Fallen Empire: Legions First Look
For quite some time now, there have been rumors circulating of a Tribes follow-up from GarageGames. The last title of the series, Tribes: Vengeance, was released in 2004 and like the original Starsiege: Tribes and Tribes 2, the game earned a dedicated following but failed to become a blockbuster hit. But it looks like the wait is over for loyal Tribes fans yearning for more science fiction-themed multiplayer shooter action.
GarageGames announced last month that Fallen Empires: Legions, a spiritual successor to Tribes, was scheduled to launch this year. GarageGames was founded by former members of the original Tribes developer Dynamix, which was shut down in 2001 by parent company Vivendi Universal. Luckily, GarageGames still owns the Torque game engine, which Dynamix used to power Tribes 2. For several years now, GarageGames has been focused on licensing the Torque engine as well as additional development tools for other, primarily independent game developers. The company has also focused on smaller titles such as the highly popular Marble Blast series.
GarageGames plans to release Fallen Empire: Legions sometime this year on its InstantAction.com Web browser platform for PC games.
But now GarageGames is getting back to its roots with Legions, which the company previewed at GDC 2008 last week. "We started development on Legions in October," said Tim Aste, executive producer and project director of Legions. "We hope to have an open beta ready for March or April." Aste said the game was currently in a late alpha and is built on a modified Torque engine. But Legions will have a couple differences from previous Tribes titles.
Fallen Empire: Legions is based on the frantic multiplayer, first-person shooter action that made Tribes a success.
First, the game won't be a direct sequel to the Tribes series, according to Aster. Thus, there probably won't be many connection to the Tribes single player storyline. Second, Legions will be launched on GarageGame's new online gaming platform InstantAction.com, which will offer PC games playable through users' Web browsers. InstantAction.com was announced last September and is scheduled to have an open beta in the coming weeks. The user interface for InstantAction looks somewhat similar to Valve's Steam and will feature both original and third-party titles like GarageGame's Marble Blast Online and Wideload Games' Cyclomite (the pricing model for InstantAction has yet to be revealed).
Legions will feature similar outdoor terrain and capture-the-flag outposts to previous Tribes games.
GarageGames had a playable demo of Legions' beta at GDC, and the game is positively Tribes-esque. Aster said the development team was intent on capturing the core shooter gameplay from the Tribes series, and from the looks of the demo, GarageGames has succeeded. Being based on the InstantAction platform, Legions will be focused on fast and furious multiplayer action. To that end, Legions has the same kind of jetpack propulsion for short-range flight, extreme jumping and fast ground transportation as previous Tribes titles. Some of the weapons, including a chain gun, laser, and grenade launcher, will also be familiar to Tribes fans.
A look inside one of Legions' maps.
The demo map looks exactly what one would expect from a Tribes successor; an outdoor environment with lots of hills and small valleys for players to navigate, along with capture-the-flag outposts and other structures. The demo map seemed quite expansive, but Aste actually said the development team specifically built smaller maps than previous titles in order to ramp up the action. Legions' graphics were also quite impressive for a game being played on a Web browser.
GarageGames said more details about Fallen Empire: Legions, such as the numbers players supported, will be coming in the near future, as will the open beta. Stay tuned for more on Fallen Empire and InstantAction.com.
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