If you want to know what I think of "Tribes," I once reviewed the final game in the series (the 2012 free-to-play "Tribes: Ascend") for Eurogamer. That game was good, but sadly did not gain enough player support to survive: "Ascend" was put to bed in 2016, and since then there has been a large "Tribes"-type void in my collection.

In other words, there's nothing like Tribes: it's an FPS, sure, but its particular flavor of capture-the-flag (relying on momentum and speed), unique weapons, and bewildering pacing as you ski-slash around the map, even parallels Tribes 3: Rivals (don't ask, this isn't the third "Tribes" game) aims to bring it all back, and developer Prophecy Games has just announced that following the excellent NextFest demo, an early access version will be released on March 12.

Prophecy Games has just announced that it will release an early access version of the game on March 12, following the excellent NextFest demo.

Prophecy calls Tribes 3: Rivals a "rebirth" of the series, and one of the big decisions is that it will not be free-to-play, but will be offered at the relatively modest price of $19.99 (with a 10% discount for pre-orders and various premium options as well). As in past titles, CTF mode will be the main focus, with a 7vs7 competitive playlist and 16vs16 casual chaos, set on a huge, gorgeous map built for rat runs and silly sweep loops. in Rivals, players can choose between light, medium, and heavy class-based elements are maintained with a choice of loadouts and detailed customization options.

As part of the announcement, Prophecy posted a Q&A about the game. Selected highlights include "limited microtransactions for cosmetic content only" and "earnable cosmetics" and will initially launch only on Steam. According to the developer, the game may appear on Epic and consoles in the future, with the possibility of cross-play, but no promises have been made.Rivals will include a tutorial to get you started right away.

Below is a list of weapons that will be available in the game at the start of early access:

All of these weapons will be available to all players from the beginning. The game comes with seven maps, support for custom matches, and accessibility options for the colorblind and hearing impaired.

The minimum specs are also quite generous: you can run it with a GeForce 1060 or Radeon 6500XT and 8GB of RAM, but the recommended specs are not much higher: a GeForce RTX 2080 or Radeon RX6700 and 12GB of RAM. The recommended specs are not so high, being a GeForce RTX 2080 or Radeon RX6700 and 12GB RAM. It is also nice to see that the game is only 10 GB, as many hard drive gazillions of people do these days.

I didn't jump on the NextFest demo, so I'll defer to Josh's opinion, but "it feels like the groundwork is in place for a Tribes experience that will last," and since Prophecy's developers have acknowledged the mistakes that led Ascend to an early grave, maybe this could be Tribes' resurgent work.

Wait, wait, wait, miss, that game was a 10!