The Cycle: Frontier is a shooter from the Berlin studio YAGER, which has now officially entered beta on Steam and the Epic Games Store. While player numbers on Steam are currently quite low, the game is ranked 2nd in the trends on Twitch.
What kind of game is The Cycle? The new free-to-play shooter is reminiscent of a mix between a survival game and Hunt: Showdown:
- You spawn on a vast map after entering the game. You can stay there as long as you want, although the server restarts every 6 hours.
- The focus is on collecting equipment as well as resources like ores.
- Like in Hunt: Showdown, you lose your equipment if you die. You only keep the loot if you successfully make it to the rescue ship during your game session.
To keep you entertained, there’s a social hub with various factions that give you missions. Through these, you can unlock new weapons and upgrades.
This new trailer gives you an insight into the game:
What is the current status of the game? Since September 30, 2021, The Cycle: Frontier has been in beta. You can request access on Steam or the Epic Store. More detailed information about the beta and the contents of the shooter can be found here:
New shooter The Cycle now focuses more on PvE and loot – Now available on Steam
The gameplay of the shooter seems to be well received. Because although the player numbers are still small, the first larger streamers have become aware of the game.
The Cycle is ranked 2nd in Twitch trends
Where does the game currently stand on Steam? In the last 3 days, The Cycle has achieved some initial successes on Twitch. With nearly 1.1 million streamed hours, the game ranks only 23rd in all categories on Twitch, but hardly any other game has reported such strong growth.
In the previous 3 days, it was only viewed for about 200,000 hours.
In the last 3 days, The Cycle ranks 2nd among trending games, right behind Fortnite. The trends are based on how many viewers the game has gained compared to the previous 3 days.
The number of channels streaming The Cycle has also increased significantly. On October 15, there were only about 25 channels online at the same time, but by October 19, there were over 250, or ten times as many.
Where do the viewers come from? The biggest boost for The Cycle came from streamer Jaryd “summit1g” Lazar, who is among the top 30 streamers on Twitch.
He is known for trying different games and has spent over 33 hours live with the new shooter.
One of the highlights was a kill from a player who had called him a “fool” over the in-game voice chat.
His longest session, lasting over 11 hours on October 17, ended with him being killed by simple wolves while he was collecting ores.
In addition to summit1g, well-known streamers xQc (8th place among the most watched channels on Twitch) and LVNDMARK (88th place) also played the game.
It’s quite possible that other streamers will follow this example.
Only about 700 players on Steam
How do player numbers compare? While summit1g had up to 21,000 concurrent viewers in his livestream of The Cycle, the game currently only has an average of 711 players on Steam (via SteamCharts). We do not know the player numbers from the Epic Store, but based on our previous experience, they tend to be slightly lower.
The low player numbers are likely due to the fact that The Cycle is still in beta and one has to actively request a key. Additionally, the new shooter from German developer YAGER is still relatively unknown.
If you want to try the game yourself, you can still apply for the beta on Steam or Epic Games.
