Hi-Rez Studios’ Tribes: Ascend, arguably its first breakout free to play game which would fuel its further involvement in the genre, has begun to receive support again. The developer revealed a new patch for the game, which would be its first in +2 years, and some scant notes were released on the same.
You can check out the notes on Google Docs as per creative director Sean McBride but keep in mind that these are only a small part of the overall patch details to come. As for the confirmed changes, they’re nothing less than sweeping – a new map will be added and the game’s nine classes will be narrowed down to three – Light, Medium and Heavy, each with nine loadouts that are free to all. Base class loadouts, including default items, will be free and a number of tweaks are coming for weapons.
Expect the patch to release on public test servers on September 14th, though Hi-Rez states that, “We know this will leave some weapons statistically non-viable, or lead to some ‘broken’ builds. These issues will be addressed in a future PTS balance patch. A main focus of this test is to identify the key balance issues created by this transition.”
Thoughts on all the changes? Let us know in the comments.