondays. On the other hand, new additions like the Star Chart we introduced with Reeling in the Stars brought a fresh layer of depth and allowed players to customize their specializations, which added a new dimension to progression.

Perhaps our biggest long-term challenge, though, has been ensuring continuity amidst change. As with many long-running projects, we’ve seen colleagues leave and new ones join, which naturally affects workflows, decision-making, and ideation. We’ve had to rediscover legacy tools, modernize workflows, and realign our vision as a team—none of which was quick or easy, but all of it brought us to where we are today.

Ultimately, our goal has always been to keep the unique and playful style of Trove, and we're committed to continuing on that path for the next 10 years and beyond.

MMOBomb: Most gamers know by now that a lot of games that are delivered end up being quite different from what was originally envisioned by the developers in the beginning. Was this the case for Trove? If so, how did it change into the game we now know?

Henrik: That's a great question—and a challenging one! It’s important to remember that Trove was originally developed by Trion Worlds over a decade ago. Since then, many of the current team members joined after the transition, and those who came from Trion Worlds were often involved with other titles at the time. As a result, the original vision behind Trove isn’t directly accessible anymore.

When Trove transitioned to gamigo, we embraced a steep learning curve—diving deep into the game’s identity, tone, and the features our community values most. We’ve worked hard to align with those expectations while also finding space to innovate. Fast forward to today: Trove has 18 classes and biomes, and we’re still passionate about creating new ones. At the same time, we’re equally focused on delivering meaningful content that’s accessible to all players and makes use of the vast, rich content that already exists within the game.

MMOBomb: What’s something that you’d like to do in the game that you haven’t been able to do, and is it something that you’re considering doing in the future?

Henrik: There is something … we have tons of allies that follow our players and provide stats. I haven’t counted the number of allies we currently have, but it’s definitely within the four-digit range. We would like to give our allies more meaning and an additional purpose. We have a collection of ideas to give them more individuality, like seeing them grow and act on their own.

MMOBomb: Speaking of the future? As this is the 10-year milestone, we’d like to assume you’re already shooting for another ten years. What kinds of things would you like to see happen with Trove during that time?

Henrik: Over the course of the years, we’ve collected a lot of ideas that should suffice to fill the next 10 years of development, but they are neither final nor are they guaranteed to reach final stages and see the light of day. We have been talking about new classes and biomes, but also new game modes that relate to ideas like tower defense, boss fight arenas, club battles, and more. We are often asked what will be on our roadmap, and in your last article, mentioning Trove, you pretty much summarized the core of why we are cautious about teasing new features. Sharing information about future content can help players to be excited and hopeful about what’s coming, but we also create a lot of expectations as every player will imagine their own way of the look and feel of the feature. Then, when we release that content, there’s the reality that we cannot satisfy every one of the expectations our players have. With this in mind, we prefer to be rather cautious about content teasers.

MMOBomb: Can you share any plans for the near future with us?

Henrik: It’s ironic to mention how we are rather cautious about content teasers, but then going straight into a content teaser. However, I am happy to share something many players have been giving feedback on:

“Block” – yes, Trove is a VoxelMMO and blocks come with the package, but “Block”, as in defending yourself, has not yet been implemented. We got a lot of community feedback mentioning high mortality rates of melee players, especially in higher difficulties. We are planning to address this imbalance with a feature that is, in general, useful for all classes but will play out its strengths in melee combat.

MMOBomb: MMOs, or really any long-running online game for that matter, live and die by their communities. What has interacting with the Trove community been like for the team? Is there anything that the community has done, either creatively or for their own community-building, that has really stood out for you?

Henrik: Trove is a community-driven game. We make it a point to be involved and even showcase community artwork on our loading screens within the game itself. Dungeons, costumes, allies, mounts - Trove has an immeasurable number of community-created content. We are so grateful for all the participation and honestly surprised by the amount of community contributions in the past decade. Dear community, please keep up with this; it's amazing, and we feel very honored!

The best way to participate in the community as well as get in contact with the game team is on Discord, where players can send feedback, post questions, or just chat with us and other players.

MMOBomb: Is there anything special you’d like to say to the Trove community to mark this occasion?

Henrik: After 10 years, Trove has managed to remain quite a ride for our players and for the team. We are truly grateful to be able to shape Trove with you. We promise to continue to listen to your feedback and are dedicated to keep creating an outstanding and ever-evolving gaming experience.