The Cycle: Frontier Season 3 Launches with Exciting Changes and New Challenges
The highly anticipated Season 3 of The Cycle: Frontier has finally launched, bringing with it a plethora of changes, surprises, and updates that are sure to captivate both new and experienced players. Here’s a rundown of the most significant changes you can expect in this new season.
You can find the official trailer for the launch of Season 3 below:
No More Wipes
Season 3 will be the last time players experience a mandatory wipe. The game has been revamped to feature a permanent progression system, allowing players to retain their progress in future seasons. All earned cosmetics, Aurum, and Welcome Packs will be retained, and the in-game texts and descriptions have been updated to reflect this change.
Free Loadout Runs
In an effort to help new players and those low on K-Marks, the game now offers Free Loadout Runs. Players can choose a randomized loadout provided by one of the factions for free, though there will be a cooldown period between each use.
Loadout Presets
Another long-requested feature, Loadout Presets, allow players to quickly equip their favorite or most-used gear with just one click. Presets can be customized in the stash section of the inventory, and any items not currently in a player’s stash will be automatically purchased from the appropriate faction HQ.
A New Threat – The Howler
The game’s newest flying insect-like monster, The Howler, brings a fresh challenge to players. As a roaming creature, it adds a new layer of suspense and excitement to gameplay. Players will need to strategize to avoid or defeat this formidable foe.
Improved Anti-Cheat Measures
Season 3 introduces a range of anti-cheat measures, including Shielded Matchmaking, Cheating Victim Compensation, Data Obfuscation, and a Dedicated Anti-Cheat Team. The game also utilizes third-party tools such as BattlEye and has improved in-game reporting systems to ensure a fair playing field.
The Cycle: Frontier 3.0.0 Patch Notes
CHANGES
- DLSS 3 has been implemented and will be available for those with compatible graphics processors
- To make them a more exciting end-game challenge, Laser Drills will now be exclusive to Crescent Falls. They may return to Bright Sands again in the future with some balancing tweaks
- The Crusher Caverns have had a massive overhaul, the caves will now be a significantly more difficult end game activity that will take team coordination and top end gear to survive
- Prospectors will now take a short ride on the evac ship before fully extracting. Enjoy the beautiful panoramic views of Fortuna III before returning to the Station, but don’t get shot
- New grenade with the Howler shriek contained inside will be craft-able using Howler loot drops
- Added a new weapon inspection feature with new animations to let prospectors check out their cool skins on weapons and melee sets
- Players will now have a chance to find weapons with pre-loaded attachments while looting different areas. The rarity of these attachments will determine its chances of spawning
- Attachments, consumables, and items all have clear numerical values about how they affect different mechanics
- New and updated questlines
- Prospectors will now have the ability to redeem promotion codes and coupons directly from the game to receive promotional items without going to their store launcher
- Names and descriptions of armor and helmets are now more descriptive of their functions to better fit with the lore
- Weapon description texts have been updated to include distances at which the gunshot sounds are audible
- Some crafting recipes have been updated to require Howler loot drops
- Tharis Island will not be accessible or unlockable by way of campaign missions immediately at the start of the season. As a result, crafting or player upgrades that require items only obtained on Tharis will be temporarily inaccessible until April 19th when the Island will be globally unlocked
- A new keycard has been added to the lineup of keycards available
- Possibly related to the new keycard, a new way to enter and exit the Forge has been added to Tharis Island. The door can be dangerous so proceed with caution
- Keycard availability and durability received an update
- Keycards cost has been updated to include a script cost when purchasable from the factions
- Player Quarter upgrades received an update to include higher K-mark investment and new recipes for upgrade costs
- Gear durability and repair costs have been changed to work better with a long-term economy in mind
- New ammo varieties have been added to the loot pool with unique icon for each variety
- Fortuna Pass rewards and icons have been updated for Season 3
- Badum’s First Drop and Welcome Packages have received an overhaul to make the experience as good as possible
- A hard limit of 10 million K-marks have been added to cap the amount of  K-marks a player can own at any given time
- Our favorite barkeep, Badum, will now give Prospectors a unique questline with rewards after completing the FTUE missions which will be available on April 19th
- Improved the prevention of players spawning next to each other to give Prospectors more breathing room when they drop onto Fortuna III
BUGFIXES
- Fixed a bug where the speed penalty would persist after switching items from a charged heavy melee attack without performing the heavy melee attack
- Removed an invisible collision barrier that prevented players from interacting with Osiris faction leader
- Items will no longer visually duplicate themselves when sorting inventory or moving items from backpack to stash
- Removed unintended access methods for areas above East Caverns on Bright Sands
- Invisible post will not stop you from approaching the Fortuna Pass booth on the station
- Adjusted the UI display to prevent overlapping of contract screens when multiple contracts are claimable
- A very specific tree in Jungle had some faulty animations that have been resolved by our in-house horticulturist
- Weapons, tools, and consumables will no longer vanish from your hands when swapping between grenades and other consumables
- Players will now be able to successfully leave a party after removing a friend from friends list while in an active squad
- Map updates and removal of several exploit spots across all 3 maps
- Many, many more bug fixes but too many to list for the sake of saving space
MISC
- In-game notification system has been revamped to better notify players of the most important events and actions while playing the game
- Players can now sign up for our TCF email newsletter without leaving the game and see rewards before signing up
- New key art has been added to the loading screen
- New icons and UI images have been added for new in-game items
- Discrepancies in vanity descriptions for various items in Windfall’s Shop and Fortuna Pass have been unified
- Mission images have been updated
- Visibility of tool tip information has been improved
- Weight and stack sizes for some items have been adjusted
- New Emotes, sprays, character cosmetics and weapon skins will be available from the Fortuna Shop and Fortuna Pass rewards throughout the season
- End of season widget has been updated in accordance with no longer having wipes each season
- UI Tooltips have been adjusted
- New icons have been added to the Feedback section of the menus
- Added a UI element to clarify that player’s are able to return to a map at any time once it has been unlocked
KNOWN ISSUES
- We are currently investigating an issue that causes some crashes when using NIVIDIA 40 series cards on the Epic Games Launcher. A fix will be pushed as soon as it is ready
- Sometimes the Crusher Caverns can have issues spawning mobs (or spawn too many mobs), if you encounter this issue please reach out to a community manager with your prospect.log files
- There are some cases where a player can get stuck on a Badum FTUE task. A simple restart of the game should resolve that but our team is working on a more permanent fix
- Some of the emotes are not previewed correctly in various screens like Fortuna Pass, Special Offers etc. You can still fully see all the amazing moves and our little Leafling, Marauder etc in the station and in match but we will look into how to best preview them
- Some of the new items with additional effects are missing an indicator on the icons to imply so. Once you go to the preview or see them in game – you’ll be amazed (and we’ll be fixing that little marker issue)
