I have previously
reviewed The Culling/ The Culling Origins on this Blog (Link: https://gamereviewnation.blogspot.com/2020/01/normal-0-21-false-false-false-de-x-none.html ) and in this
article also mentioned the short-lived fate of The Culling 2. I would like to
take a closer look to the infamous sequel today. I never had the
pleasure/displeasure to play The Culling 2 in its short lifetime and will
therefore attempt a kind of historical review based on videos and information
online. The Culling 2 released on the 10th of July 2018 for PC, PS4 and Xbox
One (Even got some nice achievements, including Platinum trophy on PS4). The
game servers officially shut down on the 18th of the same month, and we will
today try to understand, how something like that could happen.
Culling 1 differentiated
itself from other games by having a mostly melee focused BR-game in a jungle
environment. The combat relied on a mixture of blocking, hitting and dodging,
while managing a stamina bar. The Culling 2 got rid of all these unique
elements and gave the impression of being a simple PUBG/H1Z1 rip-off. There
were literally no important gameplay elements that were in any way different
than in these two games. (Culling 2 probably took even a little more
inspiration from PUBG.)
Combat in
Culling 2 was mostly conducted in gunfights, but the gunplay was very imprecise
and frustrating in general. Movement happened in a third person perspective,
probably to appeal to PUBG/H1Z1 veterans and when players aimed down sight with
a weapon the view switched to first person. Culling 1 relied solely on a first
person perspective, which matched well with the melee weapons. A third person
view is not better or worse than a first person perspective, if it is well
executed. This however was a major flaw of Culling 2. The whole movement felt
very unprecise and unresponsive. Hipfire aiming seems to have been one of the
worst of all time. Hitting an enemy without down sight aiming was a miracle. But
even with first person aim, the gunplay in Culling 2 was still very awful. The
hit detection was poor and the weapon feedback nearly nonexistent.
Gunplay and
movement are probably two of the most important features, when designing a
Battle Royale. That Xaviant failed so miserably is honestly extremely
disappointing. Some games can afford to have bugs or glitches, but the
foundation of the Culling 2 gameplay was fundamentally flawed. I don't
understand how they could have simply ignored testing or any kind of feedback.
They should have seen this coming early in development or at least postponed
the launch a couple of months for refining. This probably would have not saved
the game, but would have still been preferable to releasing a somewhat broken
game.
The map
changed from its jungle environment in the original game into a blander area in
Culling 2. While the maps in H1Z1 and PUBG may in first sight also look a
little boring/ standardized, in comparison to 'theme park' BR games like
Fortnite, Realm Royale etc, they are actually just trying to look realistic and
are after more playtime quite immersive and offer a real apocalyptic survival
atmosphere. The Culling 2 map however looks truly dull and uninspiring. Nearly
all buildings and environment areas are standardized in the most basic fashion.
They all look very empty and shallow. (The towns and POI's neither managed to
stood out from the generic rest. Most locations names, with the exception of
'Stinking Hollows', were also the definition of boredom... 'Rock Mountain',
'Riverside'...)
The bad
graphics multiplied this impression and left players asking themselves why they
should play this game. Visually The Culling 2 just looked poor. Many textures
were truly hideous and there was a lot of flickering going on at all versions
of the game. Looking much worse than its predecessor, the game gave players the
impression of a rushed cash grab (which is probably true).
Players
started matches by parachuting into the game from a helicopter. Something, that
is admittedly very common in a lot of BR-games. It is just a shame, that despite
cars and helicopters physically appearing in the game, none of them could be
used during the matches. If they were already trying to copy PUBG/H1Z1 they
should have considered reproducing this element as well. Crafting was a core
feature of Culling 1, but this sadly was massively reduced in the second game. Weapons
were mostly picked up from the ground and players were immediately good to go. Culling
2 also featured Loot crates with cosmetic rewards, that were received by
leveling up and offered at least a bit of character customization and some
small motivation to keep playing the game.
An element
that did carry over from the original game were the perks. Players could choose
them before the game, and they could increase weapon abilities, ammo or health
etc. A lot of Culling 1 perks were simply taken over and some few new gun
specific perks added on top. The perk systems was at least a small standout
feature, but the fundamentally flawed gameplay made it practically unimportant.
Another nice reappearing element was the moderator of the matches, who returned
from the Culling 1. He fitted the games universe and the gameshow theme well
and was certainly one of the very few highlights of The Culling 2.
Culling 2
offered Solo, Duo and 4 player Squad matches. Users were also given the option
to start solo in Duo or Squad matches, if they wished to not fill up their
group and experience an extra challenge. There was overall a good variety of
available game modes. (There are even BR-games in 2020, which don't manage to
provide these 3 classic options) The max player cap for all three modes was 50.
Considering the very low player numbers, this probably was a lot better than
the usual 100. Since the Culling 2 map may be very bland, but still not small,
the lower population made interactions between players rarer than in most other
games of the genre. With a quickly decreasing player base this problem worsened
after only a few days of release. There were 250 concurrent players at release
date, which is already extremely low, but on the second and third day no match
with more than 20 players could be found. This dropped to only 1-3 players in
the following days. (Some players even won matches in the starting helicopter,
because no other participants could be found for the match after a few minutes)
At the end of the first week there were moments with 0 players online at all. The
developer shut the servers permanently down only 8 days after release, without
any warning (10th till 18th of July 2018).
The gameplay
may have been bad enough, but the lacking playerbase truly killed the Culling
2. Part of the problem for Xaviant (Developer of the Culling games) was that in
2018 after the success of Fortnite, being f2p had gotten the new benchmark for
BR games. H1Z1 and even more so PUBG could afford to still be buy to play,
since they offered a (at least relatively) more polished and simply better
game. Xaviant on the other hand charged 20 Dollars for a game in the condition
of The Culling 2, which left consumers speechless and enraged. There was simply
no point for most users to buy a game, that was far worse, than most of the
free BR games.
Xaviant
realized the colossal failure they made with the release of The Culling 2 and
created an apology video to ask for the forgiveness of the community and to
offer complete refunds to all buyers of the game. The game itself may have been
a giant disaster, but this was a brave and honorable decision by Xaviant. The
financial risk of a complete refund was massive, if you consider how much money
and time they must have invested. The Culling 2 may not have looked like it,
but every game development requires a couple of months of work and investment,
and they just gave up on any potential return on investment. Furthermore, only
few videogame developers truely admit to mistakes and apologize for them.
Therefore this gestue showed a good will and was appreciated. After the closure
of the Culling 2, Xaviant relaunched the original Culling game and turned it
f2p. You can see how that story ended in my Culling 1 review.
Result:
Culling 2
was a game, that was simply doomed to fail. The original Culling offered a
unique experience and was in its original state a relatively flawless game.
Culling 2 on the other hand looked like a very poor and rushed copy and paste
imitation of PUBG and H1Z1, while still managing to be noticeably inferior in
nearly every department. The hideous graphics, horrible gunplay and movement
may have been the nails in the coffin, but the buy to play feature was the gasoline,
that lead the coffin on fire.
(Rating a
game, that I could not play myself, is a nearly impossible task. I would
however assume, based on everything I saw, that the Culling 2 wouldn't have
gotten more than a 2/10 or 3/10 from me.)
