Trion Worlds trademarks ‘REACTOR’

[Update 8.31.15 – REACTOR trademark refers to Trion’s recently announced Atlas Reactor title.]

An interesting trademark popped up when looking through Trion Worlds’ trademarks on the United States Patent and Trademark Office called “REACTOR“.  This was filed on 29th Dec 2014 with recent ‘security interests’ recorded on 25th March 2015 and the 21st May 2015.

Reactor Trademark

‘REACTOR’ Trademark. Src: USPTO

What could this ‘REACTOR’ trademark refer to? Past trademarks include Trove, Glyph, Nightmare Tide and Storm Legion so it doesn’t necessarily have to be a new title. It could refer to a new expansion for an existing title, the name of a platform or some kind of proprietary software.

[Update 06/01/15: It seems Trion is working on a new game. Megathalios on the RIFT Forums discovered that one of the job descriptions on the Trion Worlds Career page includes a line about “our next game”.] [r]

New Game?

PlanetJackers Trademark

Another possibility is that it is a trademark for a title that has been scrapped. Back in 2013, Trion had a trademark for “PLANETJACKERS” which clearly hasn’t eventuated.

‘PLANETJACKERS’ Trademark. Src: USPTO

That said, Planet Jackers might have been the original name for Trove. Concept Art and models of what was to become Trove were markedly different from what it currently looks like:

It wouldn’t be too farfetched for Trove’s original name to have been ‘Planet Jackers’.

What does this mean for ‘REACTOR’? Well, ‘REACTOR’ might be a trademark to a new title or expansion, but the name of that title/platform upon release might end up completely different (so don’t fixate on the name!).

Plane of Earth Expansion?

Could ‘REACTOR’ be the initial name for RIFT’s 3rd expansion? The closest Plane to the name would obviously be the Plane of Earth.

In a livestream in September last year, Trion Worlds Senior Environment Artist Ross Worthley stated that when the art team was brainstorming which Plane to go to for 3.0, he had advocated for a Plane of Earth expansion. Lead Content Designer MikeD, in explaining that the Planes didn’t have to be tied down to normal expectations, mentioned that a possible idea ‘if’ they were to go to the Plane of Earth would be the concept of time or geological travel.

Of course, this neither confirms or denies the existence of a 3rd expansion journeying to the Plane of Earth. For all we know, it could be a Defiance expansion in the works!

Past Timelines

In terms of timeline, here’s what has occurred with past trademarks related to RIFT:

Storm Legion

• March 10th 2011 – Petroglyph Games files trademark for ‘Storm Legions’, which is later assigned to Trion Worlds.
• May 3rd 2012 – Trion files trademark for Storm Legion.
• May 31st 2012 – Trion announces Storm Legion.
• Nov 13th 2012 – Storm Legion Launch.

Nightmare Tide

• April 2013 – Trion teases 3.0 Whiteboard and Plane of Water Image.
• June 2nd 2014 – Trion files trademark for Nightmare Tide
• June 25th 2014 – Trion announces Nightmare Tide.
• Oct 22nd 2014 – Nightmare Tide Launch.

Reactor

• Dec 29th 2014 – Trion files trademark for Reactor.

One major difference that goes against speculation that Reactor is related to a third expansion for RIFT is that Trion seems to officially announce a new expansion within the month of filing trademark on the expansion’s name.

That said, two data points doesn’t quite make a trend.

Nothing official is known about this trademark yet and what it relates to, but it seems that Trion is working on ‘something’.

Sources:

• REACTOR Trademark
• PLANETJACKERS Trademark
• Trion Worlds Trademarks

What do you think? Could ‘Reactor’ be the name of a third RIFT expansion, related to its other games, a new platform, a brand new game title, or just some proprietary software/IP?

[Update 8.31.15 – REACTOR trademark refers to Trion’s recently announced Atlas Reactor title.]