The Culling 2 has been removed for purchase after only a week on sale from all major digital distribution platforms. Xaviant Studios released a video outlining the reasoning behind their decision to pull the game.
The Culling 2, which released last week, met with an overwhelmingly negative reception from fans and critics alike — with many players citing a sudden and unwarranted change from the original Culling game. Those unfamiliar with the series, The Culling originally launched in February of 2016 and featured a unique take on the popular battle royale genre, by offering more emphasis on melee combat.
Unfortunately, since the initial release, The Culling went through rapid changes, going from a modest but noteworthy player pool of a 12,000+ players to under 100, by the time the title left Steam Early Access in November of last year. Instead of fixing the issues that plagued the game, Xaviant made the decision to instead, focus their attention on a sequel, which the studio announced in mid-June of this year.
Sadly, The Culling 2 performed even worse than its predecessor, with a current rating of 3/10 on Steam and reviews that include almost nothing but negativity towards the game. To get an understanding of how bad the game is, the top review from a Steam user, Kaffe, reads: “This is NOT The Culling. It contains NO elements of the original Culling. It is more of a bad rip-off of PUBG and H1Z1. DO NOT BUY. Do not give this dev-team any money for this obvious cash-grab. VERY Disappointing. I’ve played alphas that play better than this.”
In the video, Xaviant director of operations Josh Van Veld states, ” 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.”. He goes on to basically apologize for the unwarranted sequel while acknowledging that Xaviant should have instead, put their efforts in polishing the original Culling game. The video ends with Van Veld promising that Xaviant will now focus on iterating upon the October 2017 build of the original Culling, a game that at one point, actually garnered praise from players.
Hopefully, by going back to the original game, Xaviant Studios will be able to deliver a game worthy of standing on its own two legs in a market that has seemingly been flooded with games in the battle royale genre as of late, while living up to fan expectations.
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