The Cycle: Frontier is a free-to-play PvPvE first-person shooter that looks a lot like  No Man’s Sky and Outer Worlds had a baby. I have only played a bit, but I have to say I’m enjoying myself a lot. It’s in it’s second Beta right now that runs from March 16th till April 4th. You can register through either here:

https://thecycle.game/subscription/closedbetaregistration

or here through Steam :

https://store.steampowered.com/app/868270/The_Cycle_Frontier/

The name of the starting planet is Fortuna III(I wonder where Fortuna 1 and 2 are), mysterious alien creatures run free and old research facilities remain abandoned. You start the game as a Prospectors – adventurers who search for resources and precious loot while braving the elements and hostile creatures. 

Other players/Prospectors will be dropping onto the planet to gather the same resources you’re after. I’ve heard some can be friendly,  while others will want to hunt you down for your inventory.

You can enter the game alone or with a team of up to three players. They start you with basic loadout options and you have to equip them individually in your inventory. It’s pretty much guns, armour, medkit. One thing I liked is that each time you set out on an excursion, you’ll get to decide if you want to insure any of your equipment you’re setting out with. At first I was confused about that – but I realized after my 3rd death it was SOOOO worth it. I got credits back and could use them to buy new stuff. Somethings I marked to get it retrieved after my character’s Foaming. Sure I rezed and had to wait 45 minutes to get the things back, but it was good I had a spare.

If you die on Fortuna III, you’ll lose everything you equipped and had in your inventory unless your items are insured. Thankfully, you also have five Safe Pocket slots in your inventory, which will let you keep those five items even if you die. The thing about these pockets when you start is that it can only hold 5lbs worth of things. That’s ONE stim thing. I put mainly ore I wanted to keep.

The game does balance risk and reward pretty well, since it’s really your decision to take on the big alien creatures if you decide to enter a high danger area. There is a little notification thing that tells you the danger level of where you are. For the life of me though I didn’t know if that was in regards to monsters or to other players.

When you’re done with scrounging for resources, you can go to an Extraction point to call for an evacuation ship. The important thing is to make sure you know where that point is. I was almost ALWAYS set down on the other side of the map from that point. So I did a LOT of just running and sneaking from one point to another. There’s a bit of a delay in calling for the ship, waiting for it to dock, then waiting for it to close its doors and leave. I was constantly afraid of some nearby player that might try to jump me to steal MY loot and take off in MY ship. I think in theory you can share an evac, but how would you even ask for such a thing?

OH and if it’s storming out you have to wait until the storm clears. First storm I hid under a bridge. Second storm I was squeezed into a small space in some cave somewhere. GOOD TIMES. Extracting successfully will reward you with XP and all the resources you picked up, which you can use to craft or sell for currency. It works really well here since it only adds to that risk and reward factor.

The thing is that it kinda’ reminds me of ElderScrolls Online before One Tamriel. I would go into high level areas to get supplies to sell to the higher level players. I LOVED it. I got really good at it, that skill made me doing PvP in Cyro all the more fun because I had learned how to be sneaky.

Not gonna lie – I kinda’ feel like this is my first time playing this type of game. No not the first time, but the first time actually enjoying myself while doing it. I want to see if I can rope some of my friends into playing it with me or maybe even find some chill people who would like to group. I’m not wonderful at finding people to play with – usually it happens organically.

Would I suggest the game to others? Sure

Will I keep playing? Sure thing.

Maybe I’ll see some of you guys out there ^_^