Cult of the Lamb: TA team first impressions

When the TA news crew took a trip to London for WASD, there were several games we all wanted to try. Cult of the Lamb immediately catches your eye with its bizarre mashup of cute and creepy, and it turns out it had something that appealed to each of us, with its interesting mix of base-building and dungeon crawler elements. Safe to say, we all insisted on playing the half-hour demo. Luke and Heidi each tried the demo first, then sang its praises to Kes, who had wandered off to play something else, and who then couldn’t rest until he’d tried it too — and then immediately insisted on telling each other how great it was.

Despite its cutesy appearance, Cult of the Lamb looks to deliver exactly what it promises: a vengeful and bloody tale about the lamb in question, and how he pays back the debt that brought him back to life by going out into the world and killing everything he finds there. Going out into the world itself involves exploring randomly-generated areas and defeating the enemies you’ll find there to grow more powerful, or else converting individuals into new followers of your gruesome cult. The world of Cult of the Lamb is dark and hellish — don’t be fooled by the lamb’s harmless appearance; there’s murder in those giant Disney eyes. So, death, destruction, and general devilishness — all what we expected from a game like Cult of the Lamb.

What I didn’t expect was the sort of base-building elements the game implements. Not only do you go out into the world to gain more followers, you also provide for them back at a safe hub space — feeding them, building more structures, and even, it looks like (from one promising blueprint I found for a wheelbarrow filled with flowers), decorating your base. Towards the end of the demo, I had my one loyal follower busy chopping wood and gathering resources. If there was anything that could make Cult of the Lamb even better, it’s this concept of building up a little base for your loyal followers. Giving you a base also gives you an instant sense of ownership in the game — this is your space, you’ll upgrade it and take care of your followers.

The first few enemies I faced didn’t seem too challenging, but you can tell Cult of the Lamb is just getting warmed up — along with facing the followers of other cults, you’ll later face the leaders themselves. And don’t forget about those mysterious creatures that tried to sacrifice you at the beginning — one of them cropped up again later in the demo and made it very clear that the only reason they didn’t try to personally eliminate the lamb again is that they didn’t think he posed much of a threat. So it seems we can expect some seriously powerful foes to crop up again later on just when we start to get too big for our boots. Likewise, it seems as though caring for your followers will take a step up, too, as you’ll also need to perform rituals and sermons to keep their faith up, as well as feeding them and upgrading your base. We only had around half an hour with Cult of the Lamb, but that was enough to have us entirely invested in this devilishly demonic game.

The music. The music! It’s stuff I listen to all the time. It’s like trip-hop, but a bit faster with a lovely bonky rhythm. It kept me bouncing as I slew foes and began my wonderful cult of animals. Gosh, this game took me in a way I didn’t expect. Actually, I think that is true of myself and Heidi, who both came away positively glowing. Like Heidi, I feel intrigued by the base building mechanics which have long been a favourite feature in video games for me. More surprising though was the really stupendous combat, which five rooms in had me thinking that it would be a dangerously grippy hook with how easy and visually satisfying hitting foes is. Seeing grass and brush sweep into the air was a lovely touch, but moreover the dialogue was also wonderfully wry and there is a bit of cheek emanating from every corner of this well-constructed world. Cult of the Lamb has me really excited. In fact, as Luke will tell you, it has all three of us incredibly excited for its release!

I was expecting to enjoy Cult of the Lamb just from the trailer, but I wasn’t expecting the duality of gameplay it presents. Adventuring feels great — speedy action combat with a long-distance dodge and custom special ability that can be swapped out or upgraded by finding new ones on your travels, plus there’s a handy map screen between areas that lets you target specific zones, rewards, or challenges, a la Curse of the Dead Gods and Hades. It’s safe to say that if you like either of those games, this should be on your radar. Once you’re done in the dungeons and have converted more followers to your adorable cause, though, the game suddenly changes gear. Back at base, you need to tend to your flock and make sure they’re all contributing to the cause by gathering or refining raw materials. Cult of the Lamb goes from fast-paced action roguelite to A Kingdom for Keflings-esque town management in a heartbeat, and somehow without breaking players’ necks with tonal whiplash. Both gameplay styles feed into one another wonderfully, with new converts indoctrinated by defeating bosses in dungeons joining your settlement (you can even individually customise them, so I’m blatantly going to be running a cult of froggy lads) and in turn allowing you to develop the homestead further and develop the means to tackle (and hopefully convert) even more powerful foes. Even just from the few quick runs that we got, it’s a really engaging loop, so I’m really looking forward to seeing what kinds of weapons, abilities, and base-building potential make it into the full release. Consider me proselytised, little lamb.

What do you think of Cult of the Lamb? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!