Cult of the Lamb

~ Review ~

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From when first it reared its cute and terrifying head, Cult of the Lamb has courted a description of two halves. Roguelike dungeon-crawler meets cult management sim. Cute lamb meets terrifying gods. Having now seen the game's crusades through to their unholy conclusion, this dual identity has proved itself very apt.

Cult of the Lamb is unique as a whole but familiar in its constituent parts. It is a game of interlocking systems, yet one of clearly partitioned playstyles. Despite looking like a lurid Adult Swim cartoon, there is a sweetness to the way it endears you to your cult and your followers (even if you ritually sacrifice a few along the way). Massive Monster feel confident, their personality very much on show, and yet Devolver seem to have rushed the release, with technical difficulties hampering this otherwise polished breakout hit from the young Australian developer.

The joke premise - you are the proverbial Sacrificial Lamb risen from the grave to exact revenge - quickly gives way to a more involved plot. You the last lamb to be sacrificed. After the axe falls, you are resurrected by a chained eldritch monster, The One Who Waits, and tasked with building a cult in honour of your saviour and with killing the four prophets responsible for your execution and your new master's imprisonment. Whilst it couldn't be mistaken for the grand narrative of Elden Ring - the juxtaposition of grotesque and cute, almost kawaii aesthetics is always knowingly funny - there are echoes of Miyazaki's macabre storytelling as lore is drip-fed, revealing more of the mysterious horror.

Crusades are the roguelike, dungeon-crawling side of Cult of the Lamb. Armed with a melee weapon and a magic attack, each randomly spawned at the start of each run, you progress through a series of procedurally generated rooms towards a prophet boss. Along the way are tarot cards with various boons and NPCs selling blueprints or new followers for your cult. Dungeons are procedurally generated, contained to one room until you clear it of enemies. There are minimal branching paths (layouts become only slightly more elaborate you progress) and you are armed 3 buttons: with melee attack, magic attack and a dodge roll, which as far as I could tell grants a few frames of total invincibility. There are enough styles of attack that you will most likely find that which suits, although you will be consistently challenged to use other weapons when your favourites don't drop. The often gruesome creatures are pleasingly iterated upon, making each dungeon distinct, and the boss design is a treat. It's fast paced, especially on higher difficulties when rooms can swarm with enemies all attacking in different ways, but this is not a punishing game. The action is well-telegraphed and visual overwhelm is minimal, the skill ceiling high enough to offer a gratifying difficulty curve.

As well as shopkeepers, a few special NPCs will appear on crusades. Each will unlock a separate area to visit outside of crusading, generally providing some minimal quest element. All are joyous to discover yourself, but it is worth mentioning Ratau, who unlocks a dice-based minigame called Knucklebones. Its balance of luck and tactical play has proven super popular with players. It is satisfying, if straightforward (in part satisfying because it is straightforward). It comes into its own when the hardest difficultly is finally unlocked, and would potentially find its apotheosis in PvP.

When you're not crusading, you are overseeing your ovine cult, which involves resource management, construction and maintenance. Both cult management and dungeon crawling are broadly derivative activities - and yes, both may have been done better - but Cult of the Lamb has quite the array of feedback loops. For instance, returning to your cult you may find your followers hungry. In order to cook for them, you may need to harvest food from your farms. You could do the farming process manually, but why not build stations for your followers to sow, water and fertilise your crops? That will require a few buildings, which in turn require resources, best harvested by way of other buildings. All construction is unlocked using Devotion generated by your followers. The best way to reap Devotion is to let it accumulate while you go crusading, but you can also engage with your followers to raise their loyalty and earn Devotion. You can also re-educate your followers if they begin dissenting. Followers dissent when your cult's Faith is low, so make sure to keep Faith topped up with sermons and rituals. Sermons unlock boons for your crusades, rituals help with cult management whilst you go crusading. Phew. There's a lot going on. It's a far cry from the subtle unfolding of a game like Hades and it's heavy on tutorials. It's a little convoluted, a little messy, but all those systems are designed to complement each other. It is tangibly ambitious.

Mostly, each mechanic feels worthwhile or at least diverting enough to draw your attention and mostly successfully feed back into each other. There are, however, instances where Massive Monster may have overreached. It was relatively easy for me to upgrade my cult to its maximum level long before I reached the endgame, but this didn't necessarily make it run smoother. Rather than all aspects of production improving altogether, certain things conspicuously lagged behind. I had to create a workaround to produce fertiliser (collected from followers' poo) which involved cooking inferior meals that would encourage pooing and making sure never to install a janitor's station. Dissenting followers quickly ceased to be a concern, whilst cooking was always a manual task. Some systems might have benefitted from a central hub, where you might view followers' jobs and perform actions unto them, rather than chasing them individually around your camp. I can understand the need to balance and incentivise different ways of interacting and once again, the game's success therein is impressive. I suppose when one comes close to perfect balance, the ways in one falls short are more evident. Part of me wishes that I had played on a higher difficulty and taken my time to build a cult of which I was truly proud (decorations and all) but once everything for the crusades has been unlocked and the final boss looms, the interlocking systems drift apart from one another and diminish in importance.

Even in these qualms, Massive Monster's ambition is evident. There are always games designed around pre-existing formulae; rarer is the game that so confidently repurposes two such distinct formulas and sets them to work symbiotically. Perhaps the closest comparison is Digital Sun's Moonlighter, in which dungeon-crawling meets shop management. It's a fruitful comparison, highlighting the energy and style of Massive Monster's latest. Moonlighter has a far more deliberate pace, rewarding those who take time to understand the village and the shop. Even in the dungeons, Cult of the Lamb is more rush-in-and-destroy, à la Hades. On the other hand, like Moonlighter, Cult of the Lamb spreads charm across all its disparate machinations to tie them together, making it much more than the sum of its parts. The art style is testament to this, but perhaps just as important is the sound design, particularly the voices and the sound effects. Every character vocalises along with their dialogue, with perfectly pitched sound effects that complement their personalities. Check out this short video to hear the terrifying nonsense rattling of the narrator.

Cult of the Lamb is a vibrant calling card for Massive Monster, but it has had numerous technical issues since launch. Playing on Switch, I experienced a lot of lag, a few soft locks and one hard lock that required a reset. A friend playing on PS5 experienced enough issues to prevent them finishing the game. At the time of writing, the game has been patched to fix a number of bugs, from animation issues to random locks. The success of the game should ensure it continues to receive a high level of support, but the range of issues that it shipped with suggest perhaps a rushed deadline, maybe even publisher pressure.

Once a thorough clean-up of technical issues has been achieved, we can look forward to content updates (dates TBC). If Cult of the Lamb returns with more of the same inventiveness and heart, and raises the ceiling enough to give me room and reason to develop my cult further, it will have a long and happy tail. Here's hoping. [8]