What you need to know
- The Culling is a first-person battle royale game.
- It hasn't had the best reception.
- The new version Xbox One version, called The Culling: Origins, has strange restrictions.
- You can play one free match a day, unless you win, and have to buy tokens and passes.
The Culling is a battle royale game that has seen better days. There was The Culling, then The Culling 2 came out, but then the team returned to The Culling and fixed it up? I don't even remember, but there's a lot of back-and-forth going on.
What I'm about to tell you next will be the highlight of this saga though. I'm going to start off by sharing a press release Windows Central received from the makes of the game.
The Culling is one of the pioneers of the battle royale genre and even today it stands alone as a unique up-close-and-personal combat experience. We get messages every day from players who want The Culling to come back and for the last several months we've been working to make that happen. Our new approach focuses on sustainability — we've optimized our systems to keep server costs low and we've shifted our monetization approach to ensure that players will be able to visit the island for years to come. Initially we're focusing on Xbox One with this effort. But we're working to bring back the PC version in the future.
The Culling: Origins will relaunch with the following updates:
- Players can play one free match online each day.
- Players can play additional matches through winning an online match or buy a "Pack of Online Match Tokens" from $1-5. There are also passes available that grant access for a week to a month. The 30-day access costs $6 so it's not that bad, but it's essentially a subscription game.
Apparently, Xbox One graphical quality has also been improved dramatically, rendering at a 30 percent higher resolution with the addition of anti-aliasing and an improved frame rate.
I think this whole tokens for play model is flawed, since we've moved past arcades. However, if you like the game, check it out.
