Hi-Rez president: "None of us felt good" about leaving Tribes: Ascend

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Tribes: Ascend is finally being supported again. With absolutely no warning, the aptly named Out of the Blue patch was announced earlier this month. Currently playable on a new public test server, the update is going to revamp the class system, add maps, and make balance tweaks.

"None of us felt good about the state it was left in," Chisam told me, saying Smite had been consuming most of the studio's attention. Now that Smite has seen a considerable amount of success, they "finally got the chance" to restart work on Tribes, according to Chisam.

Even with the Out of the Blue update, and with more updates on the way, Chisam isn't especially optimistic about Tribes' popularity. "I don't think we'll ever make money off of it," he said, describing it as a "passion project" in comparison to Hi-Rez's other games.

I asked if they planned to continue updating and balancing Tribes: Ascend and Chisam told me "that's certainly the plan," as the game now has a small but dedicated team within Hi-Rez. "[We have] four or five people working on Tribes full time, and I'd love to keep that team around for a while ... It's starting to feel more like the old Tribes games."

Here are the patch notes for the second public test server, and the download instructions.

Tom is PC Gamer’s Associate Editor. He enjoys platformers, puzzles and puzzle-platformers. He also enjoys talking about PC games, which he now no longer does alone. Tune in every Wednesday at 1pm Pacific on Twitch.tv/pcgamer to see Tom host The PC Gamer Show.