The Culling confirms humans are the real monsters

Battle Royale at a quicker pace

I had filed away The Culling in my brain as “probably some bad horror movie,” and a quick Google search later, hah, it totally is. But it’s also a multiplayer PC title fashioned after Battle Royale and its ilk.

At a glance, this is yet another survival game in which people do bad things to one another, but there are tweaks here that have me interested. It’s a deadly game show set on an island with “just enough” room for all 16 players, and matches last around 20 minutes, “with deadly poison gas slowly constricting the arena in the final stages.” Players can set up traps, bludgeon each other, or show off their rockin’ abs.

Depending on who you’re up against, this could be tense or boring. “With no respawning on death, you have to make every action count. Play too cautiously and you won’t be prepared for the final clash at the end of the match, too aggressively and you might not make it past the first few minutes.”

The game released today, a little ahead of schedule. It’s up on Steam Early Access for $13.49.

This is exactly the sort of thing I want to wait to try until after it has gone through Early Access, but until then, I suspect we’ll see entertaining player videos in the same vein as DayZ and Rust. The developer, Xaviant, is targeting a 2017 release for the final version. Hope it goes smoothly!

The Culling [Steam Early Access]