The Culling Xbox Impressions

The Culling is another one of those survival type games where you walk around slashing each other and now it's available on Xbox Game Preview. This took some time however as the launch of the game was absolutely terrible where the servers did not exist for the entire weekend of its release. I found this disappointing, I get there can be an overload and that early access games don't always work. I've just never been part of a release where it just didn't function for days, usually it's a few hours and without prep work for their launch it comes across as lazy. Not to say it isn't fun, which it totally is. They've just left an incredibly negative impression of the game before I or others have even been able to play it. With the negatives out of the way, let's dig into this game.

The Culling is a Battle Royale/Hunger Games type survival game where there's more of a focus on the sport of it. This isn't some weird dystopia (maybe it is, who knows), this is a competitive arena. It's got a fun announcer, weapons drop from drones and special events happen during matches. It's exciting, you go through buildings that are filled with gear and attempt to best everyone else.

You do this by using smart strategies or just being better at combat. I tried some elements of stealth finding that just fighting better than everyone else would do the trick. I was initially not totally enthralled by the combat, but eventually liked how I was able to defeat others by using it correctly. It's a system of blocking to stun, pushing and then slashing at the right moments. It's somewhat silly when you get the jump on someone and they still kill you through blocks, but it works. The game is largely melee based as deaths happen fast, but the later game does see some high powered weapons come into play. It's a gory game for sure as you beat each other to death and this gruesome aspect was well presented.

I had more fun than I remember on PC taking out others with traps, moving them with gas or performing better in hand to hand combat. Specifically with Xbox, I found the game to run generally fine aside from the atrocious launch servers. The render distance could use some work as things awkwardly load in at times and visually it looks alright. I recall the PC version to look much better and I was hoping to see slightly more texture quality from the console build. That being said, despite it not looking amazing on Xbox One the upcoming 2017 Xbox console could fair much better. It's a fun game and if you like these survival games then its well worth your time. One final mention is about sprinting, it needs to be better adjusted on Xbox. It's like a slight hold to walk and holding it down even slightly makes you sprint, very awkward. I hope I didn't come across too negative in this as it actually is an enjoyable survival game.

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Impressions Made on The Culling during Xbox Game Preview