The Culling Relaunch Announced with Bizarre Business Model

Xaviant, the ill-fated developers behind such gems like The Culling and The Culling II, have announced a relaunch of their previous almost-kinda-hit. Called The Culling Origins, it’ll come out on May 14th on Xbox One, with a PC version also in the works. Attached to the relaunch is a very confusing (and, according to many gamers and outlets, downright insulting) business model. So far, it has only served to turn the public opinion against Xaviant even more than it already has been.

So, we’ve mentioned several times how strange the business model for The Culling Origins is. What exactly are we talking about here? Well, let’s try and break things down. For one, the game isn’t free-to-play anymore; now you have to pay six bucks to buy it. That is, unless you’ve played The Culling back in the day; if you have, you still get to play it for free. Newcomers, however, have to pay $5.99. So, that’s kinda weird already, but nothing too bad yet. Oh, we’re just getting started.

See, when you purchase The Culling Origins, you “get” to play one “free” online match a day. You get one Online Match Token a day, that’s your lot. Unless you win in that match; if you do, you’ll get another Token. So, right off the bat, calling that one token free is a joke, but that’s just the beginning. See, you can also purchase the privilege to play more than one online match a day. You can buy packs of Tokens (3 for a buck, 10 for three bucks, 20 for five bucks), or online passes for unlimited play (7 days for $2, 30 days for $6).

So, really, if you want to play this game normally, you have to fork out the game’s full price every month. It truly boggles the mind how Xaviant imagine how this model is going to fly with anybody. It’d be one thing if they had an established fan base that is ready to roll with anything, like Fallout 76 does, but they don’t. We’ll see what happens soon enough, and I hope to god it doesn’t end up being successful, or else everybody will try and emulate this nonsense.