Cult of the lamb game review

Katherine’s already up, busy cleaning up the delightful mess of poop and puke left over from last night’s wild festivities. Meanwhile, Alice is out in the garden, trying to harvest cauliflowers while keeping a safe distance from Graham’s very dead (and slightly rotting) body. In the middle of the village, a bunch of followers are dancing around the shrine—until a brawl breaks out between Mark and Liam, the two oldest cult members. Turns out, ritual combat for the elderly is a bit of a tradition around here. Mark takes Liam down, and the crowd goes wild as his spirit (and some flesh) is generously donated to the cause.

And me? I’m just chilling at a nearby camp, fishing and playing a few rounds of Knucklebones. Gotta let the little people handle the dirty work sometimes.

Welcome to Cult of the Lamb. And yeah—it rules.

The game kicks off strong. You’re a fluffy little lamb about to be sacrificed by four creepy, God-like Bishops of the Old Faith. But just as you’re killed, you’re brought back to life by a mysterious chained deity called The One Who Waits. They offer you power and life in exchange for some good old-fashioned cult leadership. Within minutes, you’ve gone from helpless sacrifice to badass scythe-wielding herald of death.

From the get-go, the style is chef’s kiss. Trees sway in the breeze, enemies explode into cute little bone-chunks, and your Lamb doesn’t just walk. it charges forward with intense, creepy energy. Everything oozes charm and menace all at once. A cozy creepy game at it’s finest.

After slicing your way through some tutorial rooms full of cultists and eldritch creatures, you land at your new home base. Here’s where the second half of the game kicks in: cult management. You can rescue other critters to indoctrinate into your cult, assign them jobs like chopping wood or praying for upgrades, and try to keep them happy with food, beds, and a poop-free environment. Or at least, relatively poop free.

Starting out, you’re doing most of the work yourself. breaking rocks, building sleeping bags, planting crops. But as you unlock new buildings, you can start pawning off the hard labor onto your followers, which frees you up to do what you do best: explore dungeons and smite the Old Faith.

Your ultimate goal is to free The One Who Waits by defeating the four Bishops, each guarding a chain to the prison. Each Bishop lives in a themed dungeon that opens once you have enough followers. You don’t have to beat them in order either, which is nice for mixing things up.

Combat is snappy and stylish. You’ll be dodging, slicing, cursing (with spells, not swearing), and generally being a one-lamb wrecking crew. The starting weapon selection is a bit underwhelming—just sword, dagger, axe, or hammer with some effects tacked on—but the curses help add some variety. Tarot cards provide passive buffs during a run, and while I wish there were more of them, the combat still feels good moment-to-moment.

What the game lacks in weapon variety, it makes up for in monster design. You’ll fight everything from horned slugs to exploding jellyfish, and the bosses are gloriously grotesque little nightmares. Think Binding of Isaac levels of gross-but-cute.

The game’s structure is pretty similar to Slay the Spire—dungeons are split into branching paths, with different types of rooms like combat, shops, followers to rescue, and more. Beat a realm four times, and you unlock a final boss fight. Beat that, and the realm opens up for endless runs.

What really impressed me, though, is how well the game ties the dungeon crawling to cult management. Time keeps moving while you’re away. One time a Bishop cursed my cult with famine mid-run, and I had to rush through the dungeon to avoid coming home to a pile of starved corpses. Another time, I died during a run, but thanks to a perk, I could sacrifice one of my followers to come back. Sorry, Rachel.

And yes, ritual combat between the elderly is absolutely a feature. As your followers age and die, you can bury them respectfully—or, you know, make them fight each other for the glory of the afterlife. I unlocked doctrines that made sacrifices boost overall Faith, so it became a legit cult event. Old folks throw down, the loser dies, and everyone throws a party. Efficient and uplifting!

Cult management stays surprisingly engaging. You’re keeping folks fed, building stuff, cleaning up poop, and occasionally throwing a sermon or a feast to keep everyone happy. There’s also a bunch of side areas to visit. At Pilgrim’s Passage, you can fish (with a fish-fisherman, naturally), and in the Lonely Shack, you can play Knucklebones—an oddly addictive little dice game.

Also, major shoutout to the soundtrack by River Boy. It’s the perfect blend of cozy and creepy—like cottagecore meets cosmic horror. It constantly matches the vibe, whether you’re peacefully tending crops or brutally slaughtering a boss.

Even the smallest interactions in this game are treated like epic moments. Declaring a new doctrine? The screen shakes, the music swells, a bell tolls—it’s all wonderfully over-the-top, and I loved every second.

I wrapped up the main game after about 14 hours. Not super long, especially for a roguelike/management hybrid, and I skipped some of the endless runs and side quests. It’s fair to say there could be more content—more weapons, more tarot cards, more build variety. But what’s here is already excellent, and I’m hoping future updates bring even more to the table.

Bottom line: Cult of the Lamb is a wild, delightful mix of cute, creepy, and chaotic. The combat’s solid, the cult management is addictive, and the whole package is dripping with personality. It’s the kind of game that makes even poop-scooping feel rewarding. Highly recommended—especially if you’ve got a little evil streak.