Cult of the Lamb | Game Review (PC) | Game of the Year 2022 | Game Awards 2022
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Cult of the Lamb | Game Review (PC) | Game of the Year 2022 | Game Awards 2022
My lamb swings his big sword to cut down opposing cultists and launches a curse that deals with a flying opponent. A picky worm moves toward me, so I dodge twice to make sure I get to the other side of the arena. When the worm’s head pops up, I take it down, which means all enemies are dead.
A chest drops in and the lamb picks up some missing health, plenty of gold, and bones required for a coming ritual. I think I might have a shot at taking down the boss that awaits in the final segment of the dungeon. But it might be a better idea to get back to my flock of followers, deliver a fiery sermon, and see if I can boost my abilities for future battles.
Cult of the Lamb is developed by Massive Monster, with publishing in the hands of Devolver Digital. I played using Steam on the PC, but players can also get it on the Nintendo Switch, the PlayStation 5, the Xbox Series X and S, and older consoles from Sony and Microsoft. The title mixes action, management, and rogue elements.
The setup is simple but engrossing: your lamb protagonist is ready to be sacrificed to the gods when another supernatural force intervenes. The bargain is that he is saved and now needs to act on behalf of this older god, who is keen on making an impressive comeback. This requires the development of the cult from the title and plenty of combat. The fictional universe of Cult of the Lamb manages to mix cuteness and darkness very well and was weird enough to keep me engaged even as I was constantly dying to a powerful boss enemy.
Players will spend most of their time in the game fighting. The lamb can use a primary weapon and a curse (basically a magic power) to deal with enemies in fairly small arenas. Encounters are fast and deadly. Make sure to use the dodge as much as possible and conserve health. As players move through rooms, they will get resources, as well as access to modifiers in the form of tarot cards and, potentially, a chance to get a new weapon or power. At the end of the randomly generated dungeon, a boss awaits, delivering a significant combat challenge.
Outside of the dungeon, the lamb needs to deal with the day-to-day running of the cult. Followers need a place to sleep, food, and gifts. They will generate resources, the most important being devotion, that open up more options on a tech tree. And the lamb can deliver sermons, engage in rituals, and develop the tenets of the cult to get more advantages in combat and get more resources from followers. I spend my first day with my followers chopping wood and mining stone. After a while, I delegated all the busy work to them and shifted my focus on sermons, short talks, and delivering the resources that are only available in dungeons.
Cult of the Lamb shines when there’s a clear link between the dungeon exploration and the development of the cult. I felt like a small god when I destroyed a boss, got a new follower, received a ton of resources, and then promptly invested in the glory of my own religion. And that feeling made it easy to then deal with a few failed runs, a drop in follower fervor before I again found success in the dungeon. But the game offers new followers at too slow a pace and I often felt that simple resource acquisition was not a good enough reason to once again run through a dungeon.
Cult of the Lamb is a good-looking game, although it could use more variety when it comes to locations and enemies. I like the way our protagonist looks and the way combat flows, although given the subject matter I expected to see a ton more gore. The level of weirdness is also a little too low in this universe of vengeful gods and backstabbing followers. The game’s sound design is synchronized well with the rest of the experience, especially the mysterious and weird soundtrack.
The Good:
Solid combat
Cult management
Great soundtrack
The Bad:
Mechanics lack depth
Some boss encounters
Can become repetitive
Conclusion:
Cult of the Lamb has all the elements it needs to succeed in the modern action and rogue space. All combat mechanics are tight, the premise is weird but easy to grasp, and almost every action the player engages in has a clear payoff. I like the way being a good cult leader makes it easier to deal with combat sequences, powering a cool feedback loop.
The biggest issue is that, for all its wealth of ideas, the game emphasizes spectacle over substance. And it’s a good and fun spectacle but many fans of this mix of genres might find it shallow. Cult of the Lamb makes a great first impression but it’s left to the players to discover whether it has staying power.
Review:
STORY = 8
GAMEPLAY = 9
CONCEPT = 8
GRAPHICS = 9
AUDIO = 9
MULTIPLAYER = 0
FINAL RATING = 8.5
Review: VERY GOOD
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