REVIEW: ‘Cult of the Lamb’ is Worth Worshipping (PC)

Roguelites and roguelikes have exploded in popularity in the indie scene in recent years. With break-out successes like Risk of Rain 2, Hades, and Slay the Spire, the genre has exploded in popularity and innovation. With how great many of the latest roguelike releases have been recently, it is all the more impressive that Cult of the Lamb from developer Massive Monster and publisher Devolver Digital is one of the best yet. 

The game opens with the player controlling a lamb as it is led to be sacrificed in front of four terribly twisted gods. The gods provide some exposition, revealing that they are known as the Bishops and that the player is the last lamb in the world, and that killing it will make some prophecy impossible to become true. And, the lamb is killed. 

After dying, however, the player is spoken to by an ancient god called the One Who Waits. The One Who Waits reveals that it is an even more powerful god that was betrayed by the Bishops and trapped. It then brings the lamb back to life to start a cult in its name and kill the Bishops, thus releasing it back unto the world. 

This kicks off the rest of the game, which sees players growing their cult, managing the needs of their followers, and fighting against the Barons to lessen their own following. The primary way to progress toward these goals is by completing randomized dungeon runs in one of four regions. Each belongs to one of the Barons and features its own enemy types, environments, and types of rooms for players to encounter. 

To kill the Baron of each region players have to complete runs of increasing length to first kill three bosses that rule alongside their deity. For these battles, players are always equipped with a weapon, a spell-like power called a curse, and a good old-fashioned dodge roll. Along the way, players pick their path through a tree of rooms filled with resource gathering, cult members to recruit, weapons to earn, and tarot cards to pull. 

The tarot cards act as Cult of the Lamb’s randomized perk system. Through various activities in the game, players build a large deck of cards that they can pull during their runs with effects like increasing their attack speed, dropping bombs whenever they dodge roll, and enemies dropping fish. 

Now you’re probably wondering what’s up with enemies dropping fish, but those play into the game’s cult-management layer. While the player does anything in the game time advances, which carries various effects on one’s cult. The player’s cult camp is completely customizable with various resource-generating buildings, beds, farm plots, and decorations. 

These allow the player to manage the hunger, disease, and faith of their cultists. This requires players to gather food for cooking, perform rituals to keep cultists faithful, and clean up after everybody living in the commune. Managing all of these resources takes up a fair amount of time early on in one’s playthrough, but becomes more automated as the cult grows and improves. 

Improving your cult and your performance in the dungeon runs comes from gathering the devotion and faith of your followers. Devotion is gained by having cultists worship the One Who Waits and allows the player to unlock new buildable items for their base. Faith is earned by holding sermons and allows the player to unlock nodes on a skill tree that adds new curses and weapons that can appear on the player’s dungeon runs. 

All of this comes together to create a stuffed but extremely well-tuned experience. All of the elements come together to keep every play session well-paced. The action of a dungeon run contrasts excellently with managing the resources and tasks of one’s cult for downtime. None of the elements of Cult of the Lamb are very challenging, even on higher difficulties. This can make Cult of the Lamb feel like an introductory title in the genre, but it is so fun that it still manages to hold its own. 

This balance is also achieved in the game’s visuals and tone. Cult of the Lamb is filled with dark acts like sacrificing cult members for power, throwing corpses into pits, and ancient gods inflicting plagues in a struggle to maintain power. While all that is going on, however, the game has beautiful and cartoony visuals. The unique tone of having a cultist with the head of a poop emoji smile as another cultist with a head that looks like a narwhal is brutally sacrificed just never gets old. 

It is very difficult to imagine a player that wouldn’t enjoy Cult of the Lamb. Its visuals are so beautiful and full of character. Its writing is witty and charming. Its action is simple, but fun and thoroughly engaging. While its weapon selection and combat mechanics may not be as varied or dense as its peers, its unique aspects more than make up for the deficit. 

Cult of the Lamb is available on August 11 on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.