The Tribes games have carved out their own niche as a notable PvP-style series that has been popular for more than a decade. With Hi-Rez Studios in charge of the IP they decided to give something back to the community by allowing gamers to download all the titles... for free.
Over on the Tribes Universe website they have a brief message at the top of the website at the moment, which reads...
Welcome! Join Hi-Rez Studios in celebrating over twenty years of the TRIBES Universe! Below you will find links to download the legacy games in the series. We love these games and hope to let you share the experience of the World's Fastest Shooter.
The Tribes games have always had a soft spot in the hearts of gamers who enjoy fast-paced first-person shooters with a heavy reliance on competitive multiplayer with strong cooperative elements. And by that, I mean that the Tribes games have always relied on multi-person vehicles and elements to encourage players to work together and come up with strategies to thwart opponents.
Before Starsiege: Tribes became a thing, though, there were the Earthsiege games, both of which were published under the Sierra Interactive license and were some of the first fully 3D mech-style games. What was cool about Earthsiege 2 is that it was also one of the first mech games that allowed players to fly around in aerial vehicles as well.
Over on the Tribes Universe website they allow users to expand the entirety of the catalog that is available to download on the site. This starts with the first Earthsiege, followed by the sequel, and then moves on to the game that changed everything in 1998, Starsiege Tribes. This was the first sandbox-style PvP game sporting vehicles and large maps... it was essentially Star Wars: Battlefront well before Star Wars: Battlefront.
The list continues on down the line with Tribes 2, followed by Tribes: Aerial Assault, which appeared on the PlayStation 2. There's a two year gap that leads to Tribes: Vengeance, which brought the series up to date with improved graphics, more weapons and for the first time in the series a robust single-player campaign. It's usually rare that a multiplayer-only game gets a single-player campaign add-on in its live-span, but Tribes is one of the few multiplayer-only games to tack on a single-player. I suppose Battlefield is another series that also mostly focused on multiplayer that later added in the Hollywood-style single-player campaign, but it's a rare feat in the world of most multiplayer-focused games.
The list ends with Hi-Rez Studios' most recent game in the series... Tribes: Ascend. This was a well-regarded shooter with a decent community, but a lack of commitment from Hi-Rez and thin content updates ended up sending the game into obscurity a while after its release. However, the free-to-play shooter is still available to experience and gamers keen on seeing how each game evolved over the years are welcome to give the series a try by downloading each game from over on the Tribes Universe website.
