Cult of the Lamb game review: What you need to know before buying
Pairing cosy management elements with a side of occult murder, this delightfully devious game is a real standout.
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The opening scene of Massive Monster’s Cult of the Lamb goes something like this.
A truly adorable cartoon lamb meets an untimely demise when it’s led to slaughter and ritualistically sacrificed by four Eldritch entities.
Luckily, a heretic deity known only as ‘The One Who Waits’ pulls an UNO reverse card and sends us hurtling back to the land of the living, sword in hand, much to the chagrin of our would-be assassins.
This stroke of good luck does, of course, come at a price – we must now start a cult in our saviour’s name and set out on a merry quest to massacre the nonbelievers.
The macabre pretence, paired with the adorable character casting, sets the tone as you fight your way through Cult’s roguelike levels, but it’s the addition of base building elements that are essential to creating your cult and keeping your flock alive.
These cosier components — crafting, cooking and material gathering — aren’t dissimilar to that of Nintendo’s kid-friendly, murder-free Animal Crossing, making this feel like a combination that absolutely shouldn’t work. But it does.
As the newly appointed Cult Leader, I set out to help The One Who Waits by slaughtering his siblings and freeing him from the chains he so clearly didn’t deserve. Ahem.
However, it’s easy to get sidetracked from this mission as you start juggling the much more ominous task of raising twenty cultist children.
Because, quite frankly, they’re idiots.
Buy Cult of the Lamb: Nintendo Switch | Nintendo Switch Deluxe Edition | PS5 | PS5 Deluxe Edition | Xbox Series X|S/Xbox One
Idle hands are the devil’s playthings
On each run through Cult of the Lamb’s randomly generated levels, you’ll be given the opportunity to save (and subsequently brainwash) new congregation members.
Back at the cult, you can then get your adopted children to help out with tasks, or tell them to pray and use their Devotion to unlock fancy new buildings.
While having a bunch of minions to do your bidding sounds all well and good, it turns out that running a cult is sometimes harder than having a day job as the devil’s right-hand man.
Despite ageing at an alarming rate, at no point do my children seem to get a grasp on basic life skills. They can plant seeds and water crops, but would apparently rather die of starvation than cook a meal. (If you’re the parent of a teenager, this one actually might sound familiar).
Similarly, they seem perfectly capable of using a toilet, but turn a blind eye whenever it starts to overflow. They do, however, still manage to complain about the hygiene issues.
Instead, it’s left to me as a single parent to gather up food and materials on each Crusade run, and then return home to cook and clean for them. If you thought they would be grateful, you can think again, as my disciples then proceed to ask me to complete additional missions to keep them happy.
My god, they are needy.
Ritual and ruin
You might think that I should stop catering to their every whim. The problem is (also not unlike teenagers), cult members start to rebel if they don’t get their way. In Animal Crossing, unhappy campers simply move away. In Cult of the Lamb, they dissent, drive away other followers and sometimes even steal your money and disappear into the night. Jerks.
As you progress through the game and build more structures for your cult – like a janitor station to clean up some of their mess – the kids do, admittedly, settle down a bit. But keeping them devoted while trying to do your saviour’s bidding definitely keeps you on your toes.
The faith of your flock is tracked in the top left corner of the screen, and it’s this counter I’m always keeping an eye on as I’m out slaying enemies.
Forgetting to complete tasks, failing to deliver meals in a timely manner or even committing the smallest of slights, such as waking a cult member in the night, all negatively impacts the faith of your cult.
Your own death, while out in the dungeons, also turns your followers away as they begin to doubt your strength.
The mixture of gameplay elements works extremely well, as the failure or success of your main mission directly affects the faith of your cult.
To avoid their wrath, you’ll need to defeat the dungeons, regularly conduct sermons and rituals and ‘re-educate’ those who would sow seeds of doubt.
Of course, if your followers dissent too much you can always sacrifice them. This is a cult, after all.
Excuse me, do you have time to talk about our lord and saviour?
Having just spent my hard-earned cash on a confessional for my unruly children, I may as well get my money’s worth. So here’s my personal admission: I’ve never been a fan of roguelike games.
However, Cult does a few things right to make the dungeon-crawling aspect of the game feel like less of a slog.
There’s four difficulty levels to choose from which can be changed at any point during the game. While I would recommend playing on Medium to keep the game enjoyable without being too easy, the range of options is great to see, as it makes the title both welcoming and accessible for players of all skill levels.
The mechanics are also easy enough to pick up and, like any good roguelike, you’re met with a revolving set of weapons and abilities each time you embark on a Crusade run. While each option delivers a different fighting style, the simple controls make it easy to slash and blast your enemies, while dodging incoming attacks, no matter your weaponry.
Supporting characters meanwhile add some depth to the storyline, as each encounter brings something new to the game. For instance, one ominous friend provides you with power-ups or abilities for the remainder of your run with randomly-generated Tarot cards, while bumping into an anthropomorphic fish unlocks a basic fishing mini-game.
Similarly, running into ex-cult leader Ratau sees him challenge you to a game of Knucklebones, which is one of the more enjoyable mini-games I’ve come across. Once you’ve beaten him, you can return to his place as many times as you like and up the stakes by playing for coins, which stops things from becoming too monotonous.
Thankfully, time appears to stand still at his house, or my flock would have starved to death while I gambled away our family savings.
The devil made me do it
After missing Cult of the Lamb when it first dropped last year, the release of a new Deluxe Edition has been the perfect excuse to jump in while I wait for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom to land. Only, now I’m annoyed I waited so long to play.
Answering the question: ‘what would happen if the cuddly critters in Animal Crossing turned to ritual, sacrifice and cannibalism?,’ Cult of the Lamb is nothing short of a delightfully deranged success.
Mashing together engaging roguelike gameplay with a fun management survival simulator, the hybrid title perfectly balances the sinister with the adorable to create a truly reverent experience.
Rating: 5/5 stars
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC
Developer: Massive Monster
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Shop standard edition: Nintendo Switch | PlayStation 5 | PlayStation 4 | Xbox Series X|S | Xbox One | PC
Shop Deluxe edition: Nintendo Switch | PlayStation 5
A Nintendo Switch copy of Cult of the Lamb was provided and played for the purposes of this review.
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