Quick answer: Cult of the Lamb is a roguelike dungeon crawler bolted onto a cult management sim, and it is one of the best reviewed games Devolver Digital has ever published. Metacritic 82, OpenCritic 84 with 88% of critics recommending it, and roughly 96% positive from well over 100,000 Steam reviews. It has sold more than 4.5 million copies. The common 2022 complaint that the combat never changes was fixed by free update 1.2.0 in April 2023, and three more big updates followed. A native Nintendo Switch 2 version arrives on 22 October 2026 as a free upgrade for people who already own it on Switch.
Original illustration created for IGGG Guides.
Most reviews of this game were written in August 2022. That matters more than usual here, because the single most repeated criticism in those reviews no longer describes the game you would buy today.
Back at launch the complaint was simple. The fighting is shallow, the weapons all feel the same, and by hour fifteen you are doing exactly what you did in hour one. That was a fair thing to say in 2022. It is not a fair thing to say now. Massive Monster shipped four major updates, three of them completely free, and the first one went straight at that criticism with 37 relics, a heavy attack for every weapon type and selectable combat difficulty. The fourth update added a second player on the couch.
So this is not a launch review. It is a look at what the game actually is after four years of support, what it costs now, what the paid expansion changed, and whether the Switch 2 version landing this week should change your plan.
What the numbers actually say
There is no critical split here to untangle. Critics and players landed in almost the same place, which is rare and worth saying plainly.
| Source | Score | Sample |
|---|---|---|
| Metacritic, PC critics | 82 | 88 reviews |
| Metacritic, users | 7.9 | about 1,000 ratings |
| OpenCritic | 84, rated Mighty | 88% of critics recommend |
| Steam, all reviews | Overwhelmingly Positive, about 96% | over 110,000 reviews |
| Metacritic, Switch version | 79 | lower than PC, same game |
| Steam peak concurrent players | 61,780 | launch window |
Individual scores: GameSpot 90, Destructoid 85, PC Gamer 82, Game Informer 80, IGN 80. It won a Golden Joystick, took four Australian Game Developer Awards, and picked up three nominations at the 19th BAFTA Games Awards including Best Game. That is a very different picture from the one the average "cute game with a dark twist" pitch gives you.
Original illustration created for IGGG Guides.
Who actually made it
Massive Monster is a small studio based in Melbourne, Australia. Plenty of write ups just call them "an independent developer" and leave it there, which skips the interesting part. Before this they made more than fifty browser based flash games, plus The Adventure Pals and Never Give Up. Cult of the Lamb was their first game at this scale.
One detail explains everything that followed. When they signed with Devolver Digital, they negotiated nine months of guaranteed post launch support into the contract before a single copy sold. Most small teams ship and hope. This team had the runway written down in advance, and they ended up supporting the game for well over three years.
It paid off. In a November 2025 investor presentation, Devolver listed Cult of the Lamb as its best selling intellectual property of all time, with lifetime revenue just under $90 million. That puts it ahead of Hotline Miami, Enter the Gungeon and Astroneer. If you want the other side of that studio story, our look at the Hotline Miami Collection covers the game it overtook.
What the game is, without the marketing
You play a lamb. You are sacrificed in the opening minutes, then brought back by a chained up god called The One Who Waits, who wants four rival Bishops dead and sends you off to do it.
The loop splits in half and the halves feed each other. One half is a top down roguelike run through a randomised dungeon with a weapon and a curse you did not choose. The other half is base management. You build a camp, recruit followers from the people you rescue, feed them, keep them from getting sick, bury the dead, hold sermons, and set the rules everyone lives by.
That doctrine system is where it gets genuinely uncomfortable, and it is the best thing in the game. You pick the laws. You can decide that the dead get a proper burial, or you can decide the cult eats them. You can rule that followers who break the rules are forgiven, or you can make an example of them in front of everybody. The game never congratulates you and never scolds you. It just applies the consequences. Faith goes up, food shortages ease, and you sit with what you did.
The art is why people bought it. Think sticker book cartoon animals drawn with wide eyes and soft edges, dropped into imagery borrowed from folk horror. It should not work. It works completely.
Content note: the game plays cult indoctrination, ritual human sacrifice and cannibalism for laughs. The cartoon art keeps it light, but it is still about manipulating people who trust you. If that is a hard no for you, no amount of cute animals will fix it. There is also a dedicated breeding mechanic added in a later update, which is handled comically but is clearly aimed at adults.
Every update, and what each one actually fixed
This is the table that should decide your purchase, because it is the part a 2022 review cannot tell you. Three of these four were free.
| Update | Date | Price | What it added |
|---|---|---|---|
| Relics of the Old Faith | 24 April 2023 | Free | A whole post game storyline, 37 relics, a heavy attack and a level two heavy attack for all five weapon types, combat difficulty settings, boss rush, new followers. This is the one that answered the "combat is shallow" reviews directly. |
| Sins of the Flesh | 16 January 2024 | Free | Sin as a new resource, a mating tent, followers hatched from eggs, the Blunderbuss ranged weapon, eight new doctrines, drink houses, re-indoctrination of rival cultists, auto levelling, a rebuilding minigame. |
| Unholy Alliance | 12 August 2024 | Free | Two player local couch co-op across the full campaign, with a Goat as player two. Weapon swapping, a back to back damage bonus, synced attack criticals, 25 new relics, two player Knucklebones and fishing. |
| Woolhaven | 22 January 2026 | Paid, $16.99 | The first real expansion. A frozen mountain region, two new dungeons, blizzards and a cold survival layer, animal ranching and breeding, a doubled cult area, a new post game story, Rot corruption. One reviewer described it as more than double the size of the original base game. |
Read this before you buy it for co-op. The two player mode added in Unholy Alliance is local only. There is no online co-op and there never has been. If you and a friend are in different houses, the only route is Steam Remote Play Together, which streams the second player's input and needs a decent connection on both ends. Buying this as an online co-op game will disappoint you.
The Switch 2 version, four days out
A native Nintendo Switch 2 build launches on 22 October 2026. The important part for existing owners: it is a free upgrade if you already own the game on Switch. New buyers pay the same $24.99 the game has always cost. There is no remaster tax here, which is worth noting given how many studios have handled this differently.
Verify before you buy: free upgrade offers on Nintendo hardware have had eligibility carve outs before, and the exact process for claiming it was announced only a few days ahead of release. Check the listing on your own regional eShop before you buy anything. If you already own the Switch version, do not buy it again until you have confirmed the upgrade path in your own account. For more on what the new hardware has actually been getting, see our rundown of new Nintendo Switch 2 games.
There is also an iOS release through Apple Arcade from December 2025, which is a sensible fit. The management half of the game suits short sessions, and the dungeon runs are short by design.
What it costs, and the only maths that matters
Original illustration created for IGGG Guides.
The base game is $24.99 and goes on sale constantly. It first hit 50% off in August 2024 and has repeated that and deeper since. The expansion is $16.99. There are several cosmetic only packs at about $4.99 each. The One Who Waits Edition bundles the base game, Woolhaven and the Cultist, Heretic, Sinful and Pilgrim packs for $59.99, roughly 25% off buying them individually.
Here is the cost per hour, using a conservative completion estimate of about 25 hours for the base story and roughly 45 hours with the expansion and post game content. We ran these figures ourselves rather than taking anyone's word for it.
| What you buy | Price | Rough hours | Cost per hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base game at full price | $24.99 | 25 | $1.00 |
| Base game at 50% off | $12.49 | 25 | $0.50 |
| Base game plus Woolhaven | $41.98 | 45 | $0.93 |
| The One Who Waits Edition | $59.99 | 45 | $1.33 |
The honest read: the $59.99 bundle is the worst value on that list, because everything it adds beyond Woolhaven is cosmetic. Buy the base game, play it, and only then decide whether you want the expansion. Nothing in the paid content is locked behind a wall that affects gameplay, and there are no loot boxes. If you want to see how badly this can go in the other direction, our piece on why AAA games are not fun anymore covers the monetisation habits this game avoids.
Sales, properly attributed
Two numbers get mixed up constantly, so here they are separately. Units sold passed one million in the first week after the 11 August 2022 launch, reached 3.5 million by January 2024, and passed 4.5 million by October 2024, a figure still being quoted in early 2026. Lifetime revenue is a different metric from a different source, the Devolver investor presentation of November 2025, which put it just under $90 million. Those are not the same thing and should not be added together or compared.
What runs it
Almost anything. The published PC minimums are genuinely modest, which is the main reason this became such a common laptop game.
| Part | Minimum listed |
|---|---|
| Operating system | 64 bit Windows 7 or newer |
| Processor | Intel Core i3 3240 or AMD FX 4300 |
| Memory | 4 GB RAM |
| Graphics | Radeon HD 7750 or GeForce GTX 560 |
| Storage | 4 GB |
A 4 GB download is nothing by current standards. On a 10 Mbps connection that is roughly 55 minutes. On 50 Mbps it is about 11 minutes. On 100 Mbps you are looking at five or six minutes. Compare that to the install sizes we worked through in our open world map size comparison and the difference is stark.
The real criticisms that still stand
Updates fixed a lot. They did not fix everything, and pretending otherwise would be useless to you.
- The management half still runs out of road eventually. Once your cult is big and stable, the chores become chores. The expansion pushes that point much further back, but it does not remove it.
- Follower care is repetitive by design. You will clean up a lot of mess. Auto levelling helped. It did not change the basic rhythm.
- Combat is better, not deep. Heavy attacks and 37 relics gave it real variety, but this is still not a game you play for mechanical mastery. If that is what you want, look elsewhere.
- No online co-op. Worth repeating, because it is the single most common refund reason.
- The Switch version scored lower than PC at 79, mostly on performance. The Switch 2 build is aimed at exactly that.
One more piece of context. Art director James Pearmain told PC Gamer in February 2026 that the team had spent close to eight years on this game and were, in his words, definitely excited to do something else. Read that how you like, but Woolhaven may well be the last large expansion. If you have been waiting for the content to be finished before buying, it probably is.
Buy, wait, or skip
| You are | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| New to it, like roguelikes or management games | Buy | Base game only, ideally on sale. Four years of free updates are already included. |
| Bounced off it in 2022 because combat felt flat | Reinstall | You already own the fix. Relics of the Old Faith was free and is sitting in your library. |
| Own it on Switch 1 | Wait four days | The Switch 2 upgrade is free on 22 October 2026. Do not rebuy. |
| Finished the base game, want more | Buy Woolhaven | $16.99 for something reviewers called more than double the base game's size. |
| Looking for online co-op | Skip | Local only. Remote Play Together is a workaround, not a feature. |
| Uncomfortable with cult and sacrifice themes | Skip | The cartoon art does not soften what you are actually doing. |
| Eyeing The One Who Waits Edition | Wait | Everything past Woolhaven is cosmetic. Buy the base game and decide later. |
Verdict: this is one of the safest purchases in its price bracket, and the safety comes from the support record rather than the launch reviews. Four years, four major updates, three of them free, no loot boxes, no pay to win, and a free hardware upgrade for Switch owners. The 2022 criticisms were real and most of them were answered. Buy the base game on sale, skip the bundle, and treat Woolhaven as a second purchase you make only if you want more.
Frequently asked questions
Is Cult of the Lamb still worth playing?
Yes, more than at launch. The free updates added a post game storyline, 37 relics, heavy attacks for every weapon, a ranged weapon and local co-op. The version on sale today is substantially bigger than the one reviewed in 2022.
Does it have online multiplayer?
No. The co-op added in August 2024 is two player local only. Steam Remote Play Together can simulate online play but it is a stream, not native netcode.
Do I need the DLC?
No. Woolhaven at $16.99 is the only paid content that adds gameplay, and it is designed for people who already finished the base game. Everything else is cosmetic.
How long is it?
Roughly 25 hours to see the main story through, and around 45 if you add Woolhaven and the post game material. Completionists will go well past that.
Is the Switch 2 version a paid upgrade?
No. It releases on 22 October 2026 and is free if you already own the Switch version. New buyers pay the standard $24.99. Confirm the process on your own regional eShop first.
Is it suitable for children?
Not really. The art looks like it is for kids and the subject matter is not. Ritual sacrifice, cannibalism as a policy choice and a breeding mechanic are all in there. Parents should look at it before handing it over.
Will my old laptop run it?
Almost certainly. A GTX 560 and 4 GB of RAM is the published minimum, and the install is only 4 GB. It is also Steam Deck Verified.
Where to go next
- If the folk horror side is what appealed to you, read our Saturnalia review, which is the same tradition handled seriously instead of comically.
- For a horror game that commits all the way, see The Mortuary Assistant.
- If you want the combat depth this game does not have, Sifu is the opposite end of that scale.
- For another small team that outperformed its budget, our Hollow Knight Silksong review is worth your time, and there is a direct link here: Woolhaven includes a Hollow Knight fleece as a crossover.
- Browse more in the Action, Adventure and RPG hubs.
Subscribe to us on YouTube for more gameplay breakdowns and reviews: ClubAssassins on YouTube.