Cult of the Lamb is a rogue-like dungeon crawler that has you leading the charge through the Lands of the Old Faith. Each region you visit consists of a series of randomly generated rooms and encounters, and is necessary to progress the story. You’ll have to crusade through each of these regions at least four times to unlock the temple of the false prophets, the Bishop Lords that rule these lands.
The game is essentially a mix of two game genres that intertwine so that you’ll often be dividing your time equally between the two – and for good reason.
Cult of the Lamb begins at our poor, titular lamb’s end. After walking down a narrow stone corridor, you are greeted by robed cultists and The Old Gods: four monstrous beings to whom the inhabitants of this strange land are (mostly) loyal. As it turns out, this little lamb is the last of its kind, having managed to evade death while the rest of its fluffy friends were culled.
The Old Gods reveal this was due to a prophecy that a lamb would be the one who would lead to their undoing, destroying the Old Faith and unleashing the one thing they fear most: The One Who Waits. The Gods instruct their followers to dispatch you quickly, but little do they know this is precisely what the prophecy demands.
With an animated style that harkens the cutesy, the crass, and the blasphemous, Cult of the Lamb most overtly recalls The Binding of Isaac, as your crusades find you fighting through randomized, Legend of Zelda-esque, and similar-looking rooms that are displayed on a minimap.
The combat, though, is more reminiscent of Hades, with players having to focus less on changing weapons mid-run than sticking to whatever items spawned at the start of a run. But where Hades keeps things interesting by making you constantly choose different abilities, Cult of the Lamb just hands you a couple of tarot cards to boost health or weapon speed.
Cult of the Lamb sees a cute fluffy lamb, destined for death, saved by an unknown satanic being known as “The One Who Waits”.
The lamb was saved, but the trade-off? You must start a cult and grow a following in its name.
There are a few ways to play the game.
- Create the evilest cult possible, punishing and sacrificing your cute followers for next to no reason other than to gain more power.
- Create a loyal cult that worships you for all the “good” you do.
- Lastly, you can stay somewhere in the middle, sacrifice here and there but largely treat your followers with love and respect.
Cult of the Lamb was created by the team at Massive Monster, which is spread across Melbourne and Malaysia.
Cult of the Lamb is as adorable as it is unsettling, an eclectic mix of genres and themes that come together extremely well. Its combat is immensely satisfying even if its short runs and the relative lack of variety between them doesn’t give it the lasting appeal of other action roguelikes, and building my very own cult base and tending to a flock of followers was just as fun as any swing of the axe.
There’s already one DLC available from launch, the Cultist Pack. It’s an extra $6.95 on Steam and gives you a few more follower skins and decorations for your camp.
And while there are no details, there’s already confirmation of two ‘substantial’ content updates for the future.
Cult of the Lamb is beyond adorable, it’s funny, it’s creative, the art style is a standout and it is without a doubt one of my favourite games of 2022.
