The frequently shut down Battle Royale The Culling is coming back for the third time, but as The Culling: Origins on Xbox One.
The game will be made available to Xbox One players on May 14 for $5.99, and it comes with a 1-day free trial before you have to pay. For those who have previously purchased The Culling: Origins or downloaded it while it was free to play will not have to repurchase the title.
“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,” said Josh Van Veld, Xaviant’s Director of Operations. “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,” Van Veld concluded, “But we’re working to bring back the PC version in the future.”
For those curious as to what is changed, there are a few changes, most notably that players can only play one free match per day, with players earning additional matches through the following ways:
- By winning a match, which grants an online match token.
- By buy a pack of Online Match Tokens. 3 = $0.99, 10 = $2.99, 20 = $4.99
- Online Passes where players can play forever, with a 7 day pass being $1.99 and 30 days being $5.99.
There have been improvements made to the Xbox One graphical quality, with the game rendering at a 30% higher resolution with an improved framerate and anti-aliasing added. A.I. behavior has also been improved, so you'll have more fun when the game goes offline in a few months. While playing offline, players can earn crates, level up, and unlock airdrops. Stamina has also been changed, reducing the time it takes to regenerate.
What has not been regenerated is previous game saves and unlocks, which have been reset, meaning you'll need to restart unlocking stuff. That said, the game no longer has premium crates, and you can earn all the cosmetics as in-game drops.
What do you think of this news? Are you going to play The Culling? Are you tired of seeing it rebooted? Do you think this is a cash grab? Let us know in the comments!
