There’s just nothing quite like Tribes. A huge sci-fi universe Dynamix created long ago and explored through their mech simulator games, strategies and fast paced multiplayer-only FPS titles definitely has interesting story and ideas to it, even if not exactly novel. But it wasn’t the story that made Tribes be as exciting and incredible as it is… I mean, they are those “multiplayer-only FPS titles” mentioned before, there’s not a much story needed for those to be good. Far future, different Tribes of people with jetpacks locked in an eternal conflict that, for whatever reason uses the typical classic FPS rules of “capture the flag” to win over each other – that’s all you need to know. The rest is speed, inertia, skiing over the ground and using projectile-based weaponry across gigantic levels to somehow snipe enemies flying through the air.
And yet, somehow, Tribes: Vengeance exists – a singleplayer first game with really heavy emphasis on story. Made by Irrational Games, fresh off their success with System Shock 2 and Freedom Fighters and soon to get even more love with SWAT 4 and then, of course, BioShock. And this game, for whatever reason, was very quickly dropped by the publisher Vivendi Universal Games and was all but forgotten.
I’ve already explained the basics of what Tribes is and I wish I could explain more. Because just saying that it’s a very fast paced FPS with jetpacks doesn’t really do it justice. But issue is – it has to be felt to understand and there needs to be a period of adaptation. I bounced off this game when I originally played it in 2004 not because it didn’t explain how it works, but because it simply wasn’t enough to really get how the game works. And it wasn’t until Tribes: Ascend that I finally understood the general flow of the series and just how damn enjoyable it is, even if you’re not great at it – something I could never get out of Quake or Unreal Tournament, where being average or bad lead to frustrating experience. With Tribes – there’s joy in movement itself. As it clicks with you, as you understand how to gracefully transition from a flight to a slide (skiing as it’s called in the series), as you understand how to properly manage your jetpack energy, you will enjoy just being in Tribes maps.
Well, I mean, you would if you could still play them. The Tribes Universe website is still up and you can get all the games in the franchise for free there. But setting up a multiplayer match for the first two games, or Tribes: Vengeance (with the Revengeance version, which already contains the full game and fixes to it, singleplayer too) might be additional bother for a lot of people and Tribes: Ascend is, sadly, long dead.
In a way, this is where this singleplayer focused game could come in. And it kinda does. Story-wise, this is a prequel to the events of all other Tribes games and the tale is actually pretty good, if not entirely novel. You have several playable characters, telling a complex story of love and betrayal across two time periods from very different points of view and it still looks pretty good, while the soundtrack is banging (as is with the series in general). It does feel like the story is attempting to be a tutorial for the multiplayer – more so than what Titanfall 2 did, for example. But it often fits the narrative well and a lot of the levels are enjoyable to play, giving you that pure joy of Tribes.
Yet, a lot of the game also fails to combine the singleplayer FPS level design with what Tribes is about. Many levels are extremely closed and while they often contain smoothed angles for better skiing and lots of space to fly, the core game mechanics just don’t work as well in there. Though, even when dealing with huge open levels the game sometimes does something stupid, like making you rely on a specific vehicle for the map. Or the worst offender – being the one-person base defender against ridiculous odds and random chance. Defending the generator or a flag in a real Tribes match is fun, because you’re part of a team and there are a lot of dynamically changing tasks and conditions in that gameplay. In Vengeance, it’s just horrible and unfun. And that’s when the game doesn’t crash every couple of cutscenes, as it often does in several maps.
Completing Tribes: Vengeance for me felt important as I’ve never done it before, despite attempting to finish the game since 2004. And I still believe that a singleplayer Tribes game could work, even if the needs of the Tribes gameplay are far more nuanced than those of Titanfall. But at the same time, I almost feel that revisiting this game gave me a chance and a good reason to talk about just how amazing the basic gameplay of the franchise is and just how damn sad I still am about Tribes: Ascend not being around anymore. Because despite not being a multiplayer guy, I wouldn’t care if any potentially new Tribes game can be singleplayer or multiplayer as long as it exists and plays like Tribes. Should you check Tribes: Vengeance for singleplayer? Give it a shot, it’s free anyway. But it is a flawed game and the farther you’ll go, the more annoyances will crop up. But at least it’s an ability to experience Tribes which you should totally do.