Massive Monster’s Cult of the Lamb shows what happens when you leave your Animal Crossing village alone for too long. Just like a Disney remake of the Wickerman, Cult of the Lamb is a cute yet macabre tale of nature cults and bloody sacrifice., but one well worth taking, not despite but because of the tonal dissonance.
Your descent into hell begins with a poor little lamb getting sacrificed by the four heads of a shady woodland cabal to stop the resurrection of an eldritch god called The One Who Waits.
Unfortunately for the four bishops and the twisted deities they serve, the lamb is sent straight to the One Who Waits. In return for their unwavering loyalty, the eldritch god resurrects our cute little would-be cult leader and gives them dark powers to help them on their quest to slay the heads of the other cult and free the dark deity from its eternal bonds.
To be successful in their quest for vengeance, the lamb needs to amass a massive amount of spiritual power, so they hoodwink the local fauna into joining a cult of their own.
Lore is sprinkled throughout the game explaining the conflict between The One Who Waits and its four siblings, but this mostly takes a backseat to the superb gameplay.
Cult of the Lamb is a game of two parts; an Animal Crossing-like town builder and a Hades-style roguelike, with your time, neatly divided between tending to the whims of your flock and fighting through a forest full of heretics.
The roguelike half sees the lamb grab a random weapon and curse (special attack), then battle through a procedurally generated dungeon, ending with a fight against one of the bastardly bishops (or one of their disciples). Each run takes about ten minutes, and all your ill-gotten gains picked up along the way help build your community.
Combat strikes a nice balance between keeping you on your toes and never quite being overwhelmed. Most weapons can kill enemies in a couple of hits, and you can roll away from almost everything thrown at you. Weapons are your typical axes, daggers, and swords, while your curses are usually a long-ranged homing or area of effect attack. Like in The Binding of Isaac, your basic attacks can be augmented with various powers, and weapons can be swapped out with more powerful ones that spawn after clearing a room.
The dungeon crawling in Cult of the Lamb remains exciting throughout and doesn’t overstay its welcome, thanks to a mix of chaotic combat and relatively short runs. Though there’s not much variety in the monsters you face in each of its four biomes, and character progression is limited to buffs dolled out via tarot cards, each run feels engaging, while getting to the boss at the end feels hard-fought, and each victory well earned.
Succeed or fail, you are sent back to your cult’s village at the end of a run, arms bulging with resources to improve your commune and new converts you’ve rescued or captured in toe.
Cult members can either be set to work mining for resources, farming and maintaining your commune, sent on missions to get more loot or worship at the shrine in the centre of your camp. Worshippers generate Devotion which you can then use to upgrade and unlock better buildings for your commune, these include comfier beds, a refinery to get better quality materials, and even a toilet – this is vital because if you don’t deal with your cult members ablutions quickly, your settlement will be covered in more shit than a British beach.
As your cult grows, it’s important your followers keep the faith. This slowly drains away so you need to keep your followers well fed and happy, and your camp clean and operational. If your faith gets too low your followers will start to dissent and cease to believe in you. If you don’t nip this in the bud it will spread. I would recommend locking the buggers up in the stocks and re-educating them. However, the best way to get a quick boost of faith is to perform a ritual, These include dancing around a pyre built out of the bones of vanquished heretics, drugging everyone with shrooms so they spend the next few days in a haze, or simply sacrificing one of your flock ( which is also a great way to get rid of disgruntled cultists). The only downside is that rituals all have really long cooldowns, so it’s best to use them strategically.
Cult of The Lamb is a game where you feel like you’re running from one disaster to the next (a bit like life, really). There’s always someone dying, something collapsing, or someone complaining that you are not doing a good enough job. But, just like life, with a little creative thinking, and a lot more cannibalism, it never feels overwhelming. Once you get to the point where you can kill the decenters, feed them to your flock, get the mooks to repair their own tents, and clean up their own shit, you can get into a nice groove that mostly matches the game’s day and night cycle. With you looking after your commune during the day and diving into the dark woods to kill the heretics at night when everything has calmed down at camp.
As cult members level up, they become more loyal. This can happen in a few ways, from carrying out their requests, bribery, or talking to them. When your cultists level up, they work harder for you and give you a piece of Doctrine every time they do, get three of these, and you can add another commandment to your religion. There are five areas to advance the faith, and each Doctrine can make your cult more pious or nefarious… depending on how you feel about ritual sacrifice and cannibalism. Personally, they are core parts of my faith that make life a lot easier when food is in short supply.
As you venture deeper into the woods, you stumble upon all manner of characters that invite you back to their place for a cuppa and a game of knuckle bone. I wouldn’t drink the brew made by the mushroom people, though, it’s um.. potent.
These NPCs open up new areas with activities and shops that help build your commune (fishing by the lighthouse is a great way to keep your flock fed) or make your runs in the woods easier (the mushroom people and nutters in the lighthouse sell you new tarot cards, and other odds and sods).
The best part of Cult of the Lamb is its constant sense of progression. Whether you spend a day fishing, battling through another dungeon, or making improvements to your comune, every action feels like it is pushing you forward in some small but significant way. Cult of the Lamb is one of those games you meant to play for half an hour and then find your weekend is gone.
The art style really sells Cult of the Lamb, sitting somewhere between Spry Fox’s Cozy Grove and Happy Tree Friends; it’s hand-drawn, adorable, and more than a little bit disturbing if you think about it for more than five minutes. The theme of their being a dark undercurrent in even the most banal places is rife throughout the game, and the art direction serves it wonderfully. While the spectacle of a cute woodland creature committing bloody murder or getting dragged off by eldritch tentacles never fails to amuse.
Similarly, the audio direction is almost upbeat at times. A mix of pleasant, understated tunes offset by unsettling chants and whispers when anything otherworldly comes into view. The music is cute yet creepy – like every other facet of the experience.
Cult of the Lamb is an almost religious experience – Like The One Who Waits, it’s a twisted abomination you are bound to fall for. It’s a heady mix of twisted town building and exciting heretic slaying that rewards players with an almost never-ending stream of little rewards and moments that keep you hooked from start to maniacal end.
One word of advice, though; do not drink the kool-aid.