If you haven’t heard, the team here at Xaviant is working on a big new update called The Culling: Origins. The goal of the update is to take the game back to its roots. The look and feel will be very close to the Day 1 version, but we’ll be keeping the bug fixes, improved art content, and performance optimizations that were solid steps forward. Along with this update, The Culling will also become free-to-play.
We’ve been looking closely at the Day 1 Reference build and also reviewing all the changes we made made way back in the day. We know the game wasn’t perfect on Day 1, but we also recognize that on the whole, our changes took things in the wrong direction.
As confident as we are in our abilities, we also need a process where we can make improvements and additions without jeopardizing what made the game so special in the first place. Some of those changes will be coming with the release of the Origins update, so we need to open up lines of communication right away.
Right away as in right now.
We don’t want any surprises and we feel it’s important to give all of you an opportunity to weigh in with your opinions and ideas.
Let’s be real: Even with better communication, we’re bound to make mistakes. With that in mind, we want to assure you that when we do put a foot wrong, we’ll be listening to feedback and we won’t be too proud to roll back a change that isn’t working.
Our goal with our Dev Diary posts leading to Origins is to cover the major aspects of the game. If we’re planning to make changes that deviate from Day 1, we’ll explain the problem we’re trying to solve and the plan we’ve put together. We’ll give you the opportunity to weigh in on each topic.
Before we start tackling big topics, we want to outline our approach. These are some internal rules we’ve been making for ourselves:
When it comes to the mechanics, rules, and timing of melee combat, you can’t change anything without forcing everyone to relearn the game. Leave Day 1 alone.
Many systems were a lot more fun on Day 1. Only change what you have to. That includes Perks, Airdrops, Economy, Looting, and more.
Sometimes small changes have a bigger impact than you expect, so be careful and don’t fix something that isn’t broken.
The game features lots of highly lethal items, i.e. explosives, firearms, Stun Guns, etc. Finding a balance between high lethality (which can be a lot of fun) and easy accessibility (i.e. Stun Guns in cheap airdrops or Dynamite in Green Crates) is a tough proposition. Careful tuning is key. No dramatic changes.
On Day 1, the look and feel of the game was more sinister. Let’s get away from the brighter sci-fi look we introduced with The Big House and get back to The Culling.
The pacing and freedom offered in Day 1 was a lot of fun. Don’t force players to follow a specific path through a match and allow for gameplay creativity.
With that out of the way, we’d like to engage you all on a specific topic: Health Station Tethering.
On Day 1, you could initiate healing with a Health Station and maintain healing during a fight. This isn’t something we originally intended, but some players enjoy the dynamics of fighting around health stations in the Day 1 version.
In the live build, this behavior has been changed. You have to face the Health Station in order to heal and your healing is interrupted when you perform combat actions.
Since the Day 1 behavior wasn’t something we originally wanted and we don’t think it communicates well (it’s hard to tell who is being healed or how to interrupt them), our current plan is to maintain the live version and remove the tether.
What do you think? Please click the following link to fill out the survey.
Our main focus here at Xav HQ has been to get The Culling polished, full of Day 1 goodness, and to F2P as soon as possible. At the same time, we also know that we need to do some housekeeping when it comes to the Day 1 Reference Server experience if we hope to be accurately inspired.
So, that’s exactly what today’s patch focuses on.
We know that there are likely others you’d like to see addressed as well, but it can be a fine line. Along with wanting to keep the server as “vanilla” as possible, we also don’t want to split our resources, slowing down our ability to bring The Culling back to action on Xbox and PC.
Still, based on your feedback, we know that these are some of the main quality of life issues you wanted addressed to deliver a more stable feedback platform. We will continue to monitor your feedback, along with player activity and behavior as we move forward.
Servers will be down for around 1 hour beginning at 10AM ET / 7AM PT today.
You can find the changes to The Culling Day 1 Reference below:
<*>Punji Exploit - Removed the ability to punji stack.
This fix has the unintentional side effect of making other usable items (stims, armor, traps, backpacks, healing items) require a "hold" rather than a "click". Though this operates similarly to the live mainline build, it's our intention to keep the Day 1 Reference as original as possible. As such, we may address this in a future patch.
FPS - Raised maximum frames per second threshold from 60, to 120.
<*>Unlock Airdrops - Users will now be able to unlock airdrops found or called in via Surprise Me.
<*>Mouse Sensitivity: Starts at a reasonable level now, between low and high values.
<*>Save Folder: Now uses “TheCullingReference” folder instead of “Victory”.
The Culling Day 1 Available Now
Greetings Contestants,
Get ready to party like it's 2016 because murder is back on the menu, starting….today!
After a hiatus during which we needed to learn some major lessons and get our heads straight, we’re putting The Culling back in development. Our mission is to rebuild our relationship with you and regain your trust. We’re taking the first step today as we bring back the Day 1 build.
That’s right, the literal Day 1 version of the game from way back in March of 2016 will be deployed on what we’re now calling our Day 1 Reference servers (formerly known as Test Servers). As we move forward in development, this build will remain live to serve as an ongoing reference point to keep us from losing our way.
If this comes as a big surprise, please refer to our recent announcement. LINK.
If you own The Culling on Steam, you will be able to play The Culling: Day 1 Reference now, for free. All owners of The Culling will see Day 1 Reference as a separate app in their Steam Library.
With the Day 1 Reference servers live, the team will move forward toward our next goal; a relaunch of the latest version of the game updated to feature all of the gameplay elements of the original. Think of 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.
From there, we will continue development of the game with a new philosophy that centers around preserving and maintaining what made the original release so special. Don’t be scared, because we will bring you all along for the ride and keep you informed at every step along the way.
The Culling: Day 1 Reference is limited to PC only. Since this is literally the same client we released in March of 2016, it is not Xbox One compatible. We would love to make it available on Xbox, but that would require weeks, if not months of work. Rest easy though Xbox One players, because we will be bringing all of our future changes directly to you as well.
At first, The Culling: Day 1 Reference will only be available on our North American servers, but we are already working on European servers and expect to have it available to our European players very soon. We may consider other regions, but we’re not ready to discuss that at this time.
In case you haven’t heard, when the mainline version of The Culling relaunches it will be free-to-play. We want you to have plenty of friends to play with (read: murder) on the island and we think F2P is the best way to lure fresh meat to the servers. We need to do more work before we can provide a timeline or even predict what form it will take, but we will announce our relaunch date as soon as possible.
We know we’ve made serious mistakes as a studio, but we’re not ready to throw in the towel. Every last one of us wants a chance to get things right and show you that we’re just a good group of people who love making games together. At minimum, we want to give you a fresh opportunity to enjoy The Culling the way it was meant to be.
We can’t do it without your help. We hope that you can find it in yourselves to give us the chance we need. This is a new day. Tonight, the sun sets on the island, but not for the last time.
We’ll see you there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnnsR1pn_0k
A Message from Xaviant
We ask that you please watch the following video for an update on the status of our studio and the future of The Culling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24rR69Ygn20
The Culling Exits Steam Early Access and Xbox Game Preview #106182
Greetings contestants!
After a long journey, we’re pleased to launch The Culling out of Early Access and Xbox Game Preview into full release.
Server maintenance will occur today, Thursday, October 5th. PC servers will be down at 2PM Eastern. Xbox One Servers will be down at 6PM Eastern. Maintenance on each platform is expected to last up to four hours on each platform.
This update also coincides with the start of a new leaderboard season.
Features
<*>NEW! Golden Weapons
Dev Comments: Rather than delivering traditional airdrops for award-based match events (such as Grab My Package and Loot Express), we are now sending a crate with a single Golden Weapon to up the stakes of each event. These are Tier 3 weapons for mid-match events and Tier 4 weapons for late-match events. Their stats are generally identical to their non-golden counterparts, with a major twist. Our goal is that these weapons will provide a competitive edge, but won’t guarantee that you’ll win the match.
<*>Bleeding Blade - This Katana delivers a bleed that lasts until the victim heals.
Triflector - This Trident deals 2 points of damage to your opponent every time you are struck
<*>Nutcracker - This Sledgehammer can be charged for up to 3 seconds to deliver up to 60 damage
<*>Axetinguisher - While this Fireman’s Axe is equipped you are immune to all wounds
<*>VomiHawk - This Tomahawk inflicts a sickness wound with every strike
<*>Vampire Bat - Recover 2 hp each time you strike an opponent
<*>Doppledagger - When equipped, this Bowie Knife allows you to double-jump
<*>nfinity Pole - This Yari returns to your hand each time it’s thrown
NEW! Voice Support (Xbox)
<*>Proximity chat and Teammate chat
<*>Both of these features can be disabled in the options menu
NEW! Cosmetics
<*>Creepy Clown Outfits, Hair, and Masks
<*>8 new Victory Celebration animations.
<*>All weapons receive two new skins
<*>26 new Culling Cards
NEW! Achievements (for Steam and Xbox
Changes and Bug Fixes
<*>Improved leaderboards interface to display a detailed breakdown of the matches contributing to your score
<*>Revised leaderboards scoring criteria
<*>It is now more challenging to attain higher ranks
<*>Lower match placement positions pay fewer match points
<*>Fixed several UI-related crashes
<*>Fixed bug where automatic region selection was not working properly on Xbox
<*>Fixed bug where thrown items would sometimes fall through ground
<*>Fixed a bug that caused a hitch on player death
<*>Fixed a bug where poison gas visuals could be offset from the hazardous area
<*>Fixed a bug where kill notifications were sometimes blank
<*>Added tournament winner banners for “The Cullminator” and “Killer Island” community events
<*>Fixed a bug where controller vibration setting would not save properly
<*>Fixed a bug where a piece of invisible collision was created after throwing a poison gas grenade
<*>Fixed a bug that allowed clothing to be unequipped entirely
<*>Fixed a bug where snare wires would sometimes fail to connect if placed at max range
<*>Fixed a bug that prevented users from progressing past the splash screen when offline
<*>Scoreboard now displays icon for weapons that killed dead players
<*>Fixed a bug that allowed players to attempt to invite a teammate from the splash screen
<*>Bouncing crate for Boom Box event can no longer launch players into the air
Island Diary: October 2, 2017
Greetings Contestants,
In this edition of the Island Diary, we’re thrilled to bring you not one, but two major announcements!
Our first piece of news is that this Friday, October 6th, we will roll out the next update for The Culling on both PC and Xbox One.
This update brings new additions and improvements such as new cosmetics, Xbox Voice Support (proximity/team) as well as several key tweaks and bug fixes. The highlight of the update for many players will undoubtedly be the brand new Golden Weapons.
As per usual, we will have full patch later this week when the update drops. Buuuuut we wanted to give you the full rundown on all eight of the new, shiny toys that will be dropped into the arena via match events.
Golden Weapons
Match events that deliver rewards, such as Loot Piñata and Loot Express, now deliver crates containing Golden Weapons. Mid-match events deliver Tier 3 Golden Weapons, Late-match events deliver Tier 4 Golden Weapons.
These weapons are generally comparable in stats to their non-golden counterparts, but they offer a bonus twist. Our goal is to make these events worth fighting for, without guaranteeing a win to the player who emerges wielding the golden weapon.
Without further ado:
Bleeding Blade - A legendary sword so sharp, it cuts so deep that the bleed it imparts lasts until the victim heals. Think of it as the worst paper cut ever.
<*>Triflector - This Trident deals 2 additional points of damage to your opponent every time you are struck, making your opponents think thrice about inflicting damage.
<*>Nutcracker - This brute takes a long time to charge, but can hit incredibly hard. It can be charged for several seconds to deliver up to 60 points of damage against any opponent unfortunate enough to be caught by its wrath.
<*>Axetinguisher - While this Fireman’s Axe is equipped you are immune to all wounds. Your wounds are … axetinguished.. immediately!
<*>Vampire Bat - This weapon sucks, literally! Recover 2 hp each time you strike an opponent by leeching their lifeforce.
<*>Doppledagger - When equipped, this Bowie Knife allows you to double-jump. It’s like you’re going to outer space, man!
<*>Infinity Pole - This Yari returns to your hand each time it’s thrown. How? Do you have poles, poles, in different area codes? We’re not sure, but it won’t matter when you’ve got the upperhand on your enemy!
<*>VomiHawk - This Tomahawk inflicts a sickness wound with every strike. That means not only can you take out your opponent, with the VomiHawk you can take them down with the sickness.
Oh, ah, ah, ah, ah.
Now, time for for the second announcement..
This Friday’s launch marks The Culling’s exit from Early Access and Game Preview!
When we launched The Culling in March of 2016, we were the first built-from-the-ground-up Battle Royale title and now we’re becoming the first entry in the genre to make a full release. What that means for you is more polish, fewer bugs, the addition of achievements for PC and Xbox One, and more.
As excited as we are to reach this finish line, we’re not done. Not just yet. There will be more to look forward to in the future, but that will have to wait for a future diary.
Until Friday,
See you on the island.
Island Diary - Aug 11, 2017
Greetings contestants!
Thank you for joining us once again for another diary. It’s here that we sneak out and leak out some of the newest features and game-changing elements coming to The Culling.
Though we’ve been known to talk about long-term goals in the past, this time around we’ll be breaking down what’s coming in the very near future. While we don’t have a date to share just yet, there’s more than enough here that this edition is sure to be interesting, insightful and all the other adjectives that begin with the letter i.
New Cosmetics We know that the best part about The Culling is smashing your opponents and climbing your way to the top. At the same time, what’s a moment in the spotlight worth if you’re not able to shine?
We will be introducing a heaping helping of new cosmetic items for contestants to unlock and to show off their twister personalities. With new Culling Cards, new victory celebrations and new weapon skins, there’s sure to be something for every contestant.
Plus, with summer coming to an end we’ve gotten into a festive, carnival mood. In addition to the above, we’ll be adding new hair, masks and some particularly dark clown outfits to bring a big smile to each of your faces.
Xbox Voice Chat The next update will introduce voice communication options to contestants on Xbox One.
We know that while many players enjoy coop with their friends, some simply enjoy the dynamics of working with a teammates and don’t always have a buddy, friend or a pal ready, willing and able to join into the action.
Also, we know that when playing with a random teammate in the wild you can be left at a slight disadvantage, with pre-made teams often using lobby chat to strategize and gain the upper hand. Adding team chat both levels the playing field and opens up coop to a new crop of contestants who may have been intimidated to jump into the mode in the past.
In addition to team chat, we’ll also be rolling out a much-requested communication feature: proximity chat. Though we’re not quite ready to talk shop on this just yet, it will also be included in the next scheduled update!
Bug Fixes Each new update presents an opportunity to add, but it also goes without saying that they also allow us to address several key bug and issues head on.
Some of the highlight fixes in the next update are changes automatic region switching (Xbox), thrown item disappearance, gas grenade glitches, unequipped cosmetic and more. We’ll have more details when we roll out official patch notes.
Golden Weapons The wise philosopher C.H.A.S once said, “Not all that glitters is gold, but all weapons that are gold are FUNC’ing awesome!” Possibly one of the biggest additions to The Culling yet, golden weapons will shower the arena during event airdrops and offer players a never-before-seen level of power.
There will be be no less than 8 Golden Weapons available next update (4 Tier 3s and 4 Tier 4s), each with their unique sets of abilities and modifiers. The entire Golden arsenal has been locked in, but you’ll have to wait until the patch notes to learn about them all. Until then, however, we have been able to sneak a couple out of Culling HQ to share with you early.
Bleeding Blade - This legendary sword is so sharp and cuts so deep that the bleed it imparts lasts until the victim heals.
Nutcracker - Though it’ a tad weaker than a regular sledgehammer under normal conditions, This Sledgehammer is no joke. It can be charged for 3 seconds to deliver 60 points of damage against any opponent unfortunate enough to be caught by its wrath.
Closing This edition of our diary looked at the very near future and we can’t wait to share more details as the date draws near.
We feel like each time we come together for these things, we get a little closer, a little friendlier, a little...cullinglier? What we’re trying to say is thanks for joining us again for this look ahead.
Until next time,
See you in the arena.
To Cull a Leaderboard: PC Major Update #1033XX
Greetings contestants!
From new Match Events to new Perks, this is one of our biggest updates ever. The Culling has always been a savage competition and we can’t wait to see which one of you talented contestants rises to the very top of the leaderboard! Cull for glory.
PC Servers will be down on Wednesday July 19th at 8AM EST and maintenance is expected to continue for up to four hours.
[Note: We are currently preparing a patch for Xbox One certification and we will announce the planned schedule as soon as we have details for the Xbox One Patch.]
Features
NEW! Ranked Leaderboards <*>Players earn a Match Score based on position, kills, and time alive. Your 10 best Match Scores are combined to provide a singular Season Score.
<*>Depending on your Season Score, you may find yourself in one of 5 Ranks (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond).
<*>The top 10 players in each Rank are displayed for all to see.
NEW! Cosmetics <*>2 all-new outfits for male and female contestants, with over 150 varieties of track tops, track shorts, turtlenecks, and oxford shorts.
<*>8 new Victory Celebration animations.
<*>3 new sets of weapon skins: 11 skins each for the Pitchfork, Camp <*>Hatchet, and Hammer.
NEW! Match Events <*>Blood Moon: The sky takes a crimson cast and for a brief time all contestants’ locations are revealed with a spooky red highlight. No place to run, no place to hide. In Blood Moon, nobody is safe!
<*>Boom Box: A booming red subwoofer crate appears in the center of the Arena. In order to relieve this funky crate you’ll need to drop the beat with a bang. Luckily for you, a helping handful of Explosive Barrels are lowered into the area. Bombs away!
NEW! Perks <*>Each perk category receives a new up-side/down-side perk. Will the benefits outweigh the risks?.
<*>“Tight Grip” (Utility): Your ranged weapons cannot be disarmed, but your movement speed is reduced by 5%.
<*>“Tanky” (Survival): Incoming melee damage is reduced by 10%, but incoming ranged damage is increased by 10%.
<*>“Jogger” (Movement): Movement speed while fists are equipped increased by 10%, but all incoming damage increased by 10% (regardless of equipped weapon).
<*>“Berserker” (Combat): All damage dealt increased by 10%, but player loses the benefit of natural Cannibal (no HP restored when killing an opponent).
Changes and Bug Fixes <*>Fixed several crash bugs that resulted in poor application stability for some players
<*>Sprinting costs more stamina.
Dev comments: We dialed stamina cost way back in the last patch and many of you felt that it trivialized the stamina system too much. This should result in a balance where stamina can still impact gameplay but managing your stamina isn’t a constant chore.
<*>Added a HUD icon to indicate when the player is crouching, walking, and sprinting.
<*>“Official Culling” uniform items now appear in “Default” clothing categories instead of “Special”.
<*>Increased/brightened blue outline for some pickups: Steel Caltrops, Muscle <*>Man Milk, Hammer.
<*>Fixed several fatal errors affecting PC players.
<*>Fixed a bug where Brass Knuckles were using a longer shove animation than they should have
<*>Fixed a bug that prevented kill notification messages from properly appearing
<*>Fixed a bug that could prevent player from using controller to rotate character is cosmetics screens.
<*>Fixed a bug that sometimes failed to notify players about a match event occurring.
<*>Fixed a bug that prevented thrown weapons from applying their wounds to armored opponents.
<*>Fixed a bug where Alarm Gun crosshairs did not match iron sights and could lead to inaccurate shots.
<*>In addition to the above fixes, several additional fixes from the last Xbox One patch have been brought over to the PC. Please see the “ X Marks the Spot” update notes for details.
Island Diary July 7, 2017
Greetings contestants!
Welcome back to the island diary! We’re over the (*whispers*: blood) moon because his month we wanted to shake things up with some immediate developments.
From addressing current issues to massive changes on the horizon, this isn’t a diary you’ll want to miss. The good part? You’re already here! So let’s get down to brass tacks!
Revisiting Xbox Update #102949
So uh, how about those bows?!
Bugs, they’re the bane of any developer and the first Xbox Update addressed a lot of them, improving the overall “quality of life” across the board.
Unfortunately, while the update resolved many of the key issues at launch, the it also introduced a pair of notable bugs of its own.
The good news is that we are currently in the process of Xbox One certification for a brand new hotfix which will return bows to their intended damage, as well as correcting fixing a bug related to input queuing and inventory management.
If all goes smoothly, the hotfix should land on Xbox One early next week!
Stamina
You can’t run from your mistakes forever, even if you have nearly infinite stamina! Throughout Early Access and Game Preview, we’ve been comfortable experimenting with big changes. Some of them are hits, and some go over like lead balloons. The good news is we always get the opportunity to hear what you have to say, and we’re happy to iterate further when we hear a clear message from you all.
When we reduced Stamina costs in the last patch, we achieved our goal of reducing the burden of constant Stamina management as you move through the arena - freeing you to focus on more important things, like stabbing each other - but many of you felt like we took it too far. By eliminating the need to monitor or manage your stamina altogether, we removed something many players enjoy.
In the next major update we’ve found a good middle ground that we think leaves players relatively free to sprint about the arena but still requires some care and attention.
Patch Preview
As you may already know, over the course of the past several diaries we’ve teased more than a few exciting new features coming to The Culling. We know that many of you have been looking forward to these for a long time, that’s why we are thrilled to announce that a significant update is planned for later this month!
You heard right! Before the end of July The Culling will be getting a major update. Among the awesome new goodies slated for July are the much anticipated player Leaderboards, two new insane Match Events, a summer-worthy wardrobe’s worth of Cosmetics and more!
After much demand, we’re also working on Team Voice Support for Xbox One! At this point we can’t confirm that the feature will make this update, but we’re doing our best to get it ready for action as soon as possible.
These are some of the most anticipated additions to The Culling yet and we couldn’t be happier to share them with you. If you haven’t been following, you can find more details and information about these features in previous diary posts on theculling.com
The update will come first to PC, with the Xbox One version arriving shortly after. We will have more peeks at the content ahead as we approach patch day so stay tuned to our official channels for the latest info!
Closing
Though we started this month’s diary with a slight look back to last month and a big look forward to all the spicy wings that July has in store. We can’t wait for you to chow down and to get your hands messy with all the new Culling flavor!
We will have even more for you next month right here on the island diaries.
In the meantime, feel free to come join our official Discord. We host custom PC matches at Mon-Fri at 2pm EST where developers and players from around the world come together for an hour of goodness!
