Somehow, Tribes returned

[Thrik]

Jesus Christ. Anyone who knows me is aware that I was obsessed with Tribes back in the day. It’s had a difficult history though, with Vengeance and Ascend more or less flopping due to mismanagement.

Could they get it right this time? The world is surely gasping for an arena CTF sort of game at this point, with the likes of Doom, Quake, Team Fortress, and Unreal all being DEAD.

Former Ascend developers are involved so if they can get the gameplay right (which they did) without fucking it up with microtransactions again, this could be fantastic.

 

[Thrik]

I’m so desperate for that old-school rapid gameplay I’ve even resorted to TFC which somehow still has players
 

 

[Thrik]

Oh god playtester invites are going out.

I apologise in advance to those not obsessed with Tribes. 

https://www.tribes3rivals.com

[WD]

While I do love Tribes until death. I don't know if it's the type of game people like to play.

The vast distances and great speeds make the game often feel like you're just chasing blips on a minimap or UI icons with hundreds of meters. When nowadays people want to purchase cosmetics to look better than others and show off.

I remember playing some beta of sorts of a Tribes-like game some years ago which I don't remember the name of anymore. I wonder where that went.

 

[Thrik]

Yeah it’s true. Honestly I think the entire genre of these more movement-focused shooters has gone away, people just don’t seem to want them any more. Tribes takes it to another level of niche by being so large in scale.

Unreal, Quake, Tribes, Doom, even the likes of Team Fortress. Where did it all go, man?

I get times moving on, etc but it’s like the entire style of play disappeared in favour of die-quick military shooters. 

[Human Doctor]

I haven't played Tribes, but the movement system reminds me of a brilliant game that I played on Steam called Exo One. It has the same follow-the-tangent-of-the-terrain thing, and it has a really cool clouds shader on the last level.

Can you really argue that Quake was more movement-focused than, say, Apex Legends or Fortnite? They all involve playing some kind of rhythm game to navigate the map effectively. And the movement in the Quake and Source engines was born from what? An unintended consequence of their physics system? I wouldn't be surprised if some new battle royale game with a fantasy aesthetic implemented air-strafing, but I can't imagine the Quake movement system making a comeback. It is just really weird and it doesn't make sense why you'd have it in your game unless you did it by accident or unless your game has "Quake" in the title. But hey, maybe the makers of the next fad FPS will decide to not use Unity or Unreal and will accidentally fuck up their movement code and make something weird but fun.

I am not naturally drawn to the realistic military aesthetic (I find it kind of repulsive), so I'd go on steam and find something like Crab Champions or Dusk to play. And I can't say those are niche games that are behind the times.

I think it matters a lot how a game is presented and marketed. Look at what Riot did with Valorant: they took a boomer shooter, in Counter-Strike, and they made it aesthetically appealing to younger people. Tribes 3 doesn't look like it's trying to do that. It looks like it's trying to capture the look of games that were cool in the past. Just look at the weapon models.

Edited December 4, 2023 by Human Doctor

[Thrik]

I would agree that Fortnite is, somehow, a very movement-focused shooter that has managed to be extremely popular.

Funnily enough a popular Tribes mod used to be Construction, which was very similar to Fortnite’s on-the-fly base building gameplay. I used to play the ever-living shit out of that. 

For me personally what distinguishes the older-style movement shooters from newer games like Apex Legends (which is basically a watered-down Titanfall as far as movement goes) is the speed and simultaneous shooting.

In these games — including Team Fortress, before TF2 slowed everything right down — you would move around extremely quickly, often be jumping or getting propelled around, and shooting at enemies all at the same time. That’s the sort of thing I really miss.

Another thing that’s very common in these is slow-moving projectile weapons that require leading your shots. Often slow TTK too, as opposed to dying in milliseconds. This is all something you don’t see awfully often any more.

Things like this can be pretty cyclical though. Just like how Battle Royale seemed like it was everything forever not that long ago, at some point perhaps this sort of game I describe will just be popular again.

Agreed on the art, it does look a bit too throwback. Apparently it’s mostly temporary assets at the moment but I imagine it’ll still end up looking a lot like how the players already into it expect, which is a possible miss.

BTW I gave the Halo Infinite multiplayer a try while trying to scratch this itch. It’s pretty cool in some ways but it seemed a bit like the maps were too big and players too few to feel chaotic enough. Maybe just need to try more maps. Still a bit slow to run too though.

[Thrik]

BTW Exo One looks awesome! Reminds me a bit of the Journey or Flower sort of experience, but yeah that definitely captures the sort of feel Tribes has.

The feel you get from the building of momentum using the jetpacks and low-friction skiing is absolutely thrilling.