Cult Of The Lamb Review

Not many games exist where you can play as a cult leader, but Cult Of The Lamb, the new rogue-lite city-builder from Massive Monster, seeks to sacrifice all gaming conventions to the god of fun.

Since we first saw the cute style with bad-ass combat combined with resource management and city-building, we have been excited to see what Cult Of The Lamb had to offer in its final form.

This fierce lamb has created quite a stir in the gaming world since its release on August 11th. But is it for all the right reasons?

Fire and brimstone parable

The story of Cult Of The Lamb is that you are a lamb about to be sacrificed in the name of four gods. But when you die, you are brought back to life but a mysterious figure who isn’t mates with the other four gods. This figure imbues you with demi-godly powers, which it wants you to use to help it rise to power.

It’s a basic but functional story that won’t win any video-game Baftas but gives a clear incentive for the player to progress.

There are also lots of surprises contained within mini-narratives such as a potential follower who I found in the first combat area, Darkwoods, who was the last surviving member of a besieged town. Or the lovesick psychopath trying to find his former lover’s still beating heart.

Blending of worlds

The world-building in ‘Cult’ is magnificent. The perfect balance between children’s book-style visuals and a dark and drily humorous universe has been struck. The best example of this marrying of two worlds can be found when one of your adorable little critter followers asks to eat shit for sexual kicks.

The world is a joy to inhabit, and I never wanted to leave, with the world-building being one of the game’s strongest elements.

Baby’s first Satanist Bible

The 2.5D Happy Tree Friends style visuals are distinctive and perfectly set within an adorable but dark world. Animals have big eyes and big hearts but also big appetites for blood. And shit.

The colour palette is always very striking, and there are three main ones: vivid colours for combat areas and follower hub areas, pale for speaking to the god who saved you, and blood red for boss fights. Plus, there is nighttime, which is really dark.

These palettes often shift to give variety and are all pleasing. Animations throughout the game are well executed, endearing, and action-packed.

Get your hands bloody

The gameplay is split fairly equally between city building to combat and flows as smoothly as blood trickling down a sacrificial altar. Very good ratio of resource management and combat, with resources bleeding into the combat as you must collect resources in combat areas to build stuff in your followers’ area.

Surprisingly, the most striking thing about the game is quite vanilla. Cult is a very balanced title, with no design or fairness issues that limit enjoyment. Everything feels like if you make big mistakes in your settlement or combat, you can quickly turn it around. This makes the game open to player experimentation as they learn how dynamics work through trial and error.

There are several skill trees and resources for different abilities, the main one for your settlement. The forgiving system, which allows you to choose which items you want or need next, is well designed, and choices feel meaningful but not life-changing if you pick the wrong item at any stage in the game. 

This an addictive game that will make you always want to build a bit more for your city, so you have to fight a bit more, and then you will discover new areas and mini-games to explore. It all works in a delicious cycle that will keep you up ‘til the wee hours.

Combat is elegantly designed, with enough variety of weapons to keep things feeling fresh. There are daggers, swords, axes, and gauntlets with different speeds, ranges, and damage levels. Combat rooms have many surprises and a meaty feel when you attack enemies. 

The combat is also fast-paced, especially in smaller rooms, and is mostly button bashing and dodging but fits perfectly with the thoughtful decisions of city building

The city building is a little more complex than the combat. You can buy several different upgrades for decorations, beds, and items to generate Belief used to perform ceremonies to meet the needs of you and your followers. 

“Combat can sometimes feel slightly repetitive if you don’t progress quickly”

Keeping your followers happy is a richly rewarding and accessible experience. This view is from someone who never played city builders, so I had no prior experience, showing the city building component to be easy to learn and enjoy. 

Surprises often pop up to add complexity, showing off imagination and giving a dynamic feel most of the time. This is handy as the combat can get a little repetitive, and many of the new characters pop up in the combat areas.

Being offered a discount to buy back followers about to be eaten by a giant spider or followers asking you to make their rival followers eat shit are highlights. 

The humour is a big part of the game but is cleverly embedded and never in your face as it is always contextual, never forced as it often is in video games. Shit cleaning is being used for fertilizer and the shit fetish debuff (coprophiliac), where followers enjoy getting ill and generate more faith when it happens. 

Attention to detail is good, like the fact you can recycle unwanted items into gold. Or what happens when you attack the food vendor’s giant snail wife. But we will leave you to discover what that means on your own. 

Combat can sometimes feel slightly repetitive if you don’t progress quickly, but this is negated by the need to collect resources for unfed, sick, or love-starved followers.

Eerie ceremonial horns

In a word, the musical score is awesome. Especially the eerie, distinctive music in the combat areas. The score perfectly matches the game’s tone while blending into the background at the right times and yet being catchy.

I also like the angry Cartman-like noises dissenting followers make when they broadcast their doubts to other followers.

The made-up language, which is not fully voice acted and composed of repeated words and phrases, is very well performed. The way sounds are repeated to form the voices is reminiscent of the more solemn characters in Hollow Knight, with the same high production values and strong sense of character.

Emotive response

Unlike most rogue-lites, I didn’t feel like replaying Cult when I completed it. However, the duration becomes satisfying when you try to balance the combat against the needs of your followers. This makes the game last a good long while and justifies the more than reasonable price tag.

Cult Of The Lamb is available now on Steam for PC, Xbox series S/X and Playstation 4/5, and Nintendo Switch.

Thanks to Massive Monster for a game copy.