NOW PLAYING
Is Tribes: Ascend dead? Well, not quite.
Playing Tribes: Ascend, an abandoned multiplayer-only FPS, feels like being somewhere you’re not supposed to be. Did someone forget to turn the game off? Or did I stumble into a pocket dimension? Is a capture-the-flag-loving wizard going to be very angry when he finds me here?
The uncanniness of playing Tribes: Ascend today is funny given that it would feel completely normal to launch Quake and jump into a server (or the original Tribes, for that matter). The difference is that Tribes: Ascend released in 2012, which is just recent enough to make it an oddity. These days, online games that aren’t hits get demolished and paved over before they even finish ‘beta testing’. There’s no secret way to play
Crucible, the cancelled Amazon-made hero shooter. In October, you will no longer be able to play Magic: Legends, which was only in beta for a few months before the decision was made to start planning the controlled demolition. If they don’t make money, games just go away now.
But then there’s Tribes: Ascend— forgotten, but not gone. You can’t find it on Steam by searching for it, but it hasn’t been removed from Steam. It’s just been delisted. Check out this URL to see for yourself: Store. steampowered.com/app/17080.
From that store page, you can add Tribes: Ascend to your Steam account for free, and then download it in the Steam client. When you run it, you might see an error. It complains to me about “install proxy 2”, but after I dismiss that, it loads a login screen. Enter your Hi-Rez account credentials (you can make an account at hirezstudios.com if you don’t have one) and into the pocket dimension you go. It’s all still there: The loadout menu, the tutorials, the server browser. And there are people playing. Tribes: Ascend is not dead.
Why the fast, high-skill FPS never caught on has been debated to death.
WHY THE FAST, HIGH-SKILL FPS NEVER CAUGHT ON HAS BEEN DEBATED TO DEATH
Was it bad luck? Bad design? Bad monetization? Was it a little of each? Yeah, probably.
GO TO WAR
Joining a Tribes: Ascend server the other day was thrilling, though. With such a small set of players, I wondered if they’d bristle at a newcomer. Not at all. We just chatted with voice commands like the old days: Hi. Yes. Shazbot! Woohoo! Awesome! (I kept absentmindedly looking for my Rocket League quick chats, since the tone is so similar: Wow! OK. Nice shot!)
One of the players seemed to be new to the game, and was contemplating which weapons were the best—it was fun to see someone unburdened by years of arguments over weapon design. Another was clearly an old vet, racking up kills with the fusion mortar, one of my all-time favorite videogame weapons (it shoots a green flare that can arc across half the map before exploding). There were only five or so of us at the peak, so instead of capturing the enemy flag, I usually just dropped it somewhere and stood next to it, waiting for a fight. It was one of the best times I’ve had in a game recently. ■