The company was founded in 2006 by Lars Buttler and Jon Van Caneghem, who had each previously worked for NCSoft[1] and left in 2009 to join Electronic Arts.

[2] 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 American video game publisher EA, 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.

In 2011, the game was revealed to be Defiance, an MMO open world shooter, 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."

[10][11] At PAX Prime 2015, Trion Worlds announced Atlas Reactor, a multiplayer turn-based tactics game set in the future.