Must know
What is it? A game that puts the ‘cult’ in ‘cutlet’
Expect to pay $25/£19
Publication date August 11, 2022
Developer Huge monster
Publisher Devolver Digital
Judged by GeForce GTX 1650, AMD Ryzen 5 3550H, 8GB RAM
Multiplayer? no
Clutch Official site
At first it seems to be a remarkably short game. Things begin with you, like a cowering lamb, led as a sacrifice to your death. Within ten minutes, however, you have already taken violent revenge on your would-be killers and swore your adorable allegiance to the mysterious creature who brought you back to the land of the living. You start your own sect; a cult where all members are super cute creatures.
This is Animal Crossing when Tom Nook craved power instead of money. It is, like football, a game of two halves. The first half involves growing, nurturing and – of course – indoctrinating your cult. However, you should take care of the basics before you get too ambitious. Your cute little cult members need food to eat, places to sleep and a place to defecate. Don’t give them the latter, and they’ll just do whatever they feel like in the field you’re developing. well she to be animals after all.
The second half feeds on the first half and is a great example of how every aspect of the game is carefully intertwined. There are four dungeons to complete, both for the story (on your quest to free the one who raised you) and for the maintenance of your cult (new followers and resources can be found). This part of the game is essentially a roguelike, with randomized weapons and rooms, and extras to unlock. The combat is solid, a bit bassy at times if you’ve been given a fast but weak weapon. The default difficulty is nicely balanced, but if you ever feel like you need to increase (or decrease) the challenge, the difficulty can be changed at any time.
But the feedback loop ensures that your actions in the settlement have a direct impact on your progress in the dungeons. The leveling system is, frankly, genius. The basic idea is that the bigger and happier your cult is, the faster you can reap their devotion (mainly by preaching once a day), which works like XP. This in turn directly or indirectly unlocks weapons, perks, and abilities for the dungeons; and blueprints for decoration and functional buildings for your cult.
Growing and maintaining everyone’s loyalty and faith is more complex than you might expect, but it never threatens to become overwhelming. It can also be downright fun. By the time the general belief of my cult first dropped to a level where I got my first heretic preaching to the others, I was done with the perfect way to deal with them. At that point, I’d indoctrinated my cult to celebrate sacrifice, and I’d quickly convert them to cannibalism (hey, there’s no need to let good meat go to waste). From then on, whenever a heretic appeared, I “rewarded” them by sacrificing them. They were no longer a problem, my cult’s faith was boosted and there was something to eat. Everybody is happy.
Cult of the Lamb is clever, it’s beautifully designed, and the script is sharp and funny.
Part of the progression system involves developing your cult’s doctrine. While this is a binary either/or choice every time, it’s still an enjoyable way to decide how fair or bad you want to be while gaining a new advantage in the process. For example, I wanted to make sure that my followers respected the elders, which resulted in a faith boost when I let a member reach a certain age. That more than makes up for the cannibalism, right?
Your cult base isn’t the only non-combat site to explore. There are other (also minor) locations that can be unlocked with side quests, resources, and things to buy. There is a dice game (Knucklebones) and very simple fishing to distract you. It’s a small world, but it’s also one that almost begs you to explore every corner of it.
Where is a wool
Yet there is even Lake to the Cult of the Lamb. When the story is finished, the dungeons really open up and no longer come to an end when you hit the former boss room. You can continue as long as you dare, risking losing some of what you’ve collected when you die. However, how long you play is not necessarily your choice. There is one enemy that you can never completely defeat. Time.
There is a gentle but constant pressure at play, in the form of the day/night cycle. Whether you’re in your settlement, in one of the other locations you’re slowly discovering, or in the middle of a dungeon adventure, time passes slowly. That means cult members slowly get hungry, poop somewhere, and possibly get sick or even die. That, in turn, means your cult’s loyalty will begin to wane, requiring a lot of work to turn back if left unattended. It’s not hard to avoid a situation where your cult turns against you and you suddenly struggle to harvest Devotion, but to keep up, you have to strike a good balance between the maintenance of the settlements and the dungeon adventure. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it would be nice if you had the option to lean more heavily to one side or the other if you feel like it.
Still, Cult of the Lamb is clever, beautifully designed, and the script is sharp and funny. The atmosphere is great, helped not least by art that instantly makes you loved. Speaking of which, it was a smart choice to make all your followers cute wickle critters. Whether intentionally or not, it makes the brainwashing and dark morals amusing rather than disturbing.
Every now and then I found myself thinking ‘eh, this really is like a cult,” like the time the game happily let me know that I can marry as many of my followers as I want. However, don’t be fooled into thinking this game is anything but great. I love it, and that’s almost certainly my own opinion, untainted by nefarious influences.
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