The Cycle: Frontier

The Cycle: Frontier was a first-person shooter, with a play style that has been compared to Escape from Tarkov.^[7] Set in a future where interstellar travel is possible, the game focuses on a group of humans living on a space station called the Prospect Station. Players take on the role of prospectors; mercenaries tasked with the job of landing on a dangerous planet called Fortuna III. Players have to compete against each other, as well as the unforgiving environment, scavenging loot and completing quests before extracting. Any equipment not insured will be permanently lost in case of death. Three major factions, the Independent Civilian Advisory (ICA), Osiris, and Korolev offer contracts they want the player to complete. Players have the option of dropping solo, in a duo or in trios; and game instances last six hours before refreshing.

The Cycle: Frontier launched with two maps, and has features including crafting, customising load-out and character appearance, as well as a "battle pass" system.^{[citation needed]}

Summarize Fact Check

The game known as The Cycle is a third-person shooter of the "PvPvE" variety (a combination of player versus environment and player versus player) with a unique twist on the battle royale genre. The twist consists of:

• Meta-progression that lets players buy better starting gear before their next mission.
• Field shop, a shop that can be summoned in mission to buy better gear for currency earned in mission (known as "credits"). The shop sells: abilities (e.g. force fields, scanners, orbital strikes, cloaking, etc.), hovercraft, weapons, and small stat boosts for anything already purchased.
• A piece of gear called "Suit" (equipped before starting a match) that provides it's own abilities, however you need to earn combat XP to unlock its full potential during the mission.
• Fun side-objectives in mission (known as "contracts") to score more "victory points", and earn credits and meta currency. Contracts greatly diversify the gameplay by leading to PvP confrontations between differently geared players (remember the field shop) at different stages of the match at different locations on the map.
• Syndicate quests (known as "jobs") that create additional side-objectives in mission.
• The ability to form or disband temporary squads with enemy players during the mission (known as "pacts"). Forming a pact disables players' shield and shares resources, XP, and contract progress with both players.
  • Arc Raiders, developed and launched later by different developers, has the same social functionality.
• A free respawn once per match, acting as a second chance that might let some players win the game or exact revenge on a pact breaker. If you die a second time - you get foamed.

Players are dropped on the outskirts of the map and move to the center towards the evac ship, pushed by the incoming storm. Survive encounters with enemy players and monsters or complete contracts, to climb the leaderboard with "victory points". In 20 minutes the storm completely takes over the map, shooting high-damage lightning at random, making monsters stronger, and generating red crystals on the ground. The crystals are worth sticking around for despite the storm, as they can be your final push to the #1 place in the leaderboard; though it's a high-risk play, as the ship leaves soon and missing it guarantees player death.

Several game modes are available:

• Solo. 20 solo players on the map, pacts are enabled.
• Duo. 10 squads of 2 players on the map, pacts are disabled.
• Squad. 5 squads of 4 players on the map, pacts are disabled.
• Warden's Relics.
• Deathmatch. 10 solo players on the map, infinite respawns, starting with 700 credits, smaller map, and the only contract is "Eliminate Rivals".

The lore and setting of the game are similar to the full release described in #Gameplay.

The initial development plans started shortly after Yager had finished working on Dreadnought. The Cycle: Frontier ended up being revealed at Gamescom 2018, eight months after. The goal was to combine the narrative with social dynamics.^[8] It was released into early access on the Epic Games Store in August 2019.^[9]

The Steam release initially set for December 2020 was delayed to some time in early 2021 due to changes in development plans and being hindered by the COVID-19 pandemic.^[10]

In June 2023, Yager released a statement that the servers for The Cycle: Frontier are scheduled to be sunset on September 27, 2023. Yager stated that continued support for the game was "unfortunately not financially viable", and that the game would not be playable offline or in private servers due to its "dedicated backend system, which doesn't allow keeping the game somewhat available after being shut down".^[11]

Revival Projects

There are 2 active revival projects as of 2026, none of them are affiliated with Yager. Both projects have functioning game servers (to a varying degree), their games and community channels can be accessed completely for free via Discord: Re:Cycle works on The Cycle: Frontier (exctraction shooter), TC: Storm Runners works on The Cycle (battle royale).

Summarize Fact Check

The Cycle: Frontier received "mixed or average" reviews, according to review aggregator platform Metacritic.^[12] This can also be reflected in the Steam Store Reviews.^[16]

PC Gamer lamented its formulaic design, writing, "Without any kind of narrative hook or any kind of subversiveness at all, and little moment to moment reward, a list of unlocks can't possibly compel me to invest that kind of time."^[13]

It gained popularity when played by Summit1g on Twitch.^[17]

The game peaked at 40,854 active players in June 2022 which slowly averaged downwards over the course of its lifespan.^[18]