The Cullingwas one of those games that started off a decent Battle Royale in some respects, but withFortniteandPUBGtaking the crown and players away to their own takes on the genre,The Cullingkinda died, respawned, and died again. But it’s back again, and this time there’s a very strange thing you need to do to play for more than one day.
Back in 2016,The Cullingwasofficially announced. A game by Xaviant that liked to market itself with a lot of blood with the goal of surviving as you’d expect to do in a Battle Royale. The game then arrived on Xbox Onethrough the Xbox Game Preview service, but then shortly afterdevelopment endedin 2017 as the developers went off to work on another title. Go forward to 2018,The Culling 2was announcedbut the launch was…not brilliant.
So what did Xaviant do? It pulledThe Culling 2from digital storefrontsand decided to go back to developing the original version ofThe Culling.
Now, Josh Van Veld, director of operations at Xaviant appeared in anew videofrom the studio to announce thatThe Cullingis coming back, this time for Xbox One on June 24, 2025. That’s tomorrow. Josh mentions that “running a free-to-play online game can be expensive,” and goes into details on what’s included with a high player count. He explains that when the game arrived free-to-play on Xbox One in the past, it apparently brought in over a million new players in a couple of months.
“Moving forward,The Cullingwill no longer be free-to-play,” he announces. “if you already brought the game, even if you got it for free, you still own it, so you won’t have to buy it again.” He continues by stating that new players will get access to a one-day free trial, after that it’ll cost $5.99.
“Every day, you’ll get one free online match, and if you win an online match you’ll earn a free match token. So you’ll be able to play the game online every day without spending any additional money.” he explains while detailing the bizarre new system. “If you want to play more than that, we’ll be offering token packs along with passes that give unlimited access for a week, or a month.”
He tries to justify the new approach by saying it means players won’t be subjected to loot boxes and crates. Great. Oh, and if you were an avid player, your profile will be reset.
Tokens packs go from $0.99 upwards to $5.99. Unlimited online passes go from $1.99-$5.99. Otherwise, you’ll just have to hope you can…win to carry on playing for more than one match. Fantastic.
The Cullingis being…re-released(?) tomorrow on May 14 for Xbox One. A PC version may be on the way.
