Fortnite and PUBG jump-started the battle royale phenomenon. However, that doesn’t mean that every game has to be forcefully turned into a battle royale game. That’s what The Culling 2 developer Xaviant has learned the hard way throughout last week since the game’s release on July 10. Peaking at about two hundred players, the game was considered an instant failure. Now Xaviant has announced that day one version of its first game is returning today, in the form of The Culling Day One Reference.
In a blog post earlier today, Xaviant surprised us by revealing that it’s bringing back the day one build of its original game, The Culling. By doing this, the developer aims to “rebuild our relationship with you and regain your trust.” The day one build of the game is taken from the March 2016 version, and it will be deployed on the developer’s Day One Reference servers.
Gamers should be happy to learn that The Culling Day One Reference is free for everyone who owns The Culling on Steam. Owners of the original game will automatically see the Day One Reference version of the game as a separate app in their Steam library, starting from 2 p.m. ET/11 a.m. PT today on July 20, 2018. At the moment, it will only be available on North American servers, with European server support coming soon.
After launching The Culling Day One Reference, Xaviant will be working toward a relaunch of the latest version of the game, which will contain all updates featuring all of the gameplay elements of the original. The developer is describing it as a “modern remaster that is as true to the original as it can be, but still retains all of the bug fixes and optimizations.”
Unfortunately for The Culling players on the Xbox One, The Culling Day One Reference will only be available on the PC. This is due to the day one version of the game not being compatible with the console. However, Xaviant reassures Xbox One players that they will receive all “future changes” directly. All of this comes merely several days after Xaviant Director of Operations Josh Van Veld apologized for The Culling 2 debacle.
