So What's The Culling All About?
The Culling is a new indie Early Access game on Steam, made by the creators of Lichdom: Battlemage. But I’ll tell you right now, it doesn’t show. As someone who wasn’t a fan of Lichdom, I say The Culling is a well-executed, enjoyable slaughterfest. A bloody mess in a good way, if you will. Here’s ten features that should be praised if you’re going to play this game.
10. So... It's the Hunger Games?
Has Photoshop gone too far?!
Yes! No. Look, it's complicated. Hear me out before you and your Katniss Everdeen body pillow run into the sunset.
The Culling, like the Hunger Games, pits fighters against one another in a large jungle-like arena filled to the brim with traps, weapons, and oddly excited voice overs from a man in a heavenly sound booth. Okay, maybe not that last one. But it is a pretty fun feature.
If you're looking for a game that encourages mindless violence, look no further. If you're looking for a game that will make you feel like you're in the Hunger Games, minus the "luck" of being raffled into it, look no further. If you're looking for a game that will let you hide in trees and drop hives of genetically-engineered bees upon unsuspecting foes, keep on looking. And hit me up when you find that game. That sounds awesome.
The Culling is the best arena-based slaughterfest out there right now. No other game can offer a scenario in which you're a hit away from the “Hunted” screen (a.k.a. the “You’re Dead, Stupid” screen), and you jump off a rock cliff, spin around midair, and shoot an opponent with an arrow to win the game. Now sure, that's a very niche market, but it's one The Culling fills. And just like the Hunger Games, the Culling will make adrenaline pump through you like a spear through Rue.
…
Too soon?
9. Why Are We Killing Each Other?
...Oops.
It's not often you get a game that throws buckets of blood at your face while also throwing small bits of exposition and story.
Aside from the fact that not killing other players means you'll be killed, it's important to keep killing for the amusement of the bankers watching all of this.
You read that right. Bankers. Bloodthirsty... conniving... bankers.
After summoning an airdrop, sometimes a monologue can be heard that congratulates the player for saving their currency for more gear. In the same breath, the game's narrator then asks you if that was how you got to this island. Did you save your money to visit this place? Or were you one of the people that didn't save their money, and being unable to pay their loans, were sent to the island to battle it out for the amusement of the loaning bankers?
And, of course, your death will be an example of what will happen to those who don't repay their loans.
A worthy lesson, kids. Always, always save your money. Or else you'll be shipped to a remote island to slaughter other people in fun and exciting ways.
On a completely unrelated note, all of The Culling's contestants are absolutely terrible with money.
8. Tools of the Trade
Administering classic Electric Shock Therapy.
Just killing your opponents isn't nearly enough. What kind of game would The Culling be if it didn't supply you with an orgy of weapons to poke, slice, hack, and bludgeon your enemies with? A bad one, that's what.
Weapons are ranked by Tiers, with each Tier having a slight advantage in damage and speed or wound intensity over previous Tiers. Tier Ones can be crafted or found easily, Tier Twos can only be found or airdropped and are a bit more fearsome, Tier Threes are scary as hell and are quite rare to find and tough to airdrop, while Tier Fours are essentially the God Tier.
Each weapon type inflicts a different effect. Blades cause bleeding, which will keep doing damage until it expires, or until the enemy is at one health. Bludgeons cause Cripple, which decreases movement speed. Spears pierce enemy armor as though it wasn't there. There's no name for this beyond “annoying.” And finally, Axes cause Expose, which causes the target to take more and more damage.
Of course, you can't be inspired by the Hunger Games without offering bows and arrows as a means of murder. Bows and firearms cause large damage at a distance and bleed the target.
You heard me right. Firearms. Doesn't the thought of Katniss Everdeen mowing down contestants with an SMG bring a fanfic-birthing tear to your eye?
Speaking of SMG's, that's one of the three firearms contestants can airdrop, or if they're very lucky, find. Each gun comes with one “round” of its respective ammo: twenty bullets for the SMG, four for the Sniper Rifle, and six for the Magnum. After growing a god complex and wasting all your ammunition, more can be crafted at explosive barrels for a sizable chunk of this game's version of currency, F.U.N.C.
And of course, explosives.
Stabbing an enemy to death doesn't hold the same appeal as setting C4 on a lone airdrop and blowing it up as some poor curious man approaches it. Crafting your own dynamite is a simple process in The Culling, while the more sophisticated explosives like Remote Detonators and Impact Grenades need to be found or airdropped in.
7. Outplaying Rambo
The Aftermath.
Snares. Caltrops. Miniature poisonous spears sticking out of the ground.
These may sound like the tools of a complete coward. And they are. But no one said the winner had to be brave.
It's not feudalist Europe, no one's asking for a sense of honor here. Meeting someone in a fair, level fight? It's your job to never let that happen. If you want, that is. There's tons of ways to play, but outsmarting the competition is one of the best options available.
The island of The Culling is littered with buildings that are just begging for you to get all Home Alone up in them. Snare the door and hide in the bushes so anyone that wants to come in is gonna get an axe in their back. A non-FDA-approved form of chiropracty, but effective.
Or scatter punji sticks, poisonous darts sticking out of the ground, around healing stations, so enemies can't even heal a paper cut without their lunch hightailing it outta their stomach. Or claim a building as your own by littering every square inch of the flooring with caltrops, forcing everyone but you to crawl around on all fours.
If you prefer your cowardice goes unnoticed, stick a rock in a poison pylon, and voila! You've got a smoke bomb. If someone tasked to kill you has the audacity to get near you, just throw down a smoke bomb like a ninja and split! Alternatively, stick a knife in their back while they're rubbing the dust from their eyes, but that's your messed-up decision, not mine.
Some contestants may prefer to just beat their prey into submission with a sledgehammer. Myself? I like to lead my enemies into a deathtrap that puts Saw to shame.
6. Airdrops - You Sponsor Yourself
Happy Birthday!
Remember sponsors from the Hunger Games? Remember how completely unfair it was that some contestants got mid-game advantages over others? We have that in The Culling too!
Unlike in the Hunger Games, though, your goal isn't to impress some nameless CEO watching the games for a game-winning bottle of cure-all acne cream. In The Culling, you as the player have to earn that acne cream with F.U.N.C, which you gather by killing other contestants, unleashing poison in a certain area, or finding the bloody remains of past contestants.
Unlike the Hunger Games, you get to decide what you want in that sweet crate falling from the sky. Every player selects their airdrop before the beginning of the match, and you start with some basic ones already unlocked, in addition to a “Surprise Me!” crate.
Whenever you open a new airdrop mid-match, it's permanently unlocked in your airdrop selection screen. So choosing Surprise Me! enough to unlock an entire peanut gallery of new airdrops isn't a half-bad idea.
Why get an airdrop though? Why not sprint around the arena, foaming at the mouth, killing everyone in your wake?
Well, one, that's hard, and a lot of work. Two, instead of slaughtering everyone right off the bat, you could let everyone kill each other, while a nice shiny gun is falling from the sky with your name on it.
All airdrops are named, giving hints as to what awaits you inside.
The “Carjacker” drops a crowbar (Tier 2), and a remote explosive for 75 F.U.N.C. Meanwhile, the crate simply titled “Sniper” drops a sniper rifle and a claymore for 175 F.U.N.C. It may seem expensive, but a gun in The Culling can make all the difference if you know how to aim it.
5. The Vanity Corner
Next up on “What Not to Wear!”
The icing on the metaphorical, gore-filled Culling Cake: character customization. Not only are you running around bludgeoning other players, you're doing it to the avatars they spent way too much time customizing. The player can change their Head gear, Hair, Gender, Skin Color, Body, and Legs. So while a complete mishmash of random elements is a perfectly fine option, having a badass outfit that matches is an extremely rewarding feeling.
There's S.W.A.T. masks, paintball helmets (my personal favorite), balaclavas (bandanas), boonie hats... the list goes on. And they all have different camo's and patterns, letting you customize your very own stylish murdering machine.
New clothing options are unlocked at the end of every match randomly. But winning a Free-for-All match gives the player a token that offers the opportunity to compete in a match with rare Victory rewards.
Reportedly, these rewards won't be available for unlock any other way. So essentially, one has to win a difficult match, then win another difficult match to unlock the badass gear.
Or you can just buy it off the Steam marketplace like a normal person; either option will do, really.
...I knew playing all those Barbie dress-up games would pay off at some point.
4. Perk-alicious
The cruel way out.
But character customization doesn't just stop at appearance and airdrops. You also get to choose a total of three perks from a laundry list of possibilities. These perks don’t have to have anything to do with each other in the slightest if you don't want them to. Just choose any three and get to the killing.
These perks could be anything, from dealing damage to your opponent's stamina with every attack, to dropping a smoke bomb when you're below 30% health (like some kind of weird squid-human hybrid). The best players know how to make perks complement one another. And I don't mean the lying-through-the-teeth high school form of compliments, either.
Sure, you could pick the perk that lets you move 13% faster, but why not also get the perk that lets you move 7% faster when you're holding a spear? Oh, and make Spear backstabs do more damage! So now you can circle your enemies (like some kind of weird shark-human hybrid) while repeatedly poking their back for extra damage. And they can forget about running from you.
Or is being a predatory terror not really your thing? Get perks that let you throw weapons faster and for more damage, so you can throw hastily crafted knives at enemies while running around in circles. At the same time, choose a perk for more stamina, so you can outrun your opponents, and get the "run faster with knives" perk. Now you can run literal circles around anyone you want, while throwing your stack of knives at their face.
Or just airdrop a gun and shoot everyone. Whatever works for you.
3. Turn the Combat Tables
What the kids these days call “juicing up.”
Remember when I said you should strive to never have a level playing field? We're back to that, baby.
Scattered around the world, and in countless airdrops, there's drugs and self-defense items. These are your best friend, my junkie comrade.
If you don't wanna risk losing that fight, just jam a syringe called “Muscle Milk” into your forearm, and boom! You now deal 15% extra damage for two minutes. I guess all those protein shakes paid off, technically speaking.
There's also Iron-4-Skin, which lets you take 15% reduced damage for two minutes. Which begs the age-old question, what happens when a Muscle Milk attacks an Iron-4-Skin? ...Normal combat, I guess. What a silly age-old question.
Self-defense items like pepper spray and tasers (or stun guns) are also a coward's best friend. Tasing an enemy then running around to stab a spear through their back is an encouraged strategy in this moshpit of killing and gore. Or if you're getting kinda jumpy, fill an enemy's eyes with pepper spray, hit their face with a rock, and sprint the opposite direction.
Just remember how your first date went. You should know what to do.
2. Events (Party!)
Picture deemed unfit for public viewing.
Apparently watching debt-ridden guys and gals at the end of their rope murder each other in an island arena isn't enough for the bankers. Every round is spiced up by random-ish events that “bring people together.”
When the announcer says there's going to be two airdrops in the middle (“Loot Pinata!”), you can be sure that every contestant that's smart enough to care is grabbing their blunt knives and sharp bludgeons and heading to the center arena. Those airdrops can be anything, and if they're not unlocked in your airdrop gallery yet, they will be.
Another event is the Three Crate Monte, which places three crates in the center arena. Sounds simple enough. Run along and get them now!
But I should probably mention that two of the crates explode the moment you open them. There's no way to tell which crate is safe and which two will blow your legs off, so have fun!
Other events include an airdrop being flown somewhere completely random (“Grab My Package”), an airdrop is flown to a specific location (“Loot Express”), or “The Chokening,” where a Master Gas Switch is placed in the center arena. Activating this switch will activate all poisonous gas pylons on the island, filling the lungs of any nearby unfortunate souls with poisonous gas.
These gas tanks are generated randomly on the map, so there's always a possibility that they'll be positioned in a way that the player can't escape their poisonous fury.
Airdrops may bring people together, but they definitely take bodies apart.
1. The Announcer
"There's an ax-murderer on this island! It's YOU!"
Oh, man. This guy.
His voice can be heard in most of the game's promotional material, and for good reason. The announcer voices everything that isn't the players. He talks to you when you call in an airdrop, he talks to you when you're healing your wounds at a health station. He especially talks to you when you're shot with an Alarm Gun, and he's doing his best to remind every other contestant of your exact location.
Sure, his voice borders on annoying. But this guy adds so much humor to a game that's otherwise exclusively about slaughtering people.
By his own admission, the announcer is an unlicensed paramedic, and makes sure to ask if you have a pacemaker or other electronic device in your body. Then he notes that he should've asked that before he started treatment.
He also makes sure to tell you when another contestant has been killed, and how they died. So when you hear, “Another contestant has been beaten, like a - uh, an egg, in a... in a cooking scenario! Yeah,” you know your enemies aren't screwing around.
I would be sincerely surprised if the announcer wasn't at least kind of based on Caesar Flickerman from the Hunger Games. As annoying as he can be, he's very charming, and he's a constant presence of joviality even when you're bashing an enemy's head in.
So there you have it, ten awesome features The Culling offers you. If it sounds like the kind of thing you’d be interested in, we’ll promptly inform the police while you go to Steam and buy the game for $14.99. Whether you’re the kind of player to use snares to transform a building into your own personal spider web, or you’d rather take a katana and smoke bombs and channel your inner ninja, the game and the community look forward to welcoming you. But, fair warning, the community might kill you in the process.
If you like this article, here’s some others you may be interested in.
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Written by Colin Bellairs. Leave a comment to let me know what you'd like me to write about next!
