Back in 2022, one of the most unexpectedly big games of the year was a cute little cult simulator. Cult of the Lamb, developed by Massive Monster and published by Devolver Digital, made a huge splash when it launched two summers ago and spoke to all the little freaks and deviants out there. Its hybrid of Animal Crossing-style daily tasks, recruitment, and relationship maintenance as well as Hades’ roguelike design and fast-paced combat made for a compelling venture into the heart of evil. As it celebrates its second anniversary, you can get it and all of the DLC that’s come out since launch for especially cheap.
Right now, you can pick up Cult of the Lamb for 50 percent off on Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, and the Nintendo Switch, meaning that the base game and all of its major updates will only run you $US12.49. For that price, you get a pretty substantial and fun adventure that’ll last you about a weekend if you decide to marathon it. That’s more or less how I played it when I reviewed the game, and it really lends itself well to the approach.
You get in, you get deeply lost in its approachable systems—such as managing which cultists are mining, tending to crops, and spreading the good word of the lamb—and 48 hours later, you can be completely done with the game. It’s one of the slickest game experiences I’ve had in the last few years, and that it can be completed in about 20 hours is a godsend.
Cult of the Lamb marries the sickening nature of cults (living sacrifices are made and marriage to your subjects is also on the table) with an adorable plush-like aesthetic to uncomfortably entertaining results. The first time you swing an ax at an enemy it feels off, but soon it begins to feel almost natural to behead heretics. You’re responsible for feeding your cultists and if food happens to run out, you can feed them their own crap or even the dead bodies that eventually begin piling up.
It’s all a little horrifying, but the fact that Cult of the Lamb’s art style makes light of the subject matter kind of communicates how willing we are to put up with atrocities if they’re dressed up in a way that can appeal to our sensibilities and wants. In a way, it’s the most nakedly honest simulator ever, because why else do we play these games if not to exercise total, sometimes frightening, control?
If the base game didn’t have enough of that, Massive Monster has spent the past two years furthering that dark fantasy. Since then, it has added even more story to the game, new costumes and forms for your followers to take, expanded weapons, and deeper mechanics, such as the sin system. Oh, and they’ve added breeding. This tweet from the team sums it up better than I can.
The latest update and DLC for Cult of the Lamb has even turned it into a co-op game as well, so now you can jump in with a friend and commit heinous crimes against all manner of living things together. While most of the new content has come to the game by way of free updates, there are DLC packs that offer lots of cosmetics, and at least one or two of ‘em have some added storylines. For $US21.79, you can get Cult of the Lamb and all of its major updates, plus every DLC pack that’s been released for the game.
Considering the base title goes for a flat $US25, that means you get everything that’s ever been added to Cult of the Lamb for less than the retail price. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a hell of a good deal and time to me.
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