Free-to-play Tribes: Ascend has release date and Dead Island parody launch trailer. Will the fans embrace it?

Written by Alex Roth on March 09, 2012

Tribes: Ascend News: Tribes: Ascend is about to go from open beta to F2P. Big change, we know, but will old school shooter fans or modern gamers embrace a Tribes update?

Tribes: Ascend, the first Tribes game in nearly eight years, now has a release date. While many are enjoying its open beta, the F2P PC game be officially released on April 12. Until then, you can play the beta right now, for free, then check out the launch trailer - a clever parody of Dead Island's heart-wrenching viral ad campaign - embedded below.

The original Tribes. Believe it or not, people are still playing it.

The original Tribes came out in 1998. It was squad-based game played purely online or over a LAN. It was multiplayer-only when not having a single-player campaign was unheard of. Remember, these were the days of dial-up, the original Team Fortress was only a couple years old and Counter-Strike was still a year off.

While many games have learned from Tribes' team-based formula, there has yet to be one that truly plays like the original. Even its own sequels have failed to recapture the magic, or at least the acceptance of the fans. The Tribes community is slightly infamous for refusing to embrace the game's numerous sequels.

Tribes: Ascend isn't the first attempt at modernizing the series.

However the final game turns out, developer/publisher Hi-Rez Studios could score some fans with this clever launch trailer. This parody of Dead Island's commercial is inspired and the perfectly Tribes-ish tale of flag carrier who didn't carry fast enough.

Tribes: Ascend launch trailer- Run, flag carrier! Run!

Will Tribes: Ascend become the heir to the Tribes throne? As a free-to-play title, it's bound to find some audience, even if the old school fans don't come out of the woodwork for it. Tribes: Ascend will come to Windows PCs on April 12. Are you an old school Tribes fan? Leave us a comment and tell us what you think, talk to us on Twitter or like us on Facebook.

source: Tribes: Ascend - Hi-Rez Studios