Published , by Donovan Erskine
Published , by Donovan Erskine
Cult of Lamb is one of the most anticipated indie game releases of 2022 with the team behind Adventure Pals (Massive Monster) in the developer seat and the endlessly charming Devolver Digital handling publishing duties. I had the chance to take on the role of a bizarre cult-leader at PAX East, where I got to go hands-on with Cult of the Lamb. Though I was already looking forward to it, Cult of the Lamb shot up my most-anticipated list after getting to play a bit of it.
In Cult of the Lamb, players step into the hooves of a recently deceased lamb that’s given a second chance at life thanks to a malevolent being. This gift comes on one condition - that you’ll begin a cult in their name. Thus kicks off a journey of recruiting new followers and slaying naysayers.
Cult of the Lamb’s gameplay feels a bit similar to The Binding of Isaac. In similar roguelike fashion, players travel from room to room taking on waves of foes. Combat can get quite hectic, so there’s a lot of dodging around and frantically swinging your weapon involved in staying alive. Oftentimes, my efforts would be rewarded with a new weapon, which had its own unique stats such as speed, strength, and, in some cases, a special feature. While I used an axe early on, its slow swinging speed just didn’t work for me. I ended up switching to a nifty dagger that helped me make quick work of my enemies.
An aspect of Cult of the Lamb that I wasn’t expecting to be so fleshed out is its community-building and resource management. Your home camp serves as a hub; it’s where your followers will stay and where you’ll return to after clearing dungeons.
After rescuing a cat-like creature and bringing them back to my base, I was able to induct them into my cult and even customize them. The game let me change their name, species, and the color of the clothes that they wore. After that I was able to assign them to gather resources for me while I handled more important business.
Cult of the Lamb’s core resources are berries, stone, and wood, which are gathered from harvesting from bushes, mining rocks, and chopping down trees, respectively. These resources can be used at the camp to create new structures as well as food, which you’ll need to fill the bellies of your devoted followers. I used a handful of berries to whip up a pie to fill the hunger meter of my cat-like cult member.
Resource management also factors into standard dungeon-crawling. When entering a forest, the game offered me three different paths to take. Each path was rich with one of the three core resources. Since I assigned my follower to collect wood before I left, I decided to go the stone route. Once I made it out of the forest and back to my camp, I had a great supply of both!
Cult of the Lamb is shaping up to be a formidable roguelike that also tosses a healthy serving of base-building and resource management into the mix. For more of Shacknews’ content out of PAX East, you’re already in the right place.
These impressions are based on a demo played at PAX East 2022. Cult of the Lamb releases later this year for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.