I always hated the cycles thing. It was just a way to explain more sequels and it cheapens the endings of dark souls 1. As much as I like the dark souls sequels it would have made much more sense to leave it at 1 tbh.
Life on earth isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but I happen to like a lot of the animals we're killing. Even if it's not the end, mass extinction still sucks.
I get that, I'm kind of in the same boat right now. I've largely given up on these kinds of games for the time being, and the extent of multiplayer I've been doing is playing splitscreen with friends every once in while. For the most part I've just been trying to find other kinds of games. It sucks. It really seems like there aren't any good choices for pvp fps anymore.
I never undestood why fans didn't jump ship sooner, it was painfully clear all the way back it halo 4 that they weren't there to make a game for halo fans, they were just there to milk the franchise.