Despite being one of the first on the battle royale block, even going free-to-play hasn’t been enough to save The Culling. Developers Xaviant have announced that the lights go out on their dystopian game show-themed survival shooter on May 15th. It’s been a rough year for the studio, with The Culling 2 announced, released and shut down due to lack of player interest within a three month span. They were hoping to re-launch the original game as free-to-play and have future development supported through in-app purchases. Sadly, it just didn’t work out that way.

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It’s pleasing to see gas traps appearing in Apex Legends, courtesy of token toxic male Caustic. But let us lower our heads and observe a moment of silence for the fallen progenitor of such useful and deadly battle royale flatulence. That’s right, The Culling.

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Battle royale games. For a long time the RPS treehouse was unable to comprehend these chaotic, destructive influences on society. Shooters, yes, we understand. Survival games, we get it. But 100-person death marches in a shrinking zone of hate? What s so good about that? Well, this week we ve got a young person* to help us decipher this most murderous of riddles.

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Game show style battle royale The Culling has returned in free-to-play form, allowing players to take in the jungle sights, bludgeon one another to death, and ruminate on the dystopic reality TV they re making, all without paying for the privilege.

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After its disastrous launch on July 10th, developers Xaviant have announced they intend to pull The Culling 2 from sale, refunding those who purchased it. In a very awkward and apologetic video (which you can see below), Xaviant’s director of operations John Van Veld announced the studio’s plans to cull their ill-fated sequel, and return to supporting the Hunger Games-inspired The Culling once more.

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Alright. So this kind of thing isn’t particularly fun. I love games and I love the people that make games and oh god do I want to make sure that (especially) indie creators get every chance to see their products treated well. No matter how you slice it, there’s bad news regarding the newest game from Xaviant Games, and said news probably means there’s a bleak forecast for the future of that studio, and almost certainly for their latest title: The Culling 2.

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It feels like only a month ago that The Culling 2 was announced – sequel to Xaviant’s early Battle Royale/Hunger Games inspired multiplayer FPS. Oh, wait, it was less than that. Three weeks and change to be specific. The developers are really not messing around on this one, as not only are they bypassing any kind of early access launch, but the game is will be available in just 16 hours, according to Steam’s store-page countdown.

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Too soon? Last week s announcement that The Culling 2 was in development came as a bit of a surprise, not least because the first game only left early access last October, before being left fallow a couple of months later. Though it grew popular in the pre-Plunkbat early access killing fields, the players drifted off, leaving the finished product bereft of contestants.

Developer Xaviant argues that it s not too soon, however, because two years have passed since The Culling first hit early access back in 2016 – something that proved to be a process that didn’t work out at all well for them. Which is why The Culling 2 will not be going down the same path. (more…)

Before there was Plunkbat and Fortnite, there was The Culling, swaggering into the twilight days of The Age Of Survival Games with a bare-faced but nonetheless accomplished multiplayer take on The Hunger Games – or, as we now call it/as we called it before The Hunger Games, battle royale. The lurid Culling burned bright for many months, as my recurring nightmares that I still have to write the then-unchanging Steam Charts can attest to, but ultimately its combination of tree-punching survival tropes and the find a gun/run-run-run ethos of Plunkbat fell out of favour. Thoroughbred, headshot-or-bust battle royale had arrived, and suddenly no-one was interested in banging two rocks together to make a fragile shiv any more.

Don’t call it a comeback. Because, er, The Culling 2 hasn’t been released yet. But it will be!

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Hunger Games ’em upThe Culling [official site] will be free to play in full this weekend to celebrate yesterday’s launch of a big update that reworked combat and added a singleplayer wave survival mode. Xaviant Games’ cheery take on Hunger Royale rode high on the Hunger Royale wave a year ago and it even pleased our Alec, who’s far more of a singleplayer chap. But while the genre has blossomed, The Culling fell out of favour on its journey through early access. How is it now? How much has this update changed? Have a look! … [visit site to read more]