The brutal battle royale game The Culling will be released soon on PC and Xbox One. However, the reviews on Steam are mixed and apparently hardly anyone is still playing the game at all.
The Culling started in March 2016 on Steam in early access and caused quite a stir at the time. Because back then the game advertised with bloody carnage similar to Hunger Games or the movie Battle Royale. In both works, people stranded on islands desperately fight for survival and have to slaughter each other.
This concept works perfectly in games, as PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, H1Z1: King of the Kill, and Fortnite: Battle Royale prove. So is The Culling a worthy, additional competitor in the genre that especially provides Xbox users with a good BR game before the console launch of PUBG?
The Culling started strong and then declined ruthlessly
At least at the start of the early access phase, The Culling was off to a good start and had over 12,000 players in March 2016. But then the player numbers dropped month by month. In the last 30 days, a maximum of 61(!) people have played The Culling simultaneously on Steam. What happened?
According to the many negative reviews on Steam (40% of all reviews do not speak well of the game), several poor design decisions were made:
- The combat system was heavily focused on close combat and relied on a complex system of blocks and block-breakers. However, the balancing never really succeeded.
- According to many players, the combat system was “improved” with each patch, making The Culling less and less enjoyable. By now, it would be a complete chaos and the combat mechanics would be completely out of whack.
- It is allegedly said that the graphics on PC were downgraded due to the console release on Xbox One
Full release on PC & Xbox One with golden weapons despite poor numbers
Despite the poor reviews and low player count, the developers are not giving up and are bringing the full release of The Culling on October 6 as a buy-to-play version on Xbox One and PC (Steam). At launch, there will be a bundle of special golden weapons that you can obtain in-game from loot piñatas.
The golden weapons are similar to other top weapons, only that they have special effects. For example, a golden sword causes eternal bleeding until one can heal. The Triflector is a trident that returns damage threefold to the opponent and the axe “VomiHawk” makes hit opponents vomit!
But whether The Culling is worth anything or not, battle royale is currently very popular! Read here why!
