Legacy

On November 20, 2002, Sierra released an update for Tribes 2. This update contained two new game types, new maps and updates to address several issues. Sierra, which is now part of Vivendi SU, licensed the franchise to Irrational Games

Irrational Games

Irrational Games is a video game developer founded in 1997 by three former employees of Looking Glass Studios: Ken Levine, Jonathan Chey, and Robert Fermier as Irrational Games...

 for a third installment; Tribes: Vengeance

Tribes: Vengeance

Tribes: Vengeance is a science fiction first-person shooter computer game of the Tribes video game series. It was developed by Irrational Games and released by Sierra Entertainment in October 2004...

was released in October 2004. In an effort to increase interest in the upcoming sequel, Sierra released both the original Starsiege: Tribes and Tribes 2 for free download on May 4, 2004. In November 2008, Vivendi shut down the official master servers, dropping all official support for the Tribes franchise, and severely limiting players' abilities to play the game online.

The player community, however, developed a fan patch called TribesNext to allow continued multiplayer functionality. It removes the requirement of using CD Key

CD key

A product key, also known as a Software key, is a specific software-based key for a computer program. It certifies that the copy of the program is original. Activation is sometimes done offline by entering the key, or with software like Windows XP online activation is required to prevent multiple...

s and replaces the official authentication servers with fan-operated servers. The full game and TribesNext patch can be downloaded from the TribesNext server.