A year after extraction shooter The Cycle: Frontier was shut down, it's back—well, in Fortnite at least

News
By published

The Cycle: Prospect Island brings "as many ideas and visuals back to life" as Yager could manage.

YouTube YouTube
Watch On

A year after the extraction shooter The Cycle: Frontier shut down for good, Yager Development has brought it back—sort of—as The Cycle: Prospect Island, a new island in Fortnite that aims to keep "the spirit" of the original game alive.

The Cycle: Prospect Island emerged from experimentation with Unreal Editor for Fortnite by a handful of Yager developers, most of whom hadn't worked on The Cycle: Frontier. "While they were aware quite early that not everything that made TC:F shine can be brought into this project, they brought as many ideas and visuals back to life as feasible," Yager wrote in a blog post (via Game Developer). "This was not a big project within the studio, but the result is definitely something that you should check out."

Gameplay in The Cycle: Prospect Island sounds similar to that of the game that inspired it. From your base in Prospect Station, you can accept contracts from three factions—Korolev, Osiris, and ICA—that will send you down to Prospect Island below, where you'll hunt Striders, collect loot, and do whatever's required to complete your mission. Other players will be doing the same thing, and won't necessarily be friendly about it, and you'll also have to deal with the storm that pops in occasionally to complicate things further.

Complete the job and successfully evacuate to Prospect Station, and you'll keep all the loot you were able to haul out; die before you make it to safety, though, and all your gear will be lost, although your contract progress will not be reset. Completing contracts will enable you to level up, unlocking new gear and, eventually, a "faction class." Regardless of your success or failure on that front, you'll also earn Fortnite battle pass XP while playing the game.

It's not exactly a comeback of The Cycle: Frontier, but it's close, and it's an interesting and novel way for a studio to preserve, as Yager put it, "the spirit" of the game. It may not satisfy committed fans who want nothing short of a full-fledged return of the original, but it may also attract new players—an awful lot of people play Fortnite, after all—which could potentially open the door to new opportunities.

This apparently isn't the only Cycle-inspired extraction shooter coming to Fortnite. "We are also aware of a pretty interesting looking UEFN fan project from some seasoned Prospectors, who want to bring their own vision of an extraction shooter to life with the Unreal Editor for Fortnite," Yager wrote. "They were inspired by The Cycle: Frontier and so far their efforts look amazing! We will definitely make sure to keep you informed when their project reaches a playable state, so you can set foot on their Island as well and experience it first hand."

And for the truly faithful out there, there's also a nod to the potential possibility of The Cycle: Frontier maybe making a proper comeback someday: "We are well aware that some of you are still yearning to get back to Prospect Station and Fortuna III: As usual in the world of gaming, never say never, who knows if the future will bring a return to Fortuna III at some point in time, who knows."

The Cycle: Prospect Island can be accessed using island code 8495-9375-7199.

Andy Chalk
Andy Chalk
US News Lead

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.