Review: All Hail CULT OF THE LAMB
Last week, Devolver Digital released Cult of the Lamb from Massive Monster. The game is a roguelike cult-building DIY simulator and is available now on Nintendo Switch, PC (GOG|Steam), PS4, PS5, and Xbox (affiliate link). The team at Devolver Digital was kind enough to provide me with a PC copy of the game to review, but the thoughts below are my own.
In Cult of the Lamb, prepare to start your own cult in a land of false prophets. Venture out into diverse and mysterious regions to build a loyal community of woodland worshippers. Spread your Word to become the one true cult! As you amass your flock, you’ll collect and use resources to build new structures, perform dark rituals to appease the gods and give sermons to reinforce the faith of your cult. Explore a sprawling, randomly generated world, fight off hordes of enemies and defeat rival cult leaders in order to absorb their power to assert your cult’s dominance.
Ever since I learned about this game I knew that I needed it. I heard about it and laughed. I watched an early trailer for it and in addition to laughing I had a yearning. Cult of the Lamb is absolutely incredible. The game is basically a perfect marriage between Hades and Animal Crossing. You have to go defeat 4 prophets in a roguelike action game. The levels are randomly generated so no two runs are the same and you have to complete a few runs before you can get to the bosses. Meanwhile, when you’re not chasing these prophets, you have to build and develop a cult/settlement and it’s a lot of fun.
On the roguelike side of things, the only complaint I have is that sometimes it feels too easy, but I’m only playing on Medium difficulty. There are two more above it for anyone more hardcore than me. The cult management is a little less perfect although it’s still excellent. For starters, I feel like it’s hard, at least in early game, to get sufficient resources to really get going. Getting lumber and stone can feel tricky at times. I’m just glad they have the buildings that generate the resources over time. Another aspect I’m not fond of is that it takes so long to really automate the farming. It takes so long for your followers to be able to harvest crops and it’s a little annoying. Pretty early on they can plant, water, and fertilize crops, but gathering takes so long and you have to do it for quite some time. My only other complaint I have is that there’s no real explanation about if you have to go to certain areas to find certain kinds of fish or if it’s about the time of day or something else. That’s right, Cult of the Lamb even has fishing! You tell me this isn’t a near-perfect game.
The art for this game is fabulous, the sound design and music are incredible. I really struggle to find faults with this game. If you haven’t already picked it up, I highly recommend Cult of the Lamb. Especially since it’s only $24.99. This might be my Game of the Year for 2022.
