Beleaguered battle royale game The Culling has risen from the dead once more – despite apparently being canned for good last March – this time sporting a monetisation model that will require users to pay for the matches they want to play.
The Culling, a survival-themed last-man-standing affair from developer Xaviant, launched on PC and Xbox in October 2017 following a period of early access. Its distinctive take on the battle royale formula – incorporating scavenging, crafting, and trap-making – immediately earned it fans, but its post-launch fortunes were short-lived and a rapidly dwindling player base (caused in no small part by the meteoric rise of PUBG) saw Xaviant ending support mere months later.
Six months after , Xaviant surprised dropped The Culling 2 on the world, and immediately felt the full force of a backlash from fans upset the developer had turned its attention to a sequel a little over nine months after its predecessor left Steam early access. Less that 48 hours after launch – which, in another case of unfortunate timing, coincided with the arrival of Fortnite’s fifth season – The Culling 2’s active userbase had plummeted to single digits.
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Mere weeks later, The Culling 2 was officially dead and Xaviant made the decision to resurrect the corpse of its predecessor, only this time as a free-to-play title.
And although The Culling’s second turn in the spotlight was markedly more successful than Xaviant’s initial failed release, it still didn’t draw in the crowds required to keep the game afloat – and the developer pulled the plug on the game a second time, seemingly for good, in March last year. And there, it seemed, the story ended.