2005 · Arcade · First-person shooter

Tremulous

Tremulous is a free, open source game that blends a team based FPS with elements of an RTS.

Released: 11 August 2005
Platforms: Linux Windows macOS
Genres: Arcade First-person shooter Shooter Strategy
Developers: —
Publishers: —
Modes: Multiplayer
Perspective: First person
Themes: Action Science fiction
Engine: ioquake3
Country: Scotland
Age ratings: ESRB M

About

Tremulous is a free and open source asymmetric team-based first-person shooter with real-time strategy elements. Being a cross-platform development project the game is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

The game features two opposing teams: humans and aliens. Each team must attack the enemy's base and team members while defending their own base.

›Story

Player advancement is different depending on which team you are on. As a human, players are rewarded with credits for each alien kill. These credits may be used to purchase new weapons and upgrades from the "Armoury". The alien team advances quite differently.

Upon killing a human foe, the alien is able to evolve into a new class. The more kills gained the more powerful the classes available.

Keywords

free-to-play
downloadable content

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Tremulous is an asymmetric team-based first-person shooter with elements of real time strategy. Each team may construct and defend a base, consisting of structures which aid the players in some way. Players spawn from a spawn structure.

During a match, players may attack the enemy, or maintain the base and construct new structures. Humans utilize various weapons, armor and other upgrades, while aliens may evolve into more powerful classes, each of which possesses unique abilities.

Development

Tremulous's development by the Dark Legion group commenced in early 2000 as a modification for the commercial computer game Quake III Arena. The gameplay is generally inspired by the Quake II modification Gloom, which also features alien vs human teams with distinct user classes. Although, Tremulous shares no content with Gloom or other similar themed games from around the same time.

Another game with features similar to Tremulous was Natural Selection, but developers say it is neither based on it nor inspired by it. According to the developers, development on the game began long before Natural Selection became publicly available.