Greetings contestants!

Last time we spoke we were beginning what we thought was a short road to Xbox Certification. A few weeks later, it appears that road might’ve been a bit longer than our GPS led us to believe. In retrospect, using Mapquest in 2018 was probably not the best choice.

Jokes aside, we’re still in the midst of the certification tornado. Standing squarely in the center, it’s difficult to say exactly when the Xbox One version will be given the green light, but we’re hopeful that it’ll be sooner than later. Though this process can be somewhat nebulous, we’ll continue to keep you updated whenever anything of note changes or if any setbacks occur.

While the Xbox One version is still our priority, we know that the current patch on PC has gotten a little long in the teeth. Even though it’s almost Halloween, it’s time to file those fangs down. Tomorrow a brand new patch will be delivered that reaches from gameplay to matchmaking and beyond.

Servers will be down to deliver the patch tomorrow, October 25th, at 8AM Eastern Time for up to 4 hours.

We know that many aspects of tomorrow’s update touch upon key issues within the community, and will usher in sever quality of life changes to improve the overall matchmaking experience. We want to thank you not only for your feedback but also for your patience as we work as hard as we can to bring Origins to everyone.

Until next time,

See you on the island


Patch notes:

• For consistency, all items now apply a brief interrupt when they are thrown.
  
• Bots are used to fill open slots in online matches
  - Bot kills count towards XP and stats (including leaderboard kills)
  - Bots do not provide score bonuses for leaderboard score
  - Various improvements to bot behavior
  - Bots have been assigned customized names and outfits
  
• All hair cosmetics are now available to equip on male and female contestants
  
• Your most recently applied weapon skin is now previewed in your character’s hands on the main menu
  
• Your character can now be rotated on the main menu
  
• Chemist Perk now applies exclusively to MuscleMan Milk, X-plosive Runs, and Iron-4-Skin stims
  
• Fixed a bug where melee damage would not scale appropriately based on charge percentage, which resulted in partially charged hits dealing jab damage
  
• Fixed a bug where Weakness wound was not applying its status effect, set its duration to 12s to match other weapon wounds
  
• The hit reaction that plays when you are struck with a shove, jab, or charged attack (assuming this action does not result in a full stagger) no longer roots you in place, eliminating the ‘mini-stagger’ effect
  
• Store preview screen now displays a list of outfit contents
  
• Fixed a bug where region names were not consistent
  
• Fixed end of match scoreboard to allow all contestants’ names to fit
  
• Matchmaking system will now enforce bands - players will not be matchmade against other players with significantly different matchmaker skill rating
  
• Fixed a bug where armor would not disappear after being destroyed
  
• Made a handful of performance optimizations
  Increased stamina regeneration rate while walking or standing still
  
• Reduced the stamina cost of bow shots
  
• Fixed a bug where incorrect attack animation would sometimes play, depending on how far the attack had been charged
  
• Fixed a bug where headshots would bypass armor but still apply damage to it
  
• Improved input queuing behavior when transitioning out of a block
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented the Deuce achievement from unlocking
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented the Trapper airdrop from being included in the random list
  
• Fixed a bug where the Weakness wound would not be applied properly, correctly set duration to 12 seconds
  re thrown and hit a target’s back
  
• Restored full controller support (was missing from recently added store screens)
  
• Players are no longer staggered when they are hit with pepper spray
  Armor no longer protects against alarm gun wound
  
• Fixed issues with certain keyboard keys not being mappable
  
• Bow velocity is no longer reduced when player’s stamina is empty
  
• Fixed a bug where Blue Crates would not spawn in all available locations
  

Greetings contestants!

The air is crisp, the leaves are beginning to change, pumpkin spice is in our lattes, fall is officially upon us.Though the clocks are soon to be moving back, this change in season has us looking at the road ahead.

Origins has been a passion project for us here at Xaviant and we’ve been moved by the kind words, well wishes and messages of support you’ve given us since its release. We know that The Culling is as special for many of you as it is for us and we’re thrilled to return to the island once again.

As exciting as Origins is, it is just the first big step in what we hope is a much longer journey. As we enter a new season, today feels like as good a day as any to share some of our far-reaching plans, as well as deliver a state of the union as to what’s currently cooking at L’Studio Xaviant.

Immediate

Xbox One: Our focus is to launch The Culling: Origins on Xbox One. We’re currently in the thrall of the Xbox certification process which makes it difficult to pinpoint an exact date, but we think we are down to a matter of days, not weeks. We’re committed to delivering on our promise and bringing free-to-play to all contestants as quickly as possible.

Server Stability: We’re strengthening our online infrastructure to be faster and more reliable. We’ve rolled out several fixes and improvements already and we will continue to implement new upgrades on a regular basis.

Short-term

In addition to launching Xbox One version of Origins, we are also hard at work on a new update that includes quality of life changes and improvements for all users.

[These changes are planned to go live following The Culling: Origins on Xbox One]

• Mini-Stagger: You’ve made yourselves clear, it’s time for mini-stagger to go, and go, it shall. The removal of mini-stagger is in its final stages of internal testing and will be included (or is that excluded?) in the next update.
  
  
• Showdown: You made it clear that you’d like to see Showdown return. We intend to make some improvements to ensure that it communicates clearly and traps as many no-good teamers as possible.
  
  
• Enhanced Matchmaking: The Culling is a lot of fun when everyone in the match has a chance at a win. Our existing matchmaker prioritizes queue times and full matches over making sure you’re matched with players of a similar skill. Our new formula will be unwilling to match new players with veterans.
  
  - To bolster this system, bots will be used to fill out online matches in low-population situations. As such, bots are receiving a round of cosmetic and behavior improvements to ensure that they enhance, rather than hinder matches where they appear.
  
  
• Early Closure: In case a match is full of highly aggro contestants, you’ve asked that we keep the action moving quickly and shut the match down early. We’re working on a simple method to shave a few minutes when the conditions are right.

Long-term
This is it. The grand kahuna.The big potato. The spiciest chicken wing. This is The Culling 2018/2019 Roadmap.

Below you will find a nifty graphic that highlighting our vision for the future. Though not all-encompassing, each milestone on the roadmap represents key, tentpole changes coming to The Culling. Along the way we will continue to optimize, fix bugs, and address any pressing balance issues that arise.

Also note that these milestones will be achieved incrementally, not in one fell swoop. So you can expect to receive juicy updates at regular intervals along the way.

——————————————————————————————————

Milestone 1

For too long Duo play has played second fiddle to Solo. It’s time for Duos to play first fiddle, or at least equal fiddle. A mutually successful fiddle. Double Trouble puts the emphasis on team play in the wild and in custom matches. Perk up, partner up and take on on other teams in expanded matches with more contestants than ever before.There may be no I in team, but there is a U in Duos.

Milestone 2

What is a game show without bonus prizes?Challenge Accepted ups the ante and weaves in new layers of achievement during each match. There can only be one winner, but who says you can’t go home with some consolation prizes?

Milestone 3

We’re throwing a party and everyone is invited!With Private Party we’re offering you the producer hat and giving you the tools you need to create your very own Cullcast sponsored events.Choose the contestants. Customize the match options and showcase all the mayhem in a brand new spectator mode.

Milestone 4

By this point, The Culling will have emphasized Duo Play, debuted a new challenge system and overhauled custom matches to be more customizable than ever before.It’s time to think big and play big. It’s time to Bring the Whole Squad.More friends. More enemies. More match events. More island. More Culling.

The future is bright and we’re chomping at the bit to bring all of the above, and more, to The Culling over the coming months. ——————————————————————————————————

We want to know what you think. Send us a message on Facebook and/or Twitter and let us know what you’re most excited for.

But that’s all of our time for today.

Until next time…
See you on the island!

Greetings Contestants!

It’s been a very busy week here at studio Xav. We’re having a blast with Origins and we’re proud to say that many of you have reached out to share that you feel the same way. We’re doing our best to get as many new contestants onto the Island as possible and to spread the good news that is Origins.

You may have heard that we have announced The Culling: Origins Island Invitational, a $25K streamer tournament coming up this weekend. We haven’t announced all of the participants yet, but you’ll be able to check them all out on Saturday, September 29th at 8pm ET / 5PM PT on Twitch[www.twitch.tv].

We’re super excited to showcase The Culling: Origins on a grand stage, but we’re also looking to get the game to a stage it has been on before and one that you’ve been asking about quite a bit: Xbox One.

As of this moment we’re getting close to submitting the Xbox version to certification. Our target timeframe to get Origins to the Xbox is two weeks, just in time for October. Please keep in mind though that this process can be fluid, and while we’d like to share a concrete date, we simply cannot do that at this point. We hope to know more info in the coming week.

On the gameplay front, you’ve been talking and we’ve been listening. We think the current live build is exactly what we wanted to achieve with the Origins launch - as close to Day 1 as makes sense. That means we’ve arrived at a point where we can carefully and methodically make some changes, specifically changes that you’re asking for.

Before we go into those, we want to take a second to talk about the future. It’s the “anything can happen” atmosphere that only The Culling provides that makes the game unique. Chasing the mythical dragon that is perfect balance is not only resource-consuming, in a game like The Culling it’s nearly impossible. We’ve been down that road before, heck, you’ve been down that road with us. It’s not fun. Not for you, not for us and certainly not for new players.

Rather than devoting a big chunk of time to obsessing over each weapon/item/perk/etc. being equal, we’d rather celebrate what The Culling is and look for ways to build the experience with new content and features. This doesn’t mean that we’re done making targeted changes to existing systems, what it does mean is that we don’t expect every aspect of the game to be perfectly balanced.

Tweaking gameplay and emphasizing quality of life changes is important, but we want to see The Culling grow. We think deep down, you do too.

Now, let’s get down to business. Here are a few topics you’ve been very vocal about:

Mini-Stagger. In Day 1, if you were jabbed or shoved, your hit reaction animation briefly overruled your movement input, resulting in a short ‘mini-stagger’ where you could still rotate and fight but you could not move. We later removed this component, allowing you free movement, but we put it back into Origins for the sake of matching Day 1. We tend to agree with the feedback we’ve been hearing - it doesn’t feel good to get rooted in place, and being able to do it reliably in a 2-on-1 situation can lead to a stun-lock that’s really not fun.

Showdown. Showdown is a feature that uses an in-game event to curtail teaming. If two players get too chummy for too long, they initiate a showdown. They must remain within the Showdown circle until one of them is dead. Of course the system isn’t perfect and can potentially lead to false positives, but you seem to feel that the benefits outweigh the risks.

Early Gas Closure. Another feature that was added later but removed for Day 1 was population-based map closure. The basic idea was that if a match is progressing rapidly, that is, players are dying quickly, then the gas starts its closure early so that things stay lively. This also helps during off-peak hours when matches might not fill completely.

We’re very interested to hear your opinions on these features. Should we leave them as-is or make changes? Please chime in on our new survey and let us know what you think.

Until next time,

We’ll see you on the Island.

Greetings contestants!

As we close in on a week of The Culling being free-to-play, we have our first post-Origins patch inbound. Rather than making sweeping changes this new patch is intended instead to get melee combat feeling even closer to Day 1, as well as to address some big quality of life issues and bugs. We’ll have more to announce about our longer-term roadmap, including when you can expect Origins on Xbox One, soon.

Servers will be down Friday, September 20th at 8AM Eastern for up to 4 hours.[/b]

Changes

- Melee Combat

• Melee attack animation playback speed is no longer affected by weapon speed (to match Day 1 combat timings)
  
  
• Fix for hit reactions when Shoved not looking correct from some directions
  
  
• Fix for melee input queuing bug resulting in the ability to charge attacks while shoving
  
  
• Reduced melee input queuing window to reduce unwanted queued actions
  
  
• Shove animation duration now 0.8s to match Day 1
  
  
• Shove range reduced from 2.0m to 1.75m to match attack range
  
  
• Striking a Shoving player now consistently applies a Stagger (this required special timing in Day 1)
  
  Dev comments: Please see our recent dev diaries, which explain these items in detail. All of these changes are intended to either get combat closer to Day 1 or address inconsistencies from Day 1 that muddied the experience. We will continue to follow community feedback regarding the melee combat systems.

- Reduced spawn rate of firearms in Blue Crates and Red Crates

Dev comments: We like seeing guns turn up in crates occasionally, but the drop rate was high enough that you usually saw several guns in many matches. The drop rate has been reduced by roughly two thirds.

- Removed Dynamite, Impact Grenades from Green Crates

Dev comments: You can still get explosive mines and remote explosives from green crates. This was something we talked about in a previous dev diary but didn’t implement.

- Fix for aiming down the sights with a ranged weapon not providing an accuracy bonus

Dev comments: This bug was introduced when we made some bow accuracy changes for Origins. We’ll be keeping an eye out for Bow accuracy feedback now that this issue is resolved.

- We now hide crosshairs when aiming down the sights with ranged weapons

Dev comments: This is not intended to affect ranged weapon balance, we felt that the crosshairs were a distraction when aiming down the sights.

- Voice communication now uses push-to-talk (mapped to Left Alt by default)

- Fixed several keyboard keys that could not be mapped

- Added menu option to invert mouse Y axis

- Fixed bug that allowed players to apply a second satchel to unlock 5th inventory slot

- Fix for exploit based on recycling the Detonator for a Remote Explosive

- Don’t show player count on main menu (the count was not accurate and didn’t account for players who were in matches)

- Fix for bug where Sabre applied cripple wound even when Disabler perk was not equipped

- Fix for US West not being selected as an automatic region

- Golden Arm perk description now accurately reflects that Golden Arm’s bonus damage scales based on distance from target (reaches 100% bonus damage at 20 meters)

- Trapper now provides a single Steel Caltrops

- Fix for bug with Explosive Runs description that stated the stim grants 25% boost for 30 seconds (it provides 15% boost for 2 minutes)

- Fixed UI typo for Headphones

How do you feel about our patch? Share your thoughts in this survey

Until Next Time,

We’ll see you on the Island.

Greetings Contestants!

Yesterday, we shared our findings related to shove spam becoming a “thing,” and took you down the rabbit hole explaining how we intend to make some small tweaks to help you escape the grasp of a nasty shove sandwich in duos.

As it turns out, the rabbit hole goes quite a bit deeper.

Some of you have noted that combat still feels a little off compared to Day 1. You’ve given us the feedback that fast weapons are too darn fast and that the meta is evolving into something generally spammier than it used to be. One intrepid community member even took the time to create a side-by-side video that illustrated some differences.

As a result, we’ve taken a deeper dive and we’ve found a couple of likely suspects.

In the Day 1 build a bug with the weapon speed system resulted in all weapons jabbing at the same rate (once every 0.67 seconds), regardless of their speed. The attack animation played faster for fast weapons, but was followed by a brief pause after the animation before you could take another action. With slow weapons, however, you could take another action before the attack animation completed, which felt so margarinely-smooth that you wouldn’t believe it’s not butter.

In the Origins build, this bug is rectified, which means that you are able to take another action immediately after your jab is finished. For fast weapons, this means an action every 0.57 seconds. For slow weapons, every 0.8 seconds. These may seem like a matter of only tenths of seconds, but the net result is that fast weapons have a significant mechanical advantage in Origins vs. Day 1, and slow weapons are at a significant disadvantage. Furthermore, with a fast weapon you can engage in far spammier behavior than you could in Day 1.

But wait, there’s more!

We also took a closer look at Shove, and found that the Origins shove animations last 0.67 seconds (which matches the base jab time). In Day 1, the Shove duration was 0.8 seconds. Again, only about a tenth of a second, but it can make a big difference in terms of feel, risk, and spammability.

So what are we going to do about it?

Here’s the thing: This sucks and it represents a pair of major oversights on our part. We worked hard to deliver Origins to you in a timely manner and these deviations from Day 1 were not intentional. Moreover, they are definitely not in keeping with our commitment to preserve Day 1 combat. At the same time, a big motivator for sticking with Day 1 combat is to prevent players from having to re-learn combat because we keep making changes. Making changes now, as always, risks alienating players who like combat in Origins just the way it is.

The only good answer, in our humble opinion, is to remain committed to Day 1 parity and fix these issues.

Our plan is as follows:

• Weapon speed will no longer scale attack animation speed. This means all attack animations will be consistent across all weapons (at 0.67 seconds) and weapon speed will only impact charge time. From a gameplay standpoint, this will match Day 1, but from a feel standpoint it represents a small improvement over Day 1, as fast weapons will no longer force you to wait for a fraction of a second after the animation completes before you can take another action. This is how the system should have been implemented in the first place.
  
  
• Shoves will return to their Day 1 timing of 0.8 seconds.

How did this happen and how can we be confident there aren’t more issues like this lurking?

We did a good job of returning all the timings and variables back to Day 1 settings across the combat system, but we failed to recognize how important it was to “unfix” the Day 1 weapon speed bug. In the case of the shove animations, we like the look of the new animations better so we decided to keep them, but we failed to check the timings to make sure they matched.

The bottom line is we screwed up. It’s hard to admit, but it’s true.

Are there more issues like this out there? It’s possible. We’re keeping our eyes peeled and we’re counting on you all to continue reporting the issues that you find. We suspect that after this round of changes things will stabilize considerably.

We are currently targeting this Friday for a patch that addresses these combat fixes along with some other important items. We’ll get a preview of our patch notes out ASAP.

In the meantime, how do you feel about this plan? Please fill out the survey and let us know[docs.google.com].

Until Next Time,

We’ll see you on the Island.

Greetings Contestants!

Thank you all for coming out en masse for the Origins launch! We’re happy with our initial results but we’re certainly not satisfied yet. We think there are plenty of potential contestants out there who don’t even know about The Culling or that it’s free-to-play. We’ve got some big plans to change that, so stay tuned.

We also want to thank you for being so excellent about reporting issues and giving feedback. Origins was always intended as a fresh start and that means there is plenty of forward progress to be made. This means a new opportunity for us to put lessons learned into practice.

First off, we want to address the issue of missing Tokens.

We know that some number of users have not received the Tokens that are included as part of the Founder’s Pack. We are working on a fix to prevent this from happening. Once the fix has been implemented, we will go through all users to ensure they receive the Tokens they are entitled to. We apologize for the inconvenience.

There are several other items we’ve been hearing about that we’re looking at. Among them are Push-to-Talk, Bow Accuracy, Teaming, and a handful of significant bugs and exploits. We intend to roll out a patch as soon as possible (hopefully before the end of the week) that addresses many of these.

A NOTE ON DAY 1 SERVERS
As we set about writing this diary, we found ourselves wanting to go back to the Day 1 Reference servers to do some research. We found that this was harder to do than we wanted because those servers required 8 players to start a match. Moving forward, you can start a match with as few as 2 players, so we encourage you to do what we did. Grab a friend and compare Day 1 with Origins for yourselves.

SHOVE SPAM
In this diary we want to drill down on one particularly hot topic — SHOVE SPAM. The situation that highlights this problem is when combat becomes a 2-on-1, where a team can permanently stun-lock a single player by doing nothing but shoving repeatedly.

It’s worth noting that we did not intentionally make any changes to combat mechanics in Origins vs. Day 1 and we approached this problem assuming we may have missed something. As such, we’ve taken another close look at Day 1 side by side with Origins. Here’s what we’ve found:

DAY 1: In this build, being shoved (as long as you’re not blocking) is a lot like taking a tiny jab. You take a small amount of damage and you play a brief (roughly 0.8 seconds) hit reaction animation, which also moves your character a short distance opposite the direction you were hit from. During this hit reaction, you are unable to move, but you are free to take other actions.

If you are struck while shoving, you can receive a full stagger, although this can only happen during a small window.

We also found that in Day 1, the range of shoves is nearly 15% larger than melee attacks. This allows a player to execute a shove without being hit by a counter-attack.

ORIGINS: In the Origins update, things are very similar to Day 1. One difference is that if you are shoved from the front or from behind, your first-person hit reaction is visually bugged. Being shoved from behind actually causes the camera to detach from your character, and you see your headless body lurch forward. Despite the visual differences being off-putting, this functionality behaves the same as Day 1, with the same timing and potential for stun-lock if you are shoved repeatedly.

One thing that did change slightly in Origins is that if you jab a shoving player, your window to stagger them is larger, but it still feels inconsistent and requires precise timing, so jabbing does not feel like a useful counter to shove-spamming.

Origins retains the inconsistent range of shoves vs. attacks.

THE PLAN
We remain committed to the rules and feel of Day 1 combat, so we want to minimize changes. That said, when things are inconsistent, buggy, or don’t communicate well, it’s worth fixing.

• With that in mind, there are three problems to address:
  In Origins, being shoved doesn’t communicate properly due to animation bugs.
  
• In Origins and Day 1, jabbing a shoving player doesn’t consistently result in a stagger.
  
• In Origins and Day 1, shoving has an advantage over attacking due to a longer range.
  
  Our fixes are as follows:
  
• When you are shoved, you play a hit reaction animation similar to that when you are jabbed. This tells you you’ve been struck, but your hands remain on-screen and you know you are free to take combat action, even if your movement is briefly impaired.
  
• If you attack a shoving player, they will be staggered, consistently. This makes the rule clear: Jab beats shove. Shove beats block. Block beats Jab.
  
• Shove’s range is reduced to match that of jab (and charged attacks). This means consistent range for all combat actions across all weapons.

The net result of these changes is that the system will behave more cleanly and consistently and results in a clear counter for shove spam.

We’d like to hear your reaction to this plan. We’d also like to know what you think our top priorities should be. Please take a moment to complete our new survey[docs.google.com].

Until Next Time,

Greetings Contestants!

Battle Royale is back.

Not only is that the official tagline of The Culling: Origins, but it’s also very true, which makes it the best slogan of September 2018.

With Origins right around the corner, we think it’s time to give you an overview of the update as well as answer some lingering questions. We’re in the relative calm before the storm of our relaunch, so it seems fitting to take a moment to speak from the heart.

Two months ago, our studio felt like we’d crashed into the rocks. We were stuck and there was no clear path forward. We had to take a moment, take a breath, and think about how we’d steered our ship into such a predicament.

After some real, serious soul-searching, we realized that there was no clear path forward unless we went back to right some wrongs in our past. The Culling is the game that put us on the map and presented us with some amazing opportunities. But you, the community, are the people who made that opportunity real. Somehow we lost sight of that, and we lost our way when we let you down.


When we decided to return to our origins by returning to The Culling, we knew it was the right thing to do. We didn’t know if that choice would keep our studio alive, and to be honest, we still don’t know for sure. What we do know is that there was a tremendous outpouring of hope and support from the game’s most hardcore fans and from the community at large.

Your hope is infectious and your positive messages put wind back in our sails.

Admitting failure and choosing a path forward wasn’t easy, but once we started to put one foot in front of the other, plans fell naturally into place. Looking back, the last two months have been an utter joy. We’re a group of developers who love making games, and this Origins update has given us an opportunity to tackle a new challenge together.

The stakes are incredibly high for us, but that makes the challenge even more exciting.

Adding to our new sense of purpose is the fact that you have been with us each step of the way. We’re still not perfect and we have a lot of room to grow, but we did our best to share our plans and gather your input as we went. And from where we sit now, it feels like the process is working. The Culling, which started out as a great game, is better than ever with Origins. It’s one of the grandfathers of the Battle Royale genre, and even today it stands alone as a completely unique experience.

The Culling is brutal. It’s in your face. It rewards patience, strategy, and smart decisions as much as mechanical skill. It’s now a game that’s confident in its own skin, a game that has been shaped by your influence. It’s a collaboration in the truest sense of the word.

Whatever happens in the coming weeks and months, we are grateful for this second chance. We can hold our heads up high knowing that we chose a path less taken because it was the right thing to do. Thank you for that.

Now, let’s talk about what we have in store for you this week.

What is The Culling: Origins?

It goes without saying that the biggest change is that The Culling: Origins is free-to-play, which has been one of the most requested features from our community. Yet, there’s much more to Origins than simply a change in format.

When The Culling originally launched in March of 2016, it had an exciting, “anything goes” approach to battle royale that was eventually sanded down over the course of many updates. Origins brings back that special mojo by returning to the game’s roots, incorporating the spirit of Day 1 combat, perks, airdrops and overall gameplay.

Blending the classic with the new, Origins also offers some big improvements over the original. Origins introduces a stunning new art direction that modernizes the original feel of The Culling. It also adds new features, including XP and leveling, leaderboards, Cull Crates, hundreds of new cosmetics, new weapons, skill-based matchmaking, and voice chat.

There are some systems (such as wounds) that don’t match Day 1, nor do they utilize what was in the latest live version of the game. Whenever we encountered a situation where we felt that the Day 1 approach wasn’t viable, we utilized surveys to gather community feedback that informed our decisions.

If you’d like to read up on the details, you can find our Dev Diaries at theculling.com.

When can I play The Culling Origins?

The Culling: Origins launches this Friday, September 14th at 12PM Eastern Daylight time for Steam PC.

How does free-to-play work in Origins?

All aspects of gameplay are completely free-to-play in Origins.

If you do want to support The Culling and spend real money, we’re offering ways to purchase premium cosmetics (clothing, weapon skins, taunts, victory celebrations, and Culling Cards) through premium currency and paid DLC.

The cosmetics system works like this:

As you play, you earn XP. When you’ve earned enough XP, you level up, which grants you a Cull Crate. Each Cull Crate awards 4 items. These can be standard cosmetic items or stacks of Credits.

Credits, which are also awarded whenever you receive a duplicate item in a Cull Crate, can be used to directly purchase standard cosmetic items.

Origins adds Premium items and currency to the mix. Some items (many of which are newly added to the game with the Origins update), are designated as Premium and can only be purchased with Tokens. You can also use tokens to buy packs of Cull Crates.

Tokens are purchased with real money and also infrequently drop from Cull Crates. In addition to Tokens, there are paid DLC packs with exclusive items.

The Culling does not (and will never) feature any pay-to-win mechanics. All premium purchases are cosmetic and intended as a means to support the dev team and the game.

What if I bought The Culling before it was free to play?

All players who bought The Culling before it was free to play are entitled to our “Original Gangster” founder’s pack. For new players, this DLC package is priced to reflect the highest price we ever charged for The Culling.

It includes two full “O.G.” outfits, 1000 Tokens, 10 Cull Crates, 4 Culling Cards, 2 weapon skins, a Taunt, and a Celebration. All of the cosmetic items contained in the DLC are new and exclusive to the Founder’s Pack, meaning that you can’t purchase them individually or get them from Cull Crates.

The Founder’s Pack is meant to show our appreciation for the game’s original supporters as well as provide an avenue for new players to get in on the action.

If you are a returning player who played The Culling after the Big House update, all of your stats, progress and unlocks are retained in Origins. This includes all of the exclusive items from the past, such as the Trials Winner t-shirts, which were limited-time and cannot be unlocked by new players.

When is The Culling: Origins coming to Xbox One?

We don’t have a firm date yet but we’re working to get the update to Xbox players ASAP. There is custom work required to support free-to-play on Xbox One as well as a certification process that must be passed. We’ll let you know when we have a better estimate.

What maps are included in The Culling: Origins?

For many players, the Island map is emblematic of the true essence of The Culling and delivers the gameplay experience you most associate with the world’s deadliest game show.

Because of this, Origins features the Island map for online play.

While it is not currently fully supported (and lacks the Day 1 tuning it will require), players can still experience the Prison offline as well as in online custom matches. We will consider re-introducing the Prison for future updates, but for now we want to ensure the best possible queue times and matchmaking, so limiting the game to the original map makes the most sense.

Can I create custom matches in Origins?

Yes, players are free to create custom matches in Origins on Steam PC.

Though Xbox One did not support custom matches in the past, we’re happy to report that they will be able to access this feature soon.

What regions is Origins available to play in?

We have server clusters available in North America (East and West Coast), Europe, and Oceania. Future region support will be determined by player demand.

How does Origins deal with cheaters?

The Culling: Origins features Easy Anti-Cheat protection. We are committed to an ongoing effort to keep cheaters and toxic players out of the game.

How do Leaderboards work?

Leaderboards in Origins are seasonal. Ranks are displayed for top winners, top killers, and top scores.

Scoring is based on your ten best match scores for the season. Match scores are based on your placement, kills (kill value increases as the match progresses), and time alive. To achieve Diamond rank (and have a chance to be seen by everyone), you’ll need to win 10 matches with an impressive number of kills in each match.

There are separate leaderboards for Solo and Duos.

Will The Culling be updated in the future?

Yes!

Origins represent a new beginning for development of The Culling. We have lots of ideas for the future, but we also want to know what you’d like to see. Here are some of the things we’re thinking about, in no particular order:

• Ongoing bug fixes and stability improvements
  
• Ongoing optimization
  
• Minor balancing based on community feedback
  
• Improved custom match support, with mutators that allow the host to
• customize the experience, dedicated spectator slots, and the ability to kick
• players from custom lobbies
  
• New perks and airdrops
  
• Battle Pass to encourage varied play styles and provide a means for
• players to experience incremental performance-based progress and rewards
  
• Limited-time game modes
  
• More robust support for teams matches, including revive mechanic (possibly in Perk form), Team-focused perks, more teams in a match, and larger team sizes
  
• New cosmetics and avenues for customizing your experience
  
• Player reporting system

You can look forward to more surveys not long after Origins launches.

It’s been a pretty wild rollercoaster ride here at Xaviant for the last couple of months. While it can be scary to take a big risk, it’s also thrilling, especially when you know you have the community’s support behind you.

We’ve been having an absolute blast getting Origins ready for you and we hope you love it as much as we do. Please come out for the relaunch, and bring a few (hundred) friends with you. This is a labor of love for us, but it won’t succeed unless you make it happen.

Until next time,

We’ll see you on the Island this Friday.

Xaviant Director of Operations Josh Van Veld offers a special announcement on The Culling: Origins

Watch here

Xaviant Director of Operations Josh Van Veld delivers a development update for The Culling and shares when you might expect to be playing Origins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZqIzZUBpq4&feature=youtu.be

In preparation for the Origins update and a shift to Free-to-Play we have taken The Culling (incl Day 1) off of sale on Steam.

We want to offer a huge thank you to all of our founders for your support.