Tribes Universe is a persistent online shooter from Hi-Rez Studios, set inside the game universe popularized by such classic titles as Earthsiege, Starsiege, Starsiege:Tribes, Tribes 2 and Tribes Vengeance.

The game is currently in development, with Alpha Testing expected to begin in early 2011. As part of the project, Hi-Rez Studios, makers of the award-winning Shooter-MMO Global Agenda, recently acquired full rights to the Tribes/Starsiege Franchise.

Dedicated gamers that are interested to help test and improve Tribes Universe may now apply for a chance to join the game’s upcoming Alpha Testing program, Hi-Rez Studios announced.

"We are very proud and humbled to be carrying the banner of the Tribes Franchise," said Stewart Chisam,Executive Producer of Tribes Universe. "Because the game will be focused around huge battles on huge landscapes, we need a solid group of very dedicated testers that can help us from the games' earliest stages to validate the scalability and performance of the game, while also helping tune and refine gameplay. We look forward to starting Alpha testing early next year and will certainly be providing much more information over the coming months."

Hi-Rez Studios now have two groups in the studio, one working on continuing to build Global Agenda and a new group working on the Tribes Universe project. We are also moving to a new larger office space in another month that will help us accommodate our growth.

I’m sure many of you have questions, so here are a few quick highlights for Tribes Universe:

• Three Tribes (factions)
• Full clan (agency) support
• First person view (third person for some vehicles)
• Full vehicle support (ground and air)
• Full persistent world with territory control (no instances)
• PvP focused
• Huge outdoor maps (about 10x the area of sonoran desert)
• Large scale fights (100+ players)
• Jetpacks, skiing, lots of weapons, etc