Hi-Rez Studios has announced that the Tribes: Ascend beta will finally be open to the public starting this Friday, February 24.
“The Tribes: Ascend Closed Beta has exceeded our expectations,” commented Hi-Rez COO Todd Harris. “Over 300,000 players participated in the closed beta and the game has improved greatly based on community feedback.
“We are now excited to launch open beta this Friday. We have expanded capacity in North America, Europe, and Australia and added new local servers to support growing communities in Brazil and Asia.”
In advance of the open beta, the game has been patched with a fairly sizeable update. You can catch the full patch notes over on the official site, but here are the key changes:
- A new gametype, Arena, has been added with two initial maps, Air Arena and Lava Arena. The Arena gametype features five-on-five matches fought on small hazardous maps. The team that wins two rounds wins the match. During the course of a round, each team has 25 respawns. After a team's respawns are depleted, players on that team each get one more life before the round ends. The team with the last man standing wins the round.
- A new Capture the Flag map has been added to the quick match rotation (Temple Ruins).
- A new Team Deathmatch map has been added to the quick match rotation (Inferno).
- Two new unlockable items have been added on the Soldier class: Proximity Grenade and Utility Pack.
- Servers are now available in Asia and Brazil. You may choose your server region in the Play Now menu, or in the Settings menu.
- You may now change your Gamer Name for gold, using the Store menu.
- The end-of-match screens have been given a significant user interface overhaul.
- The Doombringer and Brute have new suits. There have also been some adjustments to the suits for some other classes, based on user feedback.
- Updated art for the Accolades and Ranks.
- Variety of other fixes, clean-ups and feature additions.
While my own time with Ascend has been something of a mixed bag so far — the awkward free-to-play model and uneven production values often detract from an otherwise stellar gameplay experience — the game has been steadily improving with each patch, and it's definitely worth a shot if you're a fan of the classic Tribes games.
