Xaviant has released The Culling (not The Culling 2) as a playable build for PC via Steam. The actual Day 1 version of the game — from way back in March of 2016 — is now on the team’s “Reference servers.” If you own The Culling on Steam, you will be able to play The Culling: Day 1 Reference for free, where all owners of The Culling will see the “Day 1 Reference” as a separate application in their Steam Library.

Folks looking to see what all of this arrangement is about can read The Culling: Day 1 Reference description below or watch the accompanying announcement video beneath it right here:

“In a remote island paradise, 16 contestants have 25 minutes to explore, scavenge items, craft weapons, build traps, hunt and kill each other. There has never been a battle royale game this focused, brutal, and adrenaline-filled! Only one will be crowned the winner, do you have the guts to survive?”

It’s a bit hard to say how people are receiving this step that Xaviant is taking forward or would it be backpedaling? Anyway, it’s clear that the Steam review has gone from Very Negative to Mix as of this writing.

In addition to the above, we can gauge (slightly) how The Culling: Day 1 Reference is doing as of now via Steam Charts, although the following statistics should be taken with a pinch of salt since they are not indicative numbers:

Well, what we can take from the above is that its 24 Hour Peak is 72 times higher than The Culling 2‘s 24 Hour Peak of just one person. This also applies to its Playing 35 Minutes Ago which tallies up to 48 players.

I’ll say this, the noted numbers above aren’t good, but they’re better than The Culling 2 numbers by a milestone. As of now, time will tell how The Culling: Day 1 Reference will pan out. In the meantime, you can snag the game for $5.99 if you don’t have it and for free if you own the base game on its Steam page.