If you’ve been paying attention to The Culling 2′s release then you would have seen that earlier this week it became one of the worst launches a game has ever seen. The game almost immediately tanked. After the player base dropped to single digits and a barrage of negative reviews the creators of The Culling 2, Xaviant Games, have chosen to put a bullet in their game before infection can set in.
After making the obviously difficult decision Xaviant Games director of operations Josh Van Veld released a statement via YouTube. While touching on a lot of things the statement made it clear that anyone who had purchased the game across Xbox One, PS4 and PC was eligible for a refund. Van Veld said, “one thing that has emerged very clearly for us is that The Culling 2 was not a game that you asked for, and it’s not the game that you expected as a worthy successor to The Culling.” The statement went on however for a slightly more dramatic turn of events.
It appears as though Xaviant Games have made the decision to redirect their attention to the original The Culling to work on updating the game to fit the modern market with a Free-to-Play model. Originally The Culling released in Early Access in February 2016 and was reported to have a player base of 12,000 concurrent players in the early days—long before PUBG or Fortnite were in the Battle Royale scene. By the time the game left Early Access in November 2017 that number had significantly dropped as fans of the original product said the core game had been tweaked away from the game they were enjoying.
While specifics were not gone into Van Veld did say that they would be working with the build that went live in October 2017 before it left Early Access and work on returning it to the game that fans loved. Eventually once happy with it they would move at updating the live version of The Culling to bing it into line with the new Free-to-Play model of The Culling Day One.
— The Culling (@TheCullingGame) July 13, 2018
While only time will tell how this dramatic turn of events will unfold. I have to say thought that I personally can respect a studio who saw they had made a mistake and after “some much needed soul searching”, as they put it themselves, made a very difficult decision. Here’s hoping they can turn this incident around and bring the game their fans fell in love with back in February 2016.
About the Author
Cameron Honey-Swain
Cameron knows what he loves. Witches, animated ducks and a strong burly female protagonist. When he isn't effortlessly defending Dragon Age II he is bothering either his husband or one of his many fur children.
