[1][2] Turbine was founded as CyberSpace, Inc. in April 1994 by Jeremy Gaffney, Jonathan Monserrat, Kevin Langevin, and Timothy Miller, some of whom were students from the Artificial Intelligence Lab at Brown University.

They found an office in Providence, Rhode Island but later moved to Westwood, Massachusetts to better take advantage of the software engineers coming out of Boston's colleges.

Its most notable feature, designed by Monsarrat, was a "loyalty" system giving new and experienced players incentives to work together.

[7] In 2007, Turbine released The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar, which got positive reviews and was seen as a needed boost for the company.

[8] In 2009, Dungeons and Dragons Online was suffering a low playerbase; in an attempt to save the game, Turbine replaced the traditional monthly subscription model with a free to play one.

As part of this transition, Daybreak Game Company became the new publisher, taking over from Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.