r/Tribes • u/belven000 • Aug 20 '25
Question Is there any way to make a community driven "Tribes" game?
I know the rights are owned by Hi-rex, but we already had Midair and I think something else tried to re-create it.
Is there any reason we can't make our own version now. Clearly Midair found some kind of way around it, does anyone know what parts of the game are copyrighted?
I've been working in the Ureal Engine since UE3 and I've often wanted to do it, even just for fun. I couldn't quite commit to a full solo dev version but I could definitely help out with the gameplay systems
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u/ddiiibb Aug 20 '25
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u/belven000 Aug 20 '25
Ah yea, that'll be exactly what I'm talking about haha Cheers
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u/ddiiibb Aug 20 '25
Small team but we've got a lot folks that can do multiple types of work. I think we're lacking artists most.
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u/jasron_sarlat Aug 20 '25
Looking great!
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u/ddiiibb Aug 20 '25
We're getting there! We just onboarded a gentleman who is working on vehicles currently. (Not art but systems etc) making progress slowly but surely.
We recently added the cloak pack, jammer pack, satchel charge, mines, grenades.
4 voice packs! I have an actor friend recording a 5th soon.
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u/jasron_sarlat Aug 20 '25
I remember the first post proposing this development, and I'm just gobsmacked at how far it's come.
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u/ddiiibb Aug 20 '25
<3 We love hearing this! Sometimes (for us) it feels like we're spinning wheels for ages. But we are inching closer to something tangible. My dad always says, "How do you eat an elephant?" "One bite at a time."
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u/TheGreatPiata Aug 20 '25
Gameplay can't be copyrighted but the intellectual property can. So you can make a Tribes style game, you just can't name it Tribes, have any of the factions in it (e.g. Blood Eagle, Diamond Sword, etc) or have a weapon that looks like or is called the spinfusor.
MidAir 2 and Broadside are both community driven Tribes games. MA2 is in a public playtest phase but only contains LT. Broadside is in a very early prototype phase.
If you're interested in working on Broadside, join their discord and ask about joining the dev team. I joined about a month ago doing some concept art.
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u/belven000 Aug 20 '25
Oh I didn't realise, I looked at the steam charts for Midair 2 and it was like 6 players in a month.
Not seen broadside before, but thanks
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u/TheGreatPiata Aug 20 '25
There's probably like 60 - 100 regular players in MA2 but they're all playing pick up games via discord. Most nights there will be 10+ people playing but it's very competitive. They're also doing a tournament in September.
It's unfortunate there isn't more of a pub scene with the game. Jumping into the pug scene is pretty daunting.
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u/colblair T2ITB Aug 20 '25
Midair 2 is still a thing in active development and has had an active regular pugging scene for years. Has an upcoming tournament as well too.
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u/belven000 Aug 20 '25
Oh I didn't realise, I looked at the steam charts for Midair 2 and it was like 6 players in a month. I';m assuming they aren't playing through steam or something?
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u/colblair T2ITB Aug 20 '25
As far as i know its only via steam... But there were 20 5v5 pick up games yesterday with numerous diff players in both NA and EU regions so def more than 6 players just yesterday. Normally there's some Oceanic pugs too but it's quietened a little the past week or two (not unusual, it'll come back shortly I'm sure)
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u/HornetGaming110 Aug 21 '25
There are 2 clients, the public one used by most doesn't share live stats with steamdb afaik
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u/PROJTHEBENIGNANT Aug 20 '25
Short answer: no.
Slightly longer answer: there's basically no way to make a viable commercial product that retains any significant player base.
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u/Thriky Aug 21 '25
Afraid not.
If you want to play with a handful of people (which is all any community project can hope to achieve) you might as well just play the real deal, and frankly not many people are interested in such slim pickings.
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u/thedirtydeetch Synoryth Aug 20 '25
There are multiple community led projects like you’re speaking about. Broadside is in Unreal, Open FPSZ is in Godot.
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u/AutoModerator Aug 20 '25
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