Dev Shuts Down PvP Shooter, Says Cheaters Are To Blame

Developer Yager will shut down free-to-play shooter The Cycle: Frontier on September 27, 2023. The developer made the announcement earlier today, saying that an influx of cheaters drove other players away, and the game was unable to recover after steps were taken to prevent cheating.

In a detailed blog post, Yager said that even after making the game more approachable during its third season, "It was still not enough to make The Cycle: Frontier financially viable."

Prospectors,
Today’s news we share with a heavy heart.
The Cycle: Frontier will shut down on September 27, 2023.
Making this decision was very difficult for us, but ultimately was a necessary one.
More information about this, as well as refunds, our final patch, and more 👇 pic.twitter.com/w1Nji3Lxp4
— The Cycle: Frontier (@TheCycleGame) June 28, 2023

Shortly after launch, The Cycle was packed with cheaters, and combating them was a challenging endeavor. "Although we had tools and measurements in place, we quickly realized we needed to improve our anti-cheat efforts to be able to ensure a fair game experience for all players," the developer said. Even though the company made an effort to fight back against cheaters, Yager admits that many users had already been impacted, resulting in "a significant decrease in" the player base.

Players will no longer be able to make in-game purchases and Epic Games Store users will be unable to install the game after June 28. Anyone who has made any purchases from June 14 until today will be issued a refund, as well.

The Cycle: Frontier is a first-person extraction shooter that launched on June 8, 2022. Similar to Escape from Tarkov, players must collect loot and complete quests before extracting. It launched to mixed reviews, but gained popularity thanks to Twitch streamers.