Hi-Rez only working on Tribes: Ascend for now, MMO and singleplayer could come later

Hi-Rez Studios had big plans for the Tribes property after picking it up a few years ago, and hoped to revamp the single-player game with Tribes: Ascend, and develop the franchise into a full-fledged MMO. Things have changed since then -- Hi-Rez's COO Todd Harris says, "right now our Tribes dev team is working only on Ascend."

Speaking to PC PowerPlay, Harris described Ascend as borrowing heavily from the earlier, fondly remembers Tribes games. Focusing solely on an action game means Hi-Rez could make sure to "get the movement and physics and combat feeling right." Some settings and weapons from the first game will return, but there will be new content, new weapons, and frequent releases of cosmetic items ("much the way League of Legends does in the MOBA genre," says Harris).

Both the MMO and single-player content are possibilities for the future, Harris adds, but Tribes: Ascend is the focus for now.

Reader Comments (11)

I started thinking of the League of Legends method about 5 seconds before it showed up in the article. Not a bad system to copy, considering how well it's working out for Riot.

Single player can really assist multiplayer, though. I'm in the beta for Tribes Ascend and I suck horribly at skating. So yeah, in essence I suck horribly at Tribes. I haven't played in weeks.

@Electrium

Played the beta for a day, got bored. I assume got invited because I played Global Agenda quite a bit last year... but I knew nothing about the Tribes franchise and don't know anything about it still except it has that weird skating thing. Is there more to the games than sliding around on hills and trying to shoot incredibly fast-moving targets?

@jchan

First off, I hate to be the guy but, it's called Skiing.
Secondly, if you're just hopping in and playing deathmatch, you're not getting the full Tribes experience. Capture the Flag has been and is the mode of choice for Tribes.
The learning curve can be a bit steep, but once you get the basics of skiing and leading your target at speeds figured out, it's a really fun game.
That being said, if going super fast with jetpacks doesn't immediately hook you in some way, Tribes just may not be the game for you.

@Amstrad

Told you I was new to it; didn't know if it was called sliding, sledding, skating, skiing, or something else :P

Good to know there's more to the game than that, but what I was playing was fun for about an hour, then just got repetitive. I wasn't bad; finished in the upper middle of the pack for kills most matches. It just wasn't fun for me at least.

had hopes for this until their beta participants were asked to buy content, not test it.

@fid The game is FTP, and all classes, perks and skills can be unlocked through playing the game normally.

I think their model is actually quite sound, they've put a lot of work into this game. If you want to put 15$ into the game to unlock some classes without having to play which will carry over to the full version then you have that option.

@MythosMinion

i rest my case.

Tribes is about more than skiing and leading a target, but this is the backbone of the combat gameplay, and it's damn fun. The delay on a perfectly fired disc hitting the point on the ground or body of your target as he falls through the air is pure magic.

but Capture the flag was where it's at. Vehicles, armies flying through the air, sneaking into an enemy base cloaked and setting up a teleport pad for your own team to pour into the enemy base was where the term ALL YOUR BASE BELONG TO US was coined.

One of my favorite maps was just one long narrow bridge suspended in the sky, with a floating island in the middle of the bridge, and the team bases on each end of the bridge.

Both bases were just in the range of each others mortar cannons, so the whole battle was about pummeling each other's tower with explosions, as you fought over the island in the middle. Whoever got to the island first would set up a base their and a teleport pad, and you would gain the advantage over the other team's base.

Long live the fighters!

..I'll wait for the single player

@Mazrael before what? Playing it for free?

It's by far a Tribes game to say the least, one person on the forums put it like this. Its the "Modern Warfare with Jetpacks that CoD kids have alway wanted to play". I wonder if any of the Dev team actually played the older Tribes games, my impression so far with this Beta is that they didnt.

Shitty map design, Shitty skiing/jetpack physics
Inventory Stations are pretty useless, since you can spawn in whatever loadout you have.
Airstrikes/Orbital strikes have no place in a Tribes game, gets overused.
Assault Rifles and SMG's are more prominent than the Disk Launcher.

They just have NO CLUE how to make a Tribes game and it shows.

Tribes: Ascend

Hi-Rez only working on Tribes: Ascend for now, MMO and singleplayer could come later

Reader Comments (11)

Posted: Jan 5th 2012 8:50PM Electrium said

Posted: Jan 5th 2012 9:19PM jchan said

Posted: Jan 5th 2012 9:50PM Amstrad said

Posted: Jan 6th 2012 8:31AM jchan said

Posted: Jan 6th 2012 2:06AM fid said

Posted: Jan 6th 2012 8:31AM MythosMinion said

Posted: Jan 6th 2012 9:26AM fid said

Posted: Jan 6th 2012 12:28PM Halfcentaur said

Posted: Jan 6th 2012 3:17PM Mazrael said

Posted: Jan 6th 2012 3:25PM MythosMinion said

Posted: Jan 6th 2012 5:07PM (Unverified) said

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