Hi-Rez Studios acquires Tribes franchise, turning it into an MMO

by Griffin McElroy on Oct 24th 2010 12:00PM

Haven't you always wondered about what kind of rich, storied cultures surrounded the vertically-centric gunfights of the Tribes series? Like, what's the historical significance of all those jet packs, you know? These pressing questions may soon find an answer -- developer Hi-Rez Studios has acquired the rights to the Tribes franchise, and is using those newfound rights to make a PvP-focused action-MMO titled Tribes Universe.

A post on the forums for Hi-Rez' other flagship title, Global Agenda, revealed a few scarce details for the new project, the most intriguing of which being, "a significant rewrite to the Unreal Engine servers to allow for 100+ players to be fighting in the same map." An alpha testing phase for the game is currently set for early 2011, and players who have reached the Global Agenda level cap will be given priority for invitations. Here we'd hoped we'd have priority for invitations, because we own an actual jet pack. It's true! We made it ourselves.

Source: Massively

Tags: global-agenda, hi-rez-studios, mmo, pc, tribes, tribes-universe

Reader Comments (47)

"deep earthly voice"
sssssssshazbot.....

and also..

if this is going to be a mmo, reach for planetside levels of scale and battle please, tribes got the vehicles for it.

@Beanpie01

Planetside was epic. Too bad it never really caught on.

I'd say Planetside is the number 1 reason why I just don't give a crap about these 8 vs. 8 Halo and COD multiplayer games.

@Beanpie01 shazbot! This would be epic. But I don't wanna pay a monthly fee to play Tribes. They should just make a Tribes 4.

@Myself

Joystiq new details! from Hi rez website itself, if they keep their promises this id definitely one to watch:

* Three Tribes (factions)
* Full clan (agency) support
* First person view (third person for some vehicles)
* Full vehicle support (ground and air)
* Full persistent world with territory control (no instances)
* PvP focused
* Huge outdoor maps (about 10x the area of sonoran desert)
* Large scale fights (100+ players)
* Jetpacks, skiing, lots of weapons, etc

I need new pants asap.

@Killface was here

I second this. I pissed his pants too.

@Killface was here
pissed? No this wasn't urine.

@NinjaJesus

Ew.

@NinjaJesus you pissed in HIS pants!?!?!?! like not yours? thats disguisting

Erm, there's already Tribes mmorpg and its called Firefall

8D

@Kitanishi

That isnt tribes and no where near what tribes was. the 2 games dont even share the same story.

However, thank you for exposing me to this game, it looks pretty dam cool.

@Kitanishi I watched 20 minutes of Firefall, and it looks nothing like Tribes. Within that video, I didn't even see anyone use their jet pack.

@Oskiee It isn't Tribes... but to say it is "nowhere near" it is a bit of an exaggeration. It is being made by one of the lead designers of Tribes and features jetpacks pretty heavily.

@stafa It "looks" nothing like Tribes? Of course not. How you can claim to watch 20 minutes of footage and not see the jetpack used once is beyond me though as every video I've seen has had them.

Wouldn't be surprised if this fills up with Tibes players saying how great it is and how they had jetpacks before games like Reach and KZ3. And then they will brag how amazing this game will be.

@The Cole Train

Well, when you're right you're right ;)

Just because it did things first doesn't mean that the games that came along later were somehow diminished but Tribes does deserve props and for a bit more than just jetpacks. .

I'm not going to preemptively brag about how great the game will be, I haven't seen the game. They could well screw it up. They are working with a great IP but essentially everything tribes did has become standard operating procedure in the FPS world.

There are a few aspects that I haven't seen reproduced like the size of the maps or the flexibility/complexity of the gameplay. Which I think to some degree was tribes undoing. Sometimes you don't want complexity, simply to jump in and go. Which is what a lot of the competition eventually delivered.

Glad I was able to oblige, sorta.

@The Cole Train Why would anyone be surprised if people stated facts? The last part, about this game being "great"...well some people said Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel was great... so it shouldn't surprise anyone that this game no matter how good or bad would have some people claiming that it is great.

I guess I missed your point.

Good franchise + MMO = shit

That is all.

I'm getting the feeling its not going to be an MMOFPS which was arguably what Tribes 1&2 and whatever came after that that my computer couldn't run so I really didn't bother with it or punctuation was.

But I will admit so far when some company somewhere has tried to resurrect tribes I have always been disappointed. Mainly because it always seems to be some stripped down super vanilla version of T1.

@aforty the formula of the generation! someone take obamas nobel prize and give it to this gentlemen here!!!!!!!!

@aforty

Let me tell you a story about a little game called Warcraft...

i was hoping for a revival of Starsiege.... :(

or cyberstorm....

No shazbot = no play (for me atleast)

It's sad to see what this once great franchise has become.

@blindrocket We've had -1- mediocre game (Vengeance) and the notice that a 4th game is in the works.

What have you seen that I have not?

Global Agenda is great and this project sounds like it will be great...as long as they dont let botting plauge it like GA

Prediction:

Hi-Rez Studios will poor all there time and money into this. it will fail. and they will be the next studio to close.

@Faenix My prodiction: you getting banned from joystiq cause every comment you make on every article is trollish. Seriously you're annoying, grow up

@PWRWarTG

Except he's probably right here, especially in this case.

Hope not, though.

So can anyone tell me WHY it needs to be an MMO?

Can we not just have a large scale FPS on the typical purchase/dedicated server model?

Why complicate it with all this MMO bulljive, especially when the biggest thing MMOs have been able to accomplish in recent years is getting shut down?

I thought Garage Games (or whoever runs InstantAction) purchased the franchise. Wasnt Tribes going to be rereleased as a free web game?

It was but it was a super vanilla version of T1, I remember playing a bit after it was mentioned in a CAGcast some time back.

@nembutals That's Fallen Empire: Legions that you're thinking of, that game was up on instantaction.com for a while but I guess that site is going through changes right now.

@stafa No...hes talking about T1. T1 was gonna be on instant action.

I'll wait for Firefall, thanks

Thank god, another MMO! We're really running out of those.

Good thing this one was made so far in advance
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/12/13/

I just watched a really long video on Global Agenda just to see how these guys are, and that game looks like butt. The graphics are ugly, the gameplay look like crap, and nothing to me indicates that they will do a good job on making a true Tribes experience.

Needs skijumping, plasma rifles, and a disc launcher I can never ever ever get the hang of using.

You know that noise Marge Simpson makes when she's upset? I'm making that noise right now. I want an excuse to dust off my spinfusor, but this ain't it.

@littletmart Why not?

All the "anti-MMO" furor is really getting annoying to me. Why wouldn't anyone want to play Tribes with "100s of people in one battle"???

Anything else about the game and it's mechanics, fees or any other details are not known to you or anyone else commenting here.

So why not dust off that old spinfusor and kill some Blood Eagle bastards in hopes that the new game will rock... rather than just instantly judging it as crap?

Love Global Agenda and Tribes. Seriously cannot wait to play this, lv50 medic.

I just hope the voice commands are as good.

Where's your head?
Idunno
Someone get a spatula, for freedom!
"Dance!" "Dance!" "Dance!"
You, IDIOT! Dance! For freedom!

Good times,

Another MMO? Seriously? Seriously?

I gotta say, Global Agenda is a pretty fun game, has a distinct Tribes feel to it. Interested to see where Hi-Rez takes the franchise.

i bought planetside.. to find out I couldn't play it because i had to pay for it AGAIN

Hi-Rez Studios acquires Tribes franchise, turning it into an MMO

Reader Comments (47)

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 12:06PM Beanpie01 said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 12:15PM BacteriaEP said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 12:33PM phinn said

Posted: Oct 25th 2010 12:00PM Beanpie01 said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 12:13PM Killface was here said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 12:14PM NinjaJesus said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 12:25PM Killface was here said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 12:30PM Ezio Auditore da Firenze said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 3:40PM tekboy said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 12:20PM Kitanishi said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 12:53PM Oskiee said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 3:24PM stafa said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 6:17PM Sabbatai said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 6:19PM Sabbatai said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 12:21PM The Cole Train said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 12:36PM ThePenIsMightier said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 2:02PM Scuffles said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 6:22PM Sabbatai said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 12:34PM aforty said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 1:38PM Scuffles said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 1:41PM Ryuk said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 2:06PM Lerkero said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 12:39PM mocax said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 12:45PM RoboZombie said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 12:51PM blindrocket said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 6:23PM Sabbatai said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 1:13PM skelbono said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 1:17PM Faenix said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 3:56PM PWRWarTG said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 7:29PM xHaldirx said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 1:47PM wcarnation said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 2:00PM nembutals said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 2:11PM Scuffles said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 3:02PM stafa said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 3:54PM PWRWarTG said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 2:11PM Cleric said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 2:18PM Hank Hill said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 2:59PM comics4andy said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 3:04PM stafa said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 3:24PM Regault said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 3:46PM littletmart said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 6:25PM Sabbatai said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 8:47PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 10:09PM Snappyguy said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 11:11PM lenandude said

Posted: Oct 25th 2010 1:12AM Frostfell said

Posted: Oct 25th 2010 4:15PM PerfectCyanide said

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