The Cycle: Frontier shows great potential in the final closed beta. Is the big shooter hit of 2022 waiting here? We took a look at the game for you.
De nieuwe grote shooter trend zullen de survival shooters zijn. Of raid shooter? Hardcore Shooter? Geen genre naam heeft zich nog gevestigd dus honderd procent hier.
Hoe dan ook, ik bedoel dit soort shooter, waarin je het op een map opneemt tegen andere spelers en AI-tegenstanders, buit verzamelt en hopelijk succesvol ontsnapt met je buit voor je de dood zegen. Shooters as Escape from Tarkov, Hunt: Showdown of de Dark Zone uit The Division.
With The Cycle: Frontier, an upcoming genre representative started its final closed beta last week. Big Twitch streamers like Lirik were impressed and shooter expert Shroud also played the title for over 25 hours last weekend alone. And we were also pleasantly surprised when playing: Because The Cycle has what it takes to become the next hit among the multiplayer shooters.
This is what The Cycle: Frontier is all about
At first glance, The Cycle looks much more like a distant cousin of No Man’s Sky than a competitor to Tarkov and co. The alien game world Fortuna III is extremely colourful, full of resources and populated by all kinds of alien creatures.
But before you go to the planet’s surface, you must first prepare for your mission in the local space station. In addition to traders who sell you weapons, armour and other equipment important for your survival, you will find three different factions, each with their own series of quests. These not only provide you with valuable rewards, but also serve as an orientation guide and tutorial. Shoot aliens, mine ores, collect loot – you’ll be taught step by step.
Once you have packed your weapons, ammunition, healing items, etc., you can set off on your journey – solo or with up to two other players: Two different areas are available in the current beta. In Bright Sands, 15 players can be on the move at the same time, in Crescent Falls up to 26. The larger map is aimed at advanced players, as there is not only more competition here, but also stronger NPC enemies lurking.
By the way, the servers in The Cycle work a little differently than in other shooters: These semi-persistent worlds remain online for six hours after the first player has landed here. After that, the world fills up with more players and every time one dies or successfully leaves the world, the next one moves in. This means that there are virtually no waiting times for matchmaking, but it is possible that you will end up in a game world that is already half empty.
A risky game
Once you land on Fortuna III, you must immediately be on your guard. Theoretically, other players can already be lurking everywhere, who are guaranteed to have noticed your arrival in the not exactly quiet landing capsule.
But that’s what makes the individual games so exciting: you never know how many players are currently on the move in the same game world and where they might be. The only clues are boxes that have already been plumbed and shots that can be heard over long distances – similar to Hunt: Showdown.
But as long as you feel safe, you can freely explore the vast maps and hunt for loot. Rock deposits and alien groups await you at every turn, providing you with valuable materials. The biggest rewards, however, can be found in the abandoned camps, power plants and research facilities, where many and sometimes powerful NPC enemies are lurking.
It becomes particularly exciting when you discover other players and are faced with the difficult decision: Do you attack them and steal all their loot if you win? Or do you play it safe and wait until the enemy has moved on?
The wrong decision here can cost you dearly, because if you die on Fortuna III, you lose everything you didn’t insure for a fee before the mission. Although there are three secured inventory spaces, hardly anything fits in here due to a weight restriction. So a large part of the loot you find is definitely gone.
Once you have filled your bags and completed any quests, you must go to an extraction point and request a shuttle. As soon as the shuttle has landed, you will have to wait around 30 seconds for it to take off – enough time for other players to finish you off in the last few metres and escape with your loot in the ship you have called.
Is this fun?
You can already tell: Similar to Escape from Tarkov or Hunt: Showdown, The Cycle is not a game for the faint-hearted. A single battle is enough and the progress you’ve made in the last 30 minutes is completely lost. You only get experience points if you leave the map alive.
In addition, there is the so-called Gear Fear: If you only start with cheap standard equipment from the Quick Shop, you will at most lose time and a few credits when you die. With a high-class outfit and many gadgets like grenades and medkits, your chances in the world increase, but so does the risk of having to accept expensive losses in the end. Just like in Escape from Tarkov, this constant weighing of chances and risks ensures an enormously high degree of tension.
In terms of gameplay, The Cycle already makes an excellent impression in the beta: gunplay and hit feedback work very well, our shots always land where we expect them to. However, the other players take a bit too much for our taste. Even with the cheapest helmet in the game, our enemies have so far always survived headshots from our sniper rifle. The same applies to the aliens: they are not much of a challenge, but larger ones eat up magazines of bullets before they finally die. The developers could have been more creative.
In conclusion, however, we can say that The Cycle definitely surprised us in a positive way: At its core, the game is clearly inspired by Escape from Tarkov, but dispenses with unnecessarily complicated mechanics and is generally more beginner-friendly. The gameplay loop of exploration, loot hunting and sometimes nerve-wracking battles is just as motivating here as in the big model. Even when we bite the dust, we immediately have the desire to jump into the next raid with fresh gear.
If you want to try out The Cycle for yourself: The closed beta will run until 4 April 2022. You can get access by simply requesting it on the (Steam shop page) and waiting. For guaranteed access, you can also watch one of the (participating streamers) on Twitch for two hours and get a beta key as a Twitch Drop.
Editor’s Verdict
You don’t even want to know how many times I’ve tried my hand at Escape from Tarkov. This incredibly complex and merciless game principle really fascinates me and with every wipe I try to finally get started here. But every time, the unwieldy entry and the omnipresent Gear Fear are the undoing of my ambitions.
The Cycle: Frontier could therefore be just the right title for players like me: In principle, it is a Tarkov clone in a sci-fi setting, but where everything is a little less hardcore. The game world seems much friendlier, the loss of equipment doesn’t weigh quite as heavily and I haven’t yet experienced sudden deaths from sniper fire.
Of course, it will remain my goal to gain a foothold in the world of Tarkov at some point. But I’m just not there yet, even after dozens of hours in Hunt: Showdown. The Cycle is therefore now my great hope as an in-betweener: if I do well here on release, I’ll hopefully be ready for the full hardcore shooter experience called Escape from Tarkov afterwards.
