 Xaviant's director of operations Josh Van Veld believed that the timing was right, as it had been about two years since "The Culling"s initial release, making it a fresh title, and that "The Culling 2" would be released without an early access period.The announcement came around the same time that leaked images from "The Culling 2" had been discovered, with fans of the first game criticizing the look and feel for being too close to "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds".Van Veld said the choice to make the game more similar to "Battlegrounds" was to reflect the trend that the battle royale genre had seen over the last two years.