Yet another studio take a crack at Tribes, kinda
The fast-paced flag-capturing FPS series Tribes will return from the dead once again next week with the early access launch ofTribes 3: Rivals. Over the weekend, developers Prophecy Games announced March 12th is the date, with the full launch to follow after up to a year. Prophecy are spun off from Hi-Rez Studios, the folks who who made Tribes: Ascend, which officially shut down a few years back. I hear this next one’s pretty fun.
The core of Tribes is capture-the-flag on giant maps, which players whizz about using jetpacks and a movement trick known as ‘skiing’. Combine this with some projectile weaponry where you need to lead your shots and you have lots of opportunities for satisfying high-skill plays. Resident RPS Tribesman Jamesenjoyed a Tribes 3 alpha playtestlast year, with some reservations, then came awaymore enthusiasticafter seeing changes made for its Steam Next Fest demo in February.
The devs say it may come to the Epic Games Store later (which I imagine could have been requested by as many as three people). They say it might also hit PlayStations and Xboxen at some point, potentially supporting cross-platform play.
The rights to Tribes have changed hands several times across the years, giving many different studios a crack at making one since Dynamix released the original Starsiege: Tribes in 1998. Several non-‘Tribes’ Tribes games have come over the years too, including Fallen Empire: Legions andMidair, both of which were followed by spiritual successors of their own from yet more different studios. The next of these will be Midair 2, which is currently runninga playtest you can join on Steam. While Tribes ‘em ups rarely seem to be smash hits, enough people want Tribes to exist that there’s always someone trying. Turns out, there’s something very appealing about the idea of high-speed, high-flying, high-skillcap multiplayer murders.
