Tribes 2

Tribes 2 is a sci-fi team-based shooter that made famous the technique known as skiing – a combination of sliding across terrain and a jetpack that let players reach high speeds and smoothly clear hills, turning movement across the vast maps into a standalone skill that was difficult to master but immensely satisfying once mastered. Matches took place on large outdoor maps where teams built bases, constructed defensive turrets and generators, and fought over flags using infantry as well as ground and air vehicles, a scale that was fairly unique on the multiplayer scene in 2001, combining action with elements of basic strategy and logistics.

The game offered an elaborate class system with different equipment and roles, from the heavy defender to the fast light scout specialized in carrying the flag, which encouraged teamwork and tactical roles within larger forty-player matches. After release, however, the game was initially plagued by technical problems, bugs, and server instability, which discouraged some players and hurt first impressions despite the ambitious design and scope of content. Gradual patches significantly improved the situation, and the game built a loyal community that ran it on their own servers for many years after release and kept an active modding scene alive.

Tribes 2 is today counted among the pioneers of so-called movement shooters, a genre built on fast, acrobatic movement across the map, and its influence is evident in many later shooters devoted to speed, verticality, and free movement through space. Despite its rough start, it remains in the memory of those who experienced it as an ambitious and technically bold title of its time that was ahead of its era in both scope and the speed of its gameplay. The combination of large-scale battles, vehicles, and acrobatic movement still makes it a reference point that creators of new online shooters point back to today.

Why play it: Thanks to its fast, acrobatic movement and large-scale battles with vehicles, Tribes 2 remains, to this day, a reference point for fans of movement shooters and online shooters.