Within the tide of battle royale and hero shooter games, a subgenre is emerging: PvPvE, a confusing acronym that basically means that multiple players must pursue competing goals and fight to occupy a shared space full of bad guys. There aren't many games of this kind, but the potential for a memorable story like DayZ is expressed in the tight structure of the competitive matches. It exploits the range of possible interactions while putting pressure on players to make increasingly risky decisions.

Cycle: Frontier enters this fray as a free-to-play title and is arguably more accessible than most games of its ilk. You are a prospector, a hired gun in a Western-style sci-fi setting, dropped from an orbital station into a devastated world in a small pod to scavenge for resources and supplies left behind by settlers who have abandoned the dangerous world due to a terrible storm. As a set-up, it seems to be second-guessing too many sci-fi games, and hardly worth mentioning other than the recent "Outriders" game, which is already notorious for its lack of originality. The cycle is neither unsympathetic nor crass, but it fits that nonsensical mold of treating outer space as a literal Wild West with little introspection to enliven it, and the studio that made the most of a setup that once bored me with "Spec Ops: The Line" was disappointing as a result.

Its idiosyncratic aesthetic is as overused as its premise, with the usual combination of bland jumpsuits, alien-style space armor, and military rifles, occasionally accented with cowboy hats and Southern accents to set a laid-back tone It is what it is. Nevertheless, the alien planet is lush and verdant, with bright colors filling the screen with green fields and glowing mushrooms. While the scenery is not particularly memorable, it is at least pleasing to the eye while it is running around.

To escape the planet with your prized loot, you need to call a dropship that will pick you up at a specific rendezvous point. While there is nothing to stop strangers from escaping together, the player demographic is understandably trigger-happy. But this is made more difficult by the game's centerpiece: the storm. When the storm comes, the only way to hold out is to take shelter and hold on. That's a nice idea, but when I actually tried it, it was a bit tedious, waiting in a cave until it was safe. I couldn't help but feel that it could have been better utilized by forcing players to escape and venture out into the world instead of simply waiting for it all to be over.

That said, for the most part, the storms are not frequent, so you are left running around constantly scanning and checking to find minerals while dodging and engulfing other players and alien monsters. The alien monsters are another disappointment, nothing more than snarling knockoffs of what we've seen in so many RPGs over the years. The crab ones, the dog ones... You get the idea. The only functional difference is the amount of physical strength, and even though the weapons in this game have a satisfying punch, they are quite lacking in fighting. In fact, the game was not as good as it could have been, since there was seldom anything to be gained from fighting unless one needed to harvest organs for a quest.

Speaking of quests, when you are not on the planet itself, you are at the station that serves as a sort of hub for all activity. They would go to get jobs from the factions, browse the stores, and organize upgrades. Having social spaces like Destiny's towers and MMO hubs is a cool idea, but there is very little you can do there except run around between kiosks to click "accept" or "claim" quests and their rewards. It should have been easy to make it a menu; it's 2022 and I'm still playing a game with the most exhausting, thoughtless fetch quest missions imaginable.

But The Cycle has always had a clear desire to show off its polish, and the high production values throughout, from the Halo ODST-like pod drops to the clanking of the guns, give the tiring elements a sparkle.

Some may compare it to "Escape from Tarkov," but to me "Hunt Showdown" is a classic PvPvE game, and when you play a game like "The Cycle" you can clearly see why. What makes Hunt so good, and what I find so fascinating, is that the rewards are never the goal. Sure, the unlocks and items are worth wanting, but the cheapest tools are just as good at getting players through as the most expensive ones. Rather, what the hunt values is the moment-to-moment tension, the butterfly effect of the slightest choice from the start to the end of the match. The only reward, the prize money, pushes players into confrontations, and the resourceful player can set up ambushes and traps. In short, the first match in this game can be just as exciting and challenging as the last.

The Cycle, by contrast, focuses on collecting dozens of different resources and endless crafting fun, and is very destination-focused. Weapons, armor, ammo, attachments, backpacks ...... The list goes on. Outside of the armory itself, there are upgrades for all of them, as well as for apartments and currency generators. Cycle seems more fixated on getting players on its treadmill than on getting the most out of its setting. With so many resources to collect and so little inventory space at the start of the game, we often found ourselves ready to evacuate within minutes of landing. Because of the abundance of resources, they often avoided other players. While it is tempting to ambush other players to get their gear, there would be little worth taking from them for new players. Higher level players have better gear, but consequently have an advantage. At that point, well, there is nothing to gain.

This is a poorly thought out economy that seems obsessed with creating a tired free-to-play progression path first and foremost, and then an interesting game. The emphasis on resources and incremental upgrades buries the fun in the game. The abundance of resources should foster a different player environment, one in which players cooperate frequently rather than constantly murdering each other, but there is little incentive to help others.

The player battles themselves are also quite boring, with too few options and victory largely determined by who has the better stuff. On rare occasions, however, I was able to work with strangers, helping them fight beasts or collecting minerals before mining with them. When this happened, I tried to form an alliance on the spot, bringing a whole new life to the game. Would this person have my back? It was a test to suggest how much more interesting "Cycle" could be if it focused more on social interaction than artificial friction. More interesting than playing with friends. With friends, boredom is tolerable, but no team is willing to do anything other than kill, no matter how meager the reward, and you find yourself in a more competitive space.

Unfortunately, thanks to a bug that locked me out of matchmaking and team formation, I had considerable problems trying to play with friends.

What's the point of getting a better one if you can't do much with it anyway? Higher level weapons may sound a little better, but the main difference is simply higher damage numbers. There are no tools or utilities that can be unlocked. There are no traps, decoys, or other devices that open up ways to beat a well-equipped player. With no narrative hooks or subversive elements at all, and little in the way of moment-to-moment rewards, the unlock list is not going to make you invest that kind of time.

The question that remained throughout my hours of boredom and frustration was, "Who is this game for?" Players looking for a tense, competitive stakeout or gunfight have much more to play for than a tedious game of piling up a few stones. Players who like the steady work of "grinding" and "upgrading" can also play games (with much more interesting rewards) without having to worry about getting ahead of players who have more time and money to spare.

Perhaps someone wants the worst of both worlds. Someone who rejoices in every nook and cranny of progress being dragged painfully slowly to a crawl. That's not me.