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First Major Update for The Culling, “Trials of the Isle” coming April 27th

Greetings contestants! The team here at Xaviant… and Frank... have been hard at work on our biggest, bloodiest update yet, “Trials of the Isle.” We hope you come out and join us when it launches tomorrow (Wednesday, April 27th). Servers will be down from 8 AM until Noon (Eastern) while we roll out the patch. Bring a friend, or a mortal enemy, because The Culling will be available at a -10% discount on Steam until Monday. We’ll see you on the island!

Highlights

New Features

Private lobbies. Up to 16 friends can compete in free-for-all mode and decide who truly is the master of the island.
SteamOS support. Spread mayhem at your desk and in your living room.
Female playable characters. Play as a female contestant with an extensive suite of customization options.
Trials Matches. Trials Tokens are awarded for winning free-for-all matches. Spend tokens to compete in weekly free-for-all Trials Matches (at designated times) against other winners for a chance to score exclusive, limited-edition loot.

New customization items. Spice up your gear with new shirt designs by Filthy Casual and Design By Humans as well as limited-edition hats!
New weapons. Spill even more blood on the island with the Crafted Cudgel (Tier 1 Bludgeon, Crafted Hatchet + Rock, 2 FUNC) and the mighty Trident (Tier 4 Spear)
New Air Drops

Polecat: Trident, Survival Spear, Javelin (105 FUNC)
Cyclops: Trident, Orange Juice, Body Armor (110 FUNC)
Bait Crate: Decoy Air Drop that will explode upon opening to deal 20 hit points of damage. Available by default (50 FUNC)

New weapon wounds. Each weapon type now has a unique wound.

Expose: Axes. Intensity 1,2,3 increases damage of next attack made against the expose target by 5%, 10%, 15% respectively.
Pierce: Spears. Piercing trait on Spears allows all damage from the spear to bypass the opponent’s armor. Intensity of the pierce represents how much of the armor is also removed on each hit. Tier 1:12.5%, Tier 2: 16.7%, Tier 3: 25%.
Bleed: Blades. No changes to wound functionality.
Cripple: Bludgeons. No changes to wound functionality.

Throw Damage is now an independent weapon stat (no longer directly tied to melee damage) in order to further differentiate individual weapons

Some weapons now excel at throwing and others are less effective. There are now fewer weapons that can achieve extremely high throw damage values when combined with Golden Arm.

New Perks

Dig Deep: Gain 30 Health when damage would kill you. (Once per match, visible to your opponents via HUD)
Angry Octopus: When reduced below 30 Health automatically drop a Smoke Bomb (30-second cool-down, does not require Smoke Bomb in your inventory)
Inhuman: You can not be tracked with Man Tracker and are immune to Alarm Gun
Thicker Clotting: Reduce duration of all wounds by 50%(Clotting Agent and Hearty Constitution removed and replaced with Thicker Clotting)

Armor Changes

Crafted Armor now reduces incoming damage by 30% for 30 hit points (previously 30% for 20 hit points)
Body Armor now reduces incoming damage by 50% for 50 hit points (previously 50% for 30 hit points)

New baked lighting scheme improves graphical fidelity and improves rendering performance
Shove Changes

Increased launch delay of shove to closely match that of block and attack. Shove was previously faster which gave it an advantage.
Shove no longer causes a stagger interrupt against a player who is charging a power attack. Players will continue to charge their attacks even if they are shoved.
Shove now does negligible damage (previously 2 hit points per shove)
Increased time between shoves to reduce effectiveness of spamming shove key

Cosmetic Loot Rarity

We have added two new levels of ultra-rare loot and adjusted our rarity color scheme to suit. Rarity progression is now: White,Green, Blue, Yellow, Purple, Orange, Red
Limited-Edition Items. Some items will drop only in Trials of the Isle matches and for a limited time.

Crate Drop Distribution

Spears, Blades, Bludgeons, and Axes now have an equal chance of dropping from all crates.
Tier 4 melee weapons now all have a small chance to drop from Blue Crates

Changes

Graphics Settings

Graphics settings will have a greater impact on your system’s performance:

Render Quality. This setting previously affected resolution only. It now also affects characteristics of the game’s new lighting scheme. The Extreme setting may represent a performance decrease for some users (but a significant fidelity increase over the previous version of the game) as a result.
Texture Quality. The streaming pool size has been raised for users on the High and Medium settings and lowered on the Low setting to better handle different video card memory limitations. The Low setting should resolve hitching issues on low-end cards.

Gameplay

Fixed a bug in Baseball Bat shove behavior
Fixed a bug in Crafted Knife shove behavior
Weapon balance adjusted for addition of Expose and Pierce, not as sweeping as previous balance passes. We like the jobs that each weapon is doing, but several needed their damage, speed or wound adjusted for Expose and Pierce.
Perk: Poking deeply removed as it no longer fits with spear wounds.
Bridge art and audio improved.
Explosive Barrels and FUNC Barrels damage now properly falls off over its explosive range rather than ramping up.
Fix for Bloodbath not applying its effect on throws. Changing the way we decide if an incoming bleed wound should replace an existing bleed wound. Before the one that had the longest remaining duration would apply, now it's the one with the highest remaining damage.
Fix for Bomb Suit perk sometimes causing all players in theexplosion radius to get its benefits and not just the player with the perk.
Fix for players being able to block while puking.
Perks Code Red and Alarm Gunner combined to create Red Gunner
Perk Blowsafe removed
Perk Blowzoom removed
Perk Master Crafted damage bonus increased to 20%
Perk Tough Mother mitigation bonus increased to 15%
Perk Big Boned health bonus increased to 25 hit points
Charged attacks no longer break out of the charge anim when hit by a ranged shot
Cleaver is now considered an Axe type weapon (apparently this is true in real life, because chopping?). We don’t have perfect balance of types yet (X # of Axes vs. X # of Bludgeons etc…), that is something we’re working on for the future, but we’re taking small steps like this where we can to prepare for those changes.
Fix for Stun Gun using both ammo shots on a successful hit.
Steel Snares were bugged and doing 15 damage instead of 25, this is now corrected.
Recycle Costs and Airdrop Value bug fixes, some old values were still set in recycle values giving bad value to airdrops.
Scoreboard no longer displays list of player names in a match until the first contestant is killed

Audio

Alarm Gun SFX added when target is shot while Inhuman Perk is equipped
Added new announcer death notifications for Spear kills.
Added new announcer death notifications for Axe kills.
Added new announcer death notifications for Fist kills.
Added new announcer death notifications for Bow kills.
Added new Health Machine phrases and random barks.

Level

Map texture and material improvements.
New south water treatment building WIP cleaned up meshes and landscape around area
Fixed some door locks on the Southern water works
Added new water works entrance piece
Extensive support and level art changes to support new optimized lighting solution
Adjusted container and recycler and health station locations to work better with the new lights and to avoid access through windows
Toned down the bloom and contrast on the spawn box so the players screen doesn't white out on release

Character/Animation

Animation speed improvements to better match current movement speeds (crouch, walk, sprint).
General animation improvements to the attack animations to reduce popping and erratic behavior.
Weapon animation fixes for hand IK
Did some sword animation cleanup; added two missing 3P Sword Attacks to match the 1P versions; 1P camera animations are less erratic
Leg IK cleanup
Feet should only rotate to match normal of contact surface when IK is actually active (fix broken ankles when jumping / falling)
Changed the anim length of crafting poison darts to match the craft time
Animation polish for weapons while sprinting
Added hip leaning / spine twisting when characters are turning
Various female character supporting changes
Created Bat heavy attack version for 1P and 3P which is two handed.
Did some upper-body bow run polish.
Added blinks and lessened the degree of head turn to the front end female idle.
Separated hits reacts into new groups for better blending between hits and attacks
Created recycle anims for the brass knuckles.
Fixed skin weighting on balaclavas that was much more apparent with graphic versions

Added Icons for new Perks, Updated some others.
Outline added to FUNC symbol in hud
Crafting Guide Updated with Cudgel
Loot rarity color is visible in front end for cosmetic items

Other

Fix for Baseball Bat not showing charge meter for throwing
Potential fix for input becoming stuck after item use is interrupted by puking. Now the item use will be canceled.
Fix for players sometimes being able to spectate someone other than their teammate in a teams match
Added protections against movement speed perks being permanently removed by cripple or low stamina state or edge-case scenarios.
Fixed hover tooltips in front end menus to match perk descriptions
There is a bug that is still allowing the Man Tracker to track female targets, Frank is apparently unable to resolve this time around,maybe next patch.

[ 2016-04-26 20:16:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Culling

Xaviant Developer

Xaviant Games Publisher

2017-10-05 Release

Action Indie Coop Tags

FREE

Game News Posts: 73

🎹🖱️Keyboard + Mouse

Mixed (17470 reviews)

http://www.theculling.com

Steam Store

The Game includes VR Support

Public Linux Depots:

The Culling Linux [4.49 G]

Available DLCs:

The Culling - Original Gangster Founder's Pack
The Culling - FUNC Buster Starter Pack

As a contestant in the deadly game of The Culling, you must explore, scavenge items, craft weapons, and build traps that will enable you to slay your fellow contestants and emerge victorious before the end of the round. Only with cunning, skill, and a little luck will you be able to prevail and survive the match.

Unlike add-on modes in open-world survival games, The Culling redefines the battle royale genre by providing a tightly focused stand-alone experience that delivers incredible thrills and endless story-worthy moments.

Features at Early Access Launch

Game Modes

The core of The Culling is an online 16-player battle royale, played solo or in teams of two. Matches last approximately 20 minutes, with deadly poison gas slowly constricting the arena in the final stages. The winning player (or team) is the last left alive.

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.

Weapons and Combat

The Culling focuses heavily on melee combat. Use jabs, charged swings, blocks, and shoves in a system that’s simple learn, but requires practice to truly master.

There are 24 melee weapons in the form of blades, axes, bludgeons, and spears. There are multiple tiers of weapons, which deal different levels of damage, from the lowly crafted stone knife to the mighty Katana. Different weapons types also apply different wounds, which factors into combat strategy. All melee weapons can be thrown, adding the potential for ranged combat in any encounter.

There is also a variety of ranged weapons, including bows, blowguns, and even highly-coveted firearms. A gun isn’t a guaranteed kill, however, as ammunition is in short supply and ranged players can be disarmed by melee strikes if they don’t keep their distance.

Traps

Players who thrive on outwitting their enemies can sample from a collection of traps in the form of snares, mines, remote-detonated explosives, caltrops, and punji sticks. Matches are fast-paced, so sneaky players must lay their traps in hot spots (such as near an airdrop landing pad) or use themselves as bait to lure opponents in.

Items

A wide range of utility items is at your disposal, with everything from backpacks to smoke bombs, run speed stims to stun guns, player tracking devices to bandages. You start each match empty-handed, so you must explore to survive. Inventory space is extremely limited, forcing you to think carefully about how you intend to play and what you want to carry.

Crafting

The Culling utilizes a unique crafting system that is very simple to use (no bulky UI-heavy inventory management) but still offers a wide range of recipes. Players can craft rudimentary weapons, a wide range of traps, and a handful of useful items, including bandages, satchels, and even body armor.

Perks

Each contestant chooses 3 perks before the start of a match. There are dozens of perks available, and they range from combat bonuses (increase the duration of bleed wounds you apply with blade weapons) to crafting skills (reduce your trap placement time), to general utility (begin the match with a tracking device in your inventory).

All of the perks are available to all players from the start with no unlocking required. You can use perks to define and enhance your personal play style, whether it be focused on ranged, melee, or trap-based strategy. Advanced players will find helpful synergies between their perk load-out and their airdrop selection.

Airdrops

Players select a personal airdrop to call in during the match. Air drops are deadly care packages containing a predefined variety of weapons, traps and items. Be careful, because calling in an airdrop draws attention to you and can be stolen by other players (especially if they manage to shoot it out of the sky before it arrives).

New airdrops are unlocked by opening the container, so finding a random airdrop during a match or stealing another player’s airdrop will unlock it in your list.

Game Show Events

The Culling is the most popular game show in the history of the world, and for good reason. The show’s producers have devised events that take place at random during the match. If you choose to participate in these events, the rewards can improve your chances of winning, but don’t be surprised when other players arrive to challenge you.

FUNC

Flexible Universal Nano-Compound, or FUNC, serves as the primary in-game currency. You spend FUNC to craft, call in personal airdrops, and open certain types of item chests. FUNC is gained through combat and exploration.

Character Customization

Players start the game with a variety of hairstyles, tops, pants, and skin tones at their disposal. Through playing matches, new customization items can be unlocked. There are over 100 items available to unlock, with many more planned.

Audio

The Culling places a heavy gameplay emphasis on audio. Making noise by sprinting through the jungle crafting items, slamming doors, and engaging in combat will draw the attention of other players far and wide.

Using audio cues to locate opponents and using the crouch mode to conceal your movements add tremendously to the game’s suspense and immersion.

Map Exploration

The Culling ships with one map set on a tropical island. The map size has been carefully tuned to provide just enough space for 16 contestants, but also to ensure than no one is safe for long. The map is populated with landmarks, buildings (full of lockers and crates containing items), hidden caches, and hazards.

Many of these elements are random, meaning map knowledge is important, but offers no guarantees. When the match starts, you can choose to immediately set about crafting some basic survival tools, or sprint to the nearest building in the hopes that it will contain valuable items.

Tutorials and Offline Training Mode

The Culling can be intimidating for new players, so we’ve included basic and advanced tutorials that will help you learn all of the game’s mechanics.

If you’re still not ready to face players online, there is an offline practice mode against basic AI-controlled bots that will allow you to practice in a low-pressure situation.

Steam Items

No contestant leaves a match of The Culling empty-handed. Cosmetic items (hats, hair styles, shirts, and pants) are awarded at the end of each round, with rarer items rewarded for better performance. These items are tradeable on the Steam Market.

MINIMAL SETUPOS: 2.7 or higher
Processor: Intel Core i5 4th Gen (4xxx)Memory: 4 GB RAM
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: DX11 GPU with 1GB VRAM: NVidia GTX 460/ AMD Radeon 5850Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 8 GB available spaceAdditional Notes: SteamOS is supported. other Linux distributions will have minimal tech support

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