On June 08, The Cycle: Frontier finally launched on Steam. The shooter from Germany sees itself as a competitor to Escape from Tarkov, which aims to attract more casual players. The beta was very well received, but after the release only 52% of the reviews on Steam are positive. What happened?
The shooter year 2022 is off to a slow start. The major releases from the end of last year – such as Halo Infinite, Battlefield 2042, and CoD Vanguard – have disappointed across the board. Additionally, service games like CoD Warzone are in an identity crisis.
Because of this, The Cycle: Frontier was for many perhaps the biggest shooter hope of the year, next to Modern Warfare 2. After two beta tests that were very successful and where the game received a lot of praise, many thought this would be the big hope for shooters in 2022.
However, the release is going differently than many had hoped. Currently, after almost 3,500 reviews on Steam, only 52% of them are positive (as of June 10, 9:51 AM). What is the reason?
Watch the gameplay of The Cycle: Frontier in the trailer:
The Cycle: Frontier is a “Free Tarkov, but in Space”
What kind of game is this? The Cycle: Frontier has a turbulent development history. The German developer YAGER had little success with an initial version of the game that was a battle royale.
The game was switched to a PvPvE gameplay, which is most similar to Escape from Tarkov. In this form, the game received the addition “Frontier” in the title and is meant to be a F2P alternative to Tarkov. Additionally, The Cycle: Frontier targets less hardcore players than the military simulation Tarkov.
The philosophy with which The Cycle: Frontier was developed was revealed to us by the developers a few months ago in an interview:
How do players find the shooter? In the two closed beta tests that were available for a few months, the game received generally positive feedback. This was rewarded with strong player numbers and great success on Twitch.
Accordingly, many were eagerly awaiting the full release, which was only announced when the developers felt the game was ready. On June 08, it finally launched. However, the positive atmosphere could not be smoothly maintained.
Only 52% on Steam: What the players say
Player numbers are strong enough to frequently be at the top of the Steam trends, and the all-time peak of around 27,000 players simultaneously is not bad. It is also going well on Twitch. But only about half of all reviews on Steam are positive.
What do players praise? Those who read these reviews recognize a clear trend. There are indeed several things that are well received across the board. They include:
- Solid gunplay.
- Good sound design.
- Relatively long time-to-kill (TTK) ensures exciting, strategic gunfights.
- Exciting balance of risk and reward.
- Minimal wait times when joining matches (which is a major drawback in Tarkov).
Players refer to The Cycle: Frontier as “Free Tarkov, but in space” and mean that as a great compliment. However, there are also many issues that disturb the community. These include both bugs and fundamental design problems.
What do players criticize? Criticism has been directed at several glitches, bugs, and crashes that are present in the game and in some cases “steal” players’ hard-earned loot. Many negative reviews read as if frustrated players are venting due to lost gear.
However, more fundamental problems are often criticized. The game is said to be hardly fun for solo players, as the long TTK gives them a significant disadvantage and players with better loot have an excessive advantage.
One user writes in the Steam reviews:
The number of duos that you encounter as a solo player makes the game incredibly frustrating BECAUSE the TTK is so long. Long TTK creates very exciting 1v1’s but makes a 1v2 annoying because you are simply destroyed if you can’t surprise the opponents.
The equipment balancing is non-existent. Weapons and armor become drastically better from level to level, and there’s almost no variance that allows for counterplay. Weapons that are blue or better have no trade-offs to balance the strengths, and armor is a very shallow “X amount of shield”; nobody will trade shield strength for stamina recovery, that’s simply nonsensical.
Jon-San in the Steam reviews
Even players from the beta are frustrated. Many of the major bugs that the community believed needed to be fixed at release are still in the game. The fact that expensive DLC packages are in the shop instead is particularly annoying for some. A player on Steam says: “They haven’t done anything to improve the game, but hey, at least they’ve added €100 in DLC” (via Steam)
How are the developers reacting? On Twitter, the developers at YAGER have already communicated that they are keeping an eye on the bugs. A hotfix is supposed to be released today, with a larger patch to follow at a later date.
However, whether and when the larger design problems mentioned will be fixed is currently unknown.
This type of Tarkov-like shooter is becoming a trend in the industry. The upcoming CoD should also have a mode that plays like The Cycle or Escape from Tarkov. Here you can find out what is known about it:
Leaks about CoD Modern Warfare 2 give pro players hope: ‘If they do it right, it could save CoD’
