The reason for Vengeance and the main difference to the previous Tribes titles is the existence of a comprehensive single player campaign. As a result the developer has been extra careful in order to give the game an in-depth single player mode which will not serve as a mere training ground for the multiplayer experience.
Single Player
Irrational has placed the emphasis on character development and telling a story through different characters. This is particularly suitable for the Tribes universe since all these different types of characters exist; heavy armors, light armors and the different tribes, they all function very differently. T:V then, centres on a story about the Imperial family and their relationship not just with each other, but with the empire and the tribes that surround them.
This set-up and the choice to tell the story through different characters creates some interesting single player mission dynamics. Each character has a specific purpose and different motivation and goals. By playing as different characters the player has the chance to glimpse the same story through different viewpoints and with different objectives, adding an exciting twist to gameplay. So you may have missions where you see the same story from two different perspectives. According to Vivendi producer, Chris Mahnken ...Irrational took that a step further and said, 'We're going to have two different timelines, one happening twenty years before the other one,' so you'll not only be jumping from character to character, but from time to time. You might play a character when they're grown up, and also when they're younger but with totally different attributes and skills in a totally different part of the story.
The single player experience will be delivered through objective-based missions which will take place in a variety of outdoor and indoor environments. Although the single player mode promises to add a brand new gameplay element to the Tribes world, once the player has tried it out he will be ready to take on the multiplayer aspect of the game which will feature all of the characters present in the SP story.
Multiplayer
The multiplayer aspect of any Tribes game is never taken lightly. The need to have a well thought out multiplayer mode and the desire to utilize community input, have been present during T:V development too. In order to ensure that the right chemistry was achieved, Michael Johnston Kinetic Poet was given the task of heading the design and creation of the multiplayer mode. Michael Johnston previously made Team Rabbit 2, a successful mod for Tribes 2. Giving someone from the community such a significant job was a sign by Vivendi and Irrational that they were taking the multiplayer component very seriously.
The developers have kept the multiplayer details a well-guarded secret but Megagames have managed to find out some things out. T:V's maps and game types support from 2 to 32 players and will feature some existing game types, such as CTF, and a couple of brand new game types. In total Irrational plan to ship T:V with around 5 polished game types that will all be quite different from each other. One of the developer objectives has been to allow the community to easily create and mix game objects to experiment with new ways of playing the game.
Each map in T:V will be able to support multiple game types. This will also help the community since once a map is created it will be pretty easy to add different game types to it.
The speculation on the new multiplayer modes has however, produced some of the most interesting and exciting information. Suggestions that many sport-like modes may be introduced may have been initially laughed off but recent developer comments seem to confirm their existence. Tony Oakden, Tribes producer, is reported to have stated : We think of it like Tony Hawk with spinfusors. The rumours claim that race-like modes will definitely feature in T:V as well as full sporting events in arena settings.
Back With a Vengeance