Our First Fleeting Glimpse Of The New Tribes Game

Fans of the deep, strategic, jetpack-powered combat of Tribes have been clamoring for a new game since the 2004 release of Tribes: Vengeance. Hi-Rez Studios delivers this year with Tribes: Ascend, a downloadable game for Xbox 360 and PC.

Hi-Rez already had a pretty good head start on creating a Tribes game in their massively-multiplayer online shooter Global Agenda. In that Unreal Engine 3 powered game, teams in combat armor jetpacked their way across futuristic landscapes, participating in massive multiplayer battles with other players.

In the Unreal Engine 3 powered Tribes: Ascend, players will likely be doing something quite similar.

We first thought Tribes was coming back in 2009, when gaming portal InstantAction teased a new version of Starsiege: Tribes playable in a web browser. InstantAction went down last year, and Atlanta-based Hi-Rez Studios revealed that they were the new holders of the Tribes license.

https://lastchance.cc/instantaction-brings-tribes-to-your-web-browser-5171349%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E

Hi-Rez teased a persistent-world version of the game called Tribes Universe. While that game is still on the way, Ascend is coming out first.

https://lastchance.cc/there-is-a-new-tribes-game-coming-30860203%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E

“Before Halo, before Modern Warfare, and before Battlefield, there was Tribes.”, says Todd Harris, Hi-Rez Studios COO. “Tribes fans appreciate the game’s essence – athletic FPS combat combined with teamwork and strategy. As we began development of Tribes Universe, we focused first on capturing that essence – refining and modernizing iconic elements like jetpacks, skiing, and vehicles. We’ve had tremendous fun play-testing and realized the potential of a multiplayer focused title ahead of Tribes Universe. The community has been waiting for a multi-player shooter that is the modern successor to T2. Tribes: Ascend is that game.”