PvPvE first-person shooter gameThe Cycle: Frontierrecently launched its third season. New threats and improved matchmaking are among the number of changes included in the latest update.
The Cycle: Frontierreleased on Jul 24, 2025 by developer and publisher Yager. It’s since found its own footing in the shooter genre and has attracted a number of longtime FPS players. Lead producer Matt Lightfoot told Game Rant in a recent interview that while the free-to-play game has a variety of monsters in the fictional world of Fortuna III, there’s one monster that poses the biggest threat to wandering prospectors.
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What is the Howler in The Cycle: Frontier
The Cycle: Frontierplayers live inside Prospect Station, which is orbiting around a treacherous alien planet, Fortuna III. While on Prospect Station, players can choose their weapons and gear before dropping into one of three maps: Bright Sands, Crescent Falls, and Tharis Island. All three maps have various biomes, but also, various monsters. While attempting to complete faction quests, players' survival will be threatened by the creatures roaming the land, including the Marauder, the Strider, the Rattler, or – Season 3’s latest addition – the Howler, a flying insect-like monster.
The creatures like the Marauder, the Strider, the Rattler, and the Howler, they’re an antagonist. They’re a threat to the player, and they’ve taken over the planet after humanity has left, and now you are dropping in alongside other prospectors. You’re competing for resources.
[The Howler] is our only flying creature. The Howler will roam across our maps, and it has ways of being able to detect players and be able to really be a threat.
The goal of the game is to escape Fortuna III and return to Prospect Station with whatever loot that’s been acquired, but other prospectors share the same objective. Lightfoot said these instances create “really tense gameplay moments,” forcing players to make impactful decisions. When players engage in a fight with the Howler, it’ll make a lot of noise, which instantly exposes their location and makes them vulnerable to other players, introducing the biggest threat of the game. Lightfoot saidplayers should be most weary about encountering fellow prospectors.
The creatures are a threat, but the true monster is the [other] players because you’re able to have positive interactions where you can work together to be able to achieve your goals, but equally, if you find yourself on the wrong side of the stick, other players can also kill you, or you can kill other players to be able to get ahead as well.
In a lot of our play tests, what we saw with some of the members of the community is you might have one group that’s fighting it and another group will help them, and then at the end there’s only one set of loot, so who’s going to get it?
Improving The Prospector Experience
Not only do fellow prospectors remain a big threat in Season 3 ofThe Cycle: Frontier, but they are also equipped with an expanded arsenal of weapons, which includes new versions of artillery likeLMGs, launchers, SMGS, snipers, and shotguns. There are also two variants of MkI, lower tier weapons, and MkII, higher tier weapons. Despite the upgrade, players won’t have to worry about being mismatched in the game – anymore. Lightfoot said that towards the end of Season 2, his team looked at players' kill death ratio to note how good specific prospects are and now, in Season 3, they’ve made a separation between people who drop onto Fortuna III as a solo, duo, or trio to verify it’s a “fair challenge.” In addition to fairness, Lightfoot added that Yager is consistently working on icing out cheaters through preventative measures, which he says, has worked so far.
One of the things that has been an ongoing challenge is making sure that people with high-end gear and really dangerous weapons don’t just destroy our new players. They’re puppies in the game, and we want to ensure that they’re also able to come in and have a good time as well. People that are naturally good also get to play against people who are naturally good and that have learned so that they’re getting a competitive, scary tense fight as well. They’re not just destroying people who are like, “this is the first time I’ve played a PC game, how do I use a keyboard and mouse?”
Veteran FPS players may find themselves flocking toThe Cycle: Frontierbecause ofits blended PvPvE experience and the fact that it remains free-to-play. It also seems that Yager has patched up two things that were hindering the game the most: cheaters and mandatory wipes. Yager will have to see if the preventative measures against cheaters and non-mandatory wipes will be enough to keep its players coming back for more.
