The Culling helped make Battle Royale games fun and is shutting down in May

Before PUBG and Fortnite Battle Royale, there was another game that showed the potential of this emergent genre. The Culling is this game and while it enjoyed a modest success when it launched in February 2016, the history books say that it all ended up as a mess of catastrophic proportions.

And it ends for good on May 15, 2019, when The Culling shuts down, as developer Xaviant has announced today.

2018 in particular was a troubled year for Xaviant, as The Culling 2 was released in July only to be abandoned soon after, due to the overwhelming negative feedback. This led to a resurgence of the original The Culling, brought back in September 2018 to its launch state. While this move initially boosted its player base, it didn't take many months before it was back to normal – meaning a small player base in the double digits.

It was three years of The Culling, and from May 15, 2019 onward, only the offline part of the game will remain playable. Naturally, the team mentions the insufficient revenue from in-app purchases and how this made development unsustainable. If another development team wants to take the reigns, all they need to do is get in touch with Xaviant and discuss the details.

We can't say for sure what Xaviant will be up to next, but let's hope that this small studio has a card or two up its sleeve.