The Cycle: Prospect Island – A UEFN Project

Hey Prospectors,

Long time no see!

We all know the tragic story of The Cycle: Frontier, beloved by many of you, and trust us, by all of us as well.

So while YAGER is working on our different co-development ventures and our new projects, which we will announce at a later point in time, we always thought “What can we do as a tribute to TC:F and to keep the spirit alive?”.
This then led to some explorations with UEFN on our end. If this doesn’t ring a bell, UEFN stands for Unreal Editor for Fortnite.

 

 

What is this project about?

 

A handful of our developers, most of them not having worked on TC:F before, used this editor to explore what is possible with it and to hone their skills, as it is always important to be on top of your game when you work in the games industry and tech and tools want to be inspected.
The outcome of this is a Fortnite Island that we call The Cycle: Prospect Island. 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.. As mentioned in the intro, this was not a big project within the studio, but the result is definitely something that you should check out. Leaflings, a new special Leafling, Striders, Masked Strangers, Badum and the faction leaders – They are all waiting for you!

If you are new to Fortnite Islands, you just jump into them when launching Fortnite via the Epic Games Store. Then click on the magnifying glass icon in the top left and enter the code: 8495-9375-7199
The cool thing about this is that you still gather XP for your Fortnite Battle Pass when playing The Cycle: Prospect Island.

 

 

Let us not forget that The Cycle and the pivot to The Cycle: Frontier are our first self-published projects, hence it is one of the projects that has a lot of importance for us as well and that we cherish deeply.

So please consider this a tribute to a game that many of you loved and to this day still love.

 

 

Let us talk about gameplay

You start out on the UEFN version of Prospect Station, your home in The Cycle: Prospect Island. You can freely walk around and visit the factions (Korolev, Osiris & ICA), however a quick trip upstairs to Badum might be a good first step. He runs things here and will give you an overview of the mechanics.

If you visit the factions you can get contracts from them. Fulfilling those contracts will allow you to level up your standing with the factions and at certain levels you unlock new gear, and if you max them out, you will receive a fancy “faction class” that gives you an extra edge.

 

After accepting a contract, the next step is a visit at the drop pod, to drop down to The Cycle: Prospect Island. Here you can hunt Striders, gather loot, admire Leaflings and fulfill your contract, all while other Prospectors are out to do the same thing. Some contracts have multiple steps on the surface, others just need you to drop down, gather something and bring it back to the factions on Prospect Station.

The Cycle, the storm that was raging on Fortuna III, will also appear from time to time, as soon as this happens both of the EVAC spots become the only safe zones… as safe as they can be when other Prospectors are roaming around, so be careful! (Yes, we know that the storm can cause a visual bug that makes it look like one of the zones is not safe, but after the storm circle passed the spot, it will be safe!)

Call an EVAC, get back to the Station and grab your rewards. Rinse and repeat.

So what are you waiting for Prospector? Jump into The Cycle: Prospect Island with the code: 8495-9375-7199

 

 

UEFN Fan Projects

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. 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.

 

Thank you Prospectors

The last thing that we briefly want to touch upon is the messages that we get about wanting the game back and missing the game. It is truly appreciated as it means that we created something that resonated with you, the players. We are very thankful for your dedication! Some of you folks ask why we don’t sell the game and that it would be “so easy” to do so. While it is not an option for us, it is also not as easy as some of you might think, games and everything that happens in the background of a game are complex beasts.

So as you can see, 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.

Oh, and one last thing Prospector – Fortuna does not forget the bold…