The Culling 2 (PC/PS4) Historical Review

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.)