Haven't you always wondered about what kind of rich, storied cultures surrounded the vertically-centric gunfights of the Tribes series? Like, what's the historical significance of all those jet packs, you know? These pressing questions may soon find an answer -- developer Hi-Rez Studios has acquired the rights to the Tribes franchise, and is using those newfound rights to make a PvP-focused action-MMO titled Tribes Universe.

A post on the forums for Hi-Rez' other flagship title, Global Agenda, revealed a few scarce details for the new project, the most intriguing of which being, "a significant rewrite to the Unreal Engine servers to allow for 100+ players to be fighting in the same map." An alpha testing phase for the game is currently set for early 2011, and players who have reached the Global Agenda level cap will be given priority for invitations. Here we'd hoped we'd have priority for invitations, because we own an actual jet pack. It's true! We made it ourselves.