Devolver Digital has always had an eye for some delightfully odd gaming experiences. Play as an ape escaping its captors while freeform jazz blasts in the background. Rob pretentious rich people as a con man in 18th century France. Eviscerate houses full of goons as a drug-addicted ninja with PTSD. The latest in this long line of the publisher's memorable releases, Cult of the Lamb, places you in the role of an adorable fluffy lamb harboring the soul of a sinister ageless deity. It’s intense, it’s cute, it’s stressful, and it’s absolutely something that you need to try out.

You begin your journey by being sacrificed by a woodland cult which is killing the poor creature because a prophecy stated that a lamb would be the vessel by which The One Who Waits would make its glorious return. The four resident Old Ones really weren’t fans of The One Who Waits, so they imprisoned it in another dimension to consolidate their power over the woodland creatures.

Little did they know that sacrificing your little lamb actually sent it straight to The One Who Waits, who resurrects it and gives it spooky powers in exchange for its eternal loyalty and commitment to killing the other four gods, which would free The One Who Waits. Your lamb thus sets out to form a cult of its own in the name of its patron Eldritch Abomination, building spiritual power to aid it on the long quest of vengeance. Though there are bits of lore sprinkled in there explaining more of the conflict between The One Who Waits and its four brethren, the story mostly takes a backseat to the excellent gameplay after the first couple hours.

Gameplay is one part survival sim and one part action roguelike, divided neatly between your duties tending to your ‘flock’ and your efforts to fight your way through the forests of heretics. The roguelike half of the gameplay follows many of the expected trappings of the genre; you start out with a basic weapon and a limited use active skill and battle your way through room after room of enemies across randomly generated maps. A full dungeon run should only take you about ten minutes or so, and you’re sure to collect plenty of spoils along the way to help aid in building your commune.

On normal difficulty, combat manages to strike a nice balance where you’re always kept on your toes, but never quite feel like you’re being overwhelmed. Most weapons—except the dagger—can take down enemies in just a few hits, and you also have a very useful dodge roll to grant you some precious I-frames. Weapons run the usual gamut of axes, swords, gauntlets, etc. while your curses usually give you some sort of AoE attack like a long range sludge bomb or a burst that pushes away any enemies close to you. Though you start out each run with one random weapon and curse you can later occasionally acquire new ones to swap in as rewards for clearing a room.

We appreciated how this dungeon running element of Cult of the Lamb manages to always feel fresh while never overstaying its welcome. New layouts and equipment loadouts keep every run unique, while its intense and chaotic battles demand your full attention. Plus, every run being only 10-15 minutes in length means you’re in and out before things get too stale. There isn’t all that much enemy variety in any of the biomes and other than tarot cards, which grant you temporary passive buffs for the run, you aren’t given a whole lot of rope to ‘build’ your character. Combat is simple, then, but it nicely fills the niche it needs to in the overall gameplay loop.

Whether you kill the boss at the end of your run or get overrun at some point leading up to it, you’ll always come back to your cult’s commune and this is where the sim elements come into play. Occasionally, you’ll come across new cult members in a run or you’ll ‘forcibly convert’ them after beating them in a fight, and they then join your growing flock. Every cult member either can work to help maintain your commune—such as pitching in with farm chores or going down in the mines to get resources—or they can sit around the shrine in the center of camp and worship it, which grants you Devotion. Once you have enough Devotion, you can then invest it in upgrades for your commune, such as better sleeping quarters or a hut from which you can send out missionaries.

As you grow your populace, however, you’ll need to ensure that you can keep the overall Faith level up, as it is constantly decreasing. Keeping your flock fed and fixing structures as they collapse is critical to keeping people believing you, and low faith will raise the chances of dissenters rising up in your midst. Of course, you can always toss dissenters in jail and ‘re-educate’ them, but this is then one less pair of hands working for you. If your Faith is getting too low, one way you can shore it up quickly is by throwing a ritual, such as a massive feast that removes everyone’s hunger or drugging your entire flock with psylocibin to keep them in a euphoric haze for a few days. The only drawback here is that rituals all have pretty hefty cooldowns, so you have to be strategic in when you choose to invoke them.

If there’s one word that feel best describes Cult of the Lamb, it’s stressful. There’s a neverending day/night cycle at play and it always feels like you’re just barely able to keep up. Maybe you don’t have enough money to pay for a new sleeping bag for your new cult member. Maybe you just ran out of food and half your camp is starting to get hungry. Maybe someone just died and you don’t have the resources to make a body pit. Going on a dungeon run is usually a somewhat fraught experience, then, because you leave knowing that you’ll be coming back to a camp much worse than you left it and you might or might not be able to find the resources you need while you’re out.

In light of this, you have to sometimes get creative in amusingly dark ways. If a follower dies of old age, for example, you can desecrate their body while everyone’s sleeping and use the meat for tomorrow’s meals or you can turn it into fertilizer so your crops will grow a little faster. If a new dissenter speaks out and your prison is full, you can just kill them when nobody’s looking. If Faith is getting too low, you can always marry yet another cult member to boost everyone’s beliefs. It’s your cult after all, and you’re entitled to be as unethical as you must to get the results The One Who Waits needs.

Cult members themselves can be leveled up via Loyalty, which grants you more devotion and a new piece of Doctrine after they pass another milestone. More loyal members will prove to be better workers and once you have three pieces of Doctrine fragments, you can declare a new doctrine in church that either unlocks a new ritual for you to use or a new passive effect that applies to all cult members. We appreciated this doctrine system especially, as it goes a long way towards making management easier as you grow you flock.

As you progress through new biomes, you’ll also slowly unlock other locations besides the forests and your commune where you can interact with other NPC cults and participate in special activities. Head over to the lighthouse, for example, and you can play a fishing minigame to collect food for your flock. Visit Ratau’s and you can gamble money over a creative dice game that smartly balances luck and skill. Meanwhile, the mushroom people run a shop where you can buy new blueprints for decorations at camp or new tarot cards to potentially show up in future dungeon runs.

All this feeds into a nice sense of progression and synergy that encompasses nearly everything that happens in Cult of the Lamb. For example, your exploits in the forests will directly influence your ability to maintain and expand your commune, while your efforts to keep your flock happy lead to direct benefits to your combat ability in the forests. Whatever it is that you choose to do with your limited time, you can be sure that there will almost always be another unlockable blueprint, ability, or recipe just around the corner. You can’t do everything you want to, of course, so you have to prioritize what’s most important now, but we appreciated how nothing feels unnecessary to the gameplay loop. There’s a fine balance to all activities that offers enticing incentives regardless of what you do, which can make it remarkably difficult to not play for ‘ten more minutes’ and suddenly lose an hour.

Unfortunately, one element that is decidedly substandard here is Cult of the Lamb’s performance on Switch, which is disappointing to put it nicely. The frame rate stays consistent as long as there isn’t too much happening on the screen, but it gets real choppy as things get busier and the frame drops led to many instances where we took unnecessary damage or lost a run. Worse yet, Cult of the Lamb outright crashed on us once and softlocked a few more times, necessitating a return to the title screen. Between all of this, we also noted loading screens that could last as long as 15 seconds—not devastating by any means, but just long enough to get irritating during lengthier sessions.

It seems that not all these issues are exclusive to the Switch version and the developers have already announced that patches are in the works for all platforms to address some of the technical issues. Even so, Cult of the Lamb is in a rather sloppy state right now, which is a real shame given the excellent underlying gameplay and design on display here. It never feels good when a glitch or performance hiccup directly drags down some notable part of the gameplay experience and the issues with Cult of the Lamb right now are rampant enough that you’re sure to encounter something the longer you play.

As for its presentation, Cult of the Lamb manages to impress with its visual style, which is vaguely reminiscent of the dark 2D art style seen in Don’t Starve. Everything from enemies to cult members to patches of grass has a flat, hand-drawn look and these are all facing the camera, which holds a fixed perspective. Plus, there’s an interesting fusion here of cute and horrifying, as you have things like bright-eyed, smiling animals participating in a blood-soaked midnight bacchanalia. Nothing features here that we feel qualifies as truly disturbing, but that ongoing contrast of light and dark remains thrilling all throughout the 15-20-hour campaign as you come across new biomes and characters.

To match the ‘creepy but cute’ aesthetic, the soundtrack mixes together various chants and whispers with tribal sounding music that has a somewhat primal vibe. Most of the soundtrack is thus low-key and relatively ambient, the kind of music that’s discovered rather than announced, but some of the boss music ratchets things up to more exciting heights.

Cult of the Lamb proves to be a remarkably fresh take on the roguelite genre, not just in its goofy and creepy aesthetic, but in its smart blending of action and survival mechanics. Gameplay remains tense without ever feeling like it’s unfair and a steady stream of unlockables and collectables ensures that your efforts are always rewarded. It’s just a shame that the performance isn’t up to snuff, at least at launch, as that’s really the only major complaint that we have here. We’d still give this a hearty recommendation to anyone who thinks it might be up their alley; it may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but Cult of the Lamb proves itself to be a great new addition to the Switch library.

Scoring Policy Review copy provided by Devolver Digital

Mitch has been a fan of Nintendo ever since he got his start on the GBA in 2005. When he's not busy playing games or writing, you can find him down at his local MMA training facility learning how to punish the unrighteous.

If I wasn't in the middle of Xenoblade Chronicles 3, I probably would have been all over this at launch. Really looking forward to playing it sometime when I have the time. Hopefully they can work out some of the performance issues by then.

Just waiting for my physical copy to arrive.

Good review! Bought it on release and loved every minute of it. Minus the performance issues (frame drops, stutter etc). Just a shame its not very long or very hard. Even on hardest difficulty it felt like playing on easy. But it has so much charm, and one heck of a soundtrack!

I found the combat to be painfully dull and the "dungeon crawling" sections not very fun at all, kinda just ruins the game.

You guys are VERY forgiving on the performance. I have never had a game crash multiple times in less than 5 minutes of attempted play. The framerate was abysmal.

I repurchased it on my PS5 (where I should have started) and the difference is night and day! No lag, no crashes.

This was a buyer beware situation, and I should have waited for the Switch reviews, but I jumped the gun. Wont be doing that again.

Nintendo Life trying not to compare something to Animal Crossing for 5 minutes:

My only gripe, is that I wish the dungeon rooms were a little more expansive.. you'll find yourself fighting 5 or 6 baddies at once in a cramped space. Even then, this game is an instant classic and I can't put it down. I couldn't wait for the physical and i'm glad I didn't but i'll be buying that as well when the time comes lol...

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Ctulhu R'lyeh wgah-ngal fhtaga

Haha, I don't know that "Ctulhu is home waiting" has the same impact as "In his home of R'lyeh, dead Ctulhu waits dreaming. That fact that he's dead his dream is our existence are important details!

Much like Binding of Isaac, I can't help but find the game a bit offensive as a person of faith. We've seen plenty of articles on this site about LGBT+ representation in games recently, but I never see positive depictions of Christianity. Any time a game references it, it's always memed to high heaven. Psycho moms who think God wants them to kill their son, an evil cult that overtly evokes biblical imagery by using the lamb as a symbol and parodying quotes from scripture, a fighting game where you can play as a crucified depiction of Jesus...I don't like that this is becoming such a trend.

I already see countless people on the internet say things daily about how "religion is the cause of every war," "imagine believing in a book of fairytales about an invisible sky daddy lolz," "Christians are nothing but a bunch of hateful and homophobic bigots," et cetera. It's effected my mental health quite a bit, not gonna lie. And I worry about the worsening of this stigma with games like this.

I hope the mods won't delete this for being off-topic, as it's very much related to the subject and I think is only a fair double-standard to allow discussion about religious representation in games if Nintendo Life is willing to champion other forms of diversity. I promise that just because I pray to God doesn't mean I'm going to sacrifice your blood on an altar.

I have some 10 hours on this on the Switch and aside from a couple stutters I've yet to come across a single technical issue like some are documenting. I really don't think performance is bad at all.

@Not_Soos What you don't realize as a christian who has probably never studied an occult book... using symbology involving lambs, and a cross predate christianity. Cult Of The Lamb uses generalized occult and "cult" ideals and notions. With Binding of Isaac however I can kind of see where you're coming from because it does have a blatant mockery about it I could see how it could bother someone of your faith. It's up to christian developers to create their own christian roguelikes or games in general..Not everyone else. And I feel that way too about other people who call for representation... get up and represent yourselves and quit expecting/demanding everyone else include you in everything. Include yourself in your own creations.

The reason you don't "see" games with a "positive depiction of Christianity" is because it's the default setting. Almost every game that tackles the idea of faith uses it as a source of strength for the characters that have it while showing a few "bad seeds" are the reason things go off the rails. Look at Far Cry 5 ... the whole thing is about a cult of crazy Jesus lovers, but the main protagonist outside of your is still a priest, trying to bring "real faith" back to these people. Even THIS GAME makes it clear you the bad guy. It's satire, which never tells you something is bad, it just makes you think about something. If this game offends you, it's because you look at the horrible, unjustifiable beliefs and actions of the main character, who the game makes us understand is EVIL, and see yourself in that. You're offended because this game disarms you and takes away your excuses.

As an example, this game is saying "maybe it's WRONG to indoctrinate children". You can reply to that be thinking "Man, that IS wrong. I'm offended that a group I'm associated with does that, because it's really, really evil" or you can reply with "I'm offended this game is shading light on this completely evil thing this group I'm associated with does". WAY beyond what group happen to be part of, that's what shows the value of your character. Are you mad that games like "Life is Strange" being up the fact that the Chaotic Church is the primary factor mentioned in the majority of teen suicides and that LGBT+ suicides go up in areas where the Church runs ads targeting them, or are you mad about the fact that the Church is making children kill themselves? Choose wisely!

You're just like a white person crying about how we are not represented in games because sometimes white people are shown as evil. The majority, by definition, never needs representation. THEY. ARE. THE. MAJORITY. So until 72% of the Western world stops being Christian and laws start passing that make it so that you no longer get tax credits for donations and don't get your own school system any more, stop comparing yourself to groups of people who face legitimate persecution. 1 game out of 1000 has shows the LGBT+ community in a positive light, so it's big deal to praise the ones that do. 1 game out of 1000 show the majority in a negative light, so it's no big deal ... you can just move on to one of the other 999 games. There is no greater sign of privilege out of control then being upset that ONLY 99% of games show you in a positive light, and demanding it's 100%. It shows that in the world you live in, you see yourself as the normal others shows be compared to.

I'm going to add this game to my wishlist. I love the whole idea of starting my own cult and enticing poor souls into following it! I do hope the performance issues will be fixed in a future patch. I'll give them some time, because I won't be buying this any time soon with my backlog taken into account

I have been loving the game on Switch, but the bugs are a plenty. Several hours into my first play through, I got the “Black Fog bug” that softlocked me from progressing in the game. At first i was going to hold off starting a new game until an eventual patch, but I finally decided to start a new game and haven’t had any game breaking bugs since. The developer has stated that a patch is coming. I’d usually ream a game for being pushed out too soon, but I’ve been enjoying so much of what i’ve seen so far from the game that i’m more forgiving of its faults.

It feels like it isn't quite in a finished state. Like it was released early, without the last couple of QA passes. If I had my time again I'd wishlist it, and get it on offer in a few months, when it's hopefully patched up.

@Not_Soos I don't know if you actually played the game, but it does not take itself even slightly seriously, just like the 9 million games about murdering are not actually promoting murder. This game is even less serious than those since it's actively making fun of itself.

Arguably the game should have a trigger warning, but I think the assumption is the rediculous description of the game will be enough to warn people away who don't like games like this.

As an aside, cult of the lamb is not about any particular religion; I think it's fair to say that almost no one in the real world thinks evil death cults are a good thing no matter their beliefs.

Most of us find some games personally offensive or at least disturbing. Fortunately there are a lot of games out there.

"Worse yet, Cult of the Lamb outright crashed on us once and softlocked a few more times"

I think Devolver Digital has a real problem with Switch games. I bought Card Shark and the game hardlocked about 90% of the way in, absolutely nothing you could do, it froze after you loaded your game. Lots of people with the same problem on Discord, but it took them about 4 months to fix it.

It makes me sad that more and more games are getting lower game review scores on Switch simply because the Switch's hardware can't seem to keep up with modern game releases.

@Zulzar I'm not necessarily clamoring for more representation, I just don't like seeing what I perceive to be stigmatizing depictions. Even in the game's trailer, a lot of the language used references things like going on a "crusade," which is a term almost always associated with extremism in the context of Christianity, even if the word technically has a broader meaning. I've never played them, but I've heard that games like Mother 3 and Persona have derogatory depictions of gay men and crossdressors as being predators. Even though I'm not a member of that effected group, I still acknowledge that it's a harmful perception that shouldn't be in those games in the first place. I just think it should be a double-standard. Maybe the developers of the game had no ill intent, but I dunno. It still bothers me a bit.

@thom1414 8 hours in, genuinely zero issues...

@bozz Same here! Saw another pretty scathing review from Pocket Tactics that said stuff like "borderline unplayable" etc. All very odd... had no issues (8 hours)

I was really looking forward to this but then I wish its didnt have the SIM part as I am crap at them, but will still cave and buy the physical as the art style looks so brilliantly cute

I have to agree with Not_Soos. Tons of games have positive representation of LGBTQ. Nobody these days would ever dare portray them in a negative light or even in a joking manner. But I rarely see positive depictions of Christianity or even religion more generally. More often it's a lazy, stereotypical trope done without much thought.

@Not_Soos Ok fair point I see where you're coming from a bit more here. For example, i'm on the autistic spectrum and because of that some people think i'm supposed to be able to count toothpicks at a glance, and calculate numbers in my head like the autistic savant Raymond from the movie Rainman so I understand the stigma thing in a sense

@B_Lindz A lot of the time that's just due to studios not taking the necessary time to properly optimise their game for the system rather than the system not being able to handle it though. I'm sure this could run a lot better on Switch than it currently does so hopefully the devs decide to address the issues.

@Not_Soos I wonder if the stigmatising depictions are a sort of confirmation bias. In that, people who have experienced strife as a result of religion are more likely to be creating stories to tell people about it. I remember a Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff podcast episode touching on something similar - the cliché of the church that is all evil. They pointed out that there must be some positive social benefit to it or it wouldn't have persisted for so long, no organisation can if it's just all evil. They were talking in the context of RPG world building and how you need to find a purpose for this religion to be existing, that certain conditions in the world must be present that the church helps and contributes to.

@FantasiaWHT The Sandman is very good for a range of LGBT+ representation with LGBT+ characters not all being depicted positively. The trick generally is that any character's evilness is incidental to their queerness, in the same way that evil straight characters can be evil without it having anything to do with their straightness.

Although The Sandman doesn't lend itself to simple interpretations tbf.

You make a lot of baseless assumptions about myself and my character. Firstly, I spent over six years dealing with crippling mental health issues and suicidal ideation because society had conditioned me to feel guilty because of my religion and the color of my skin as a white person (since you wanted to bring race into this as well). After about a year of therapy and medication, I've finally started to love myself again.

I was able to work through my agoraphobia and constant panic attacks that developed upon my worsening mental state and am now finally able to work a job, which is a major step for me. My nerves were so bad I could hardly eat, but now I wear my stretch marks with pride like they are a badge of honor because they're physical proof of how far I've come mentally. I nearly cried the first time I was able to eat until my stomach actually felt full for the first time in years. Before then, I would always just get nauseated and think I was going to vomit. So I must ask, are you aware that people of faith struggle with serious mental health issues including suicide just like you?

I could feel my blood pressure skyrocketing just making my comment because I knew I would get ratioed by people like yourself accusing me of having a persecution complex. Even now, I'm still experiencing a lot of anxiety over sharing my personal experiences. But it shouldn't have to be this way.

My feelings are just as valid as yours or anyone else's. Most religious people are just trying to exist, like all of us are. I'm more than willing to disavow any religious groups who use it as a tool for spreading hate. Anyone who throws slurs at gay people and harasses them, for example, is no Christian in my book. (I was never complaining about LGBT+ representation in games or the fact NL runs articles on them, by the way--just that I think it should be a double-standard.)

You say positive representation has always been the default, but I don't see it that way. In the early days of gaming in the 80's and 90's Nintendo was vehemently against any and all religious portrayals. They didn't even want that on their hardware from third parties if they could avoid it. Outside of games and jumping to other forms of media like movies, I don't know of any Hollywood box office smash hits besides "Prince of Egypt" that released in my lifetime. It's only cheesy indie films that focus on Christianity because Hollywood doesn't want anything to do with that. There's an independent animated film about the biblical story of David in the works right now that's being crowdfunded because they have no other way to get a budget. Christianity in America is declining at a rapid rate, and I don't doubt it will probably be a minority group before long--maybe even by the next decade. But even then, we'll still just be seen as whining.

It'd be great if instead of accusing each other of victim mentality, we all jusy learn how to empathize with other groups of people. I fully acknowledge that other groups have it hard--including gay and trans people. I never said they didn't. I'd just like to see some acknowledgment that the demographics I happen to belong to have experienced hardships as well. Can't we stop "othering" and dehumanizing each other and just see the common humanity we all share?

@oatmaster I see what you're saying, and I've heard the creator of The Binding of Isaac went through a traumatic childhood as a result of his parents' religious fanaticism. I don't doubt that's true, and I'd be lying if I claimed there aren't religious nutjobs out there who have caused a lot of evil in the world--violence and killing and abusing innocents. But the same can be said for any group of people. If someone witnessed a parent being shot and killed by a person who belonged to a certain group that was different from theirs (whether white or black or Asian or Christian or Muslim or atheist, etc.), maybe that would impact their perception of other members of thay group moving forward. But while their experiences may be completely valid and sympathetic it doesn't change the fact that they've developed a bias against individuals who did no harm to them because of the actions of one or a few. We're biologically programmed to want to defend ourselves from perceived threats, and the human brain is also really good at forming abritrary associations. I think this is why there is so much prejudice in the world--it comes from a place of fear due to subjective personal experiences that are not necessarily indicative of the whole.

I would like to keep this discussion to games as much as possible, given that's the reason we're here. The battle cry of "my feelings are just as valid as everyone else's" is a handicap you need to overcome if you want to enjoy games that deal with difficult subject matter, given it's complete nonsense. No, if you grew up as part of a religious majority, you're "feelings" about religion oppression and lack of representation are not valid in the slightest when compared to the feelings of someone who has experienced oppression. The fact that one game makes you feel uncomfortable is not as valid as 20,000 games a year forcing you to play and experience a sexuality you do not agree with, or as a gender that isn't your own, or being unable to create a character with your body type or your skin colour even in games that allow customization.

There is nothing to discuss here; this game makes you feel uncomfortable. Cool, don't play it. Ignore it. There are 1000s of gamest that wont make you feel like that.

There is something to discuss when a game represents LGBT+ people in the positive light because that game becomes the ONLY option for a lot of people to see themselves in a game.

This is the argument of privilege; we should have a discussion about how this game makes you feel uncomfortable because we have discussions about how some other game DIDN'T make LGBT+ uncomfortable for a change. Because it's a GOOD thing someone went out of their way to make someone else feel included, it's a BAD thing that someone went out of their way to make you feel uncomfortable.

No, the discussion we should have is why you feel it's important to talk about the fact that one game happens to show your belief system in a negative light, while you HAVN'T made any comments about the games that show other's belief systems in a negative light. Your core argument is that your feelings are just as important as another else's, but if that was true you would constantly be talking about a lack of representation for the LGBT+ community because you would realise that almost EVERY SINGLE GAME makes them feel like you feel like right now, and if you felt their feelings were as important as your own, you would want to change that.

This isn't about a belief system to me. it's about representation. If 999 games out 1000 showed while male Christians' in a negative light, I would absolutely celebrate every game that was white male Christian positive and call for more of them. But right now, I'm calling for less of them, because it is currently the normal and the majority. That's what "everyone's feeling being as important as my own" really looks like.

I'm also sorry to hear you are struggling with mental illness. If only you were part of some loving, understanding, caring organization that could provide you non-judgemental support and understanding, I'm sure that would go a long way to helping. I found that when I became an ally to the LGBT+ community as found myself surrounded by nothing but people who wanted to spread love, acceptable and understanding and who didn't exist in a world focused on spreading hate and condemnation of an "other". You should keep looking for a group that makes you feel like that, seeing you're clearly not part of one right now.

“Cult of the Lamb is in a rather sloppy state right now” and yet it gets a Great 8/10. From all the issues you mentioned and that statement, you shouldn’t be giving this Great 8/10 - it should get a much lower score which can be revised when issues are fixed. To score this Great 8/10 with those issues leads me to not believe the integrity of any reviews here.

@oatmaster Agreed, Sandman does a good job of that.

@FantasiaWHT “Tons of games have positive representation of LGBTQ. Nobody these days would ever dare portray them in a negative light or even in a joking manner. But I rarely see positive depictions of Christianity”

I think you’ll find that multiple religions still portray LGBTQ+ in a negative light, even condemning those that are LGBTQ+. The reason LGBTQ+ gets support is because people who are LGBTQ+ have been victimized when they should be able to live a free life.

Christians should also be able to live a free life and believe in what they believe in. However given Christianity is a work of fiction, ignores the science of evolution, and condemns LGBTQ+ … you can’t seriously wonder why no one depicts Christianity positively.

Hey folks, I feel we are starting to derail from the subject of the article now, let's not get too off-topic, please. Thanks for your understanding

@DreamlandGem paging request for an article on religious portrayals in video games

Love the game, better than Stray. 10/10

One of my followers asked me to make another follower eat a bowl of poo. Any game that makes me laugh so hard at stuff like this gets my vote.

10/10 would make them eat sh*t again.

Easily is indie of the year over Stray and Tunic, even thoug Stray is awesome too

@SwitchedOn_Games Yeah that excuse doesn’t fly when it constantly freezes at the start of a new day and during certain boss attacks, plus there are some bugs that can softlock the game or keep you from collecting plans.

(Mods, I swear I'm done derailing the comments section after this last reply--don't delete, pretty please.)

My mental health issues had nothing to do with the loving people in my religious community and everything to do with those such as yourself who are doing all the things you claim to be wrong with the church: judging, condemning, and not being understanding. I could make generalizations like you have been doing and say, "then I guess all of those people must be this way!" or I could look at it objectively and say, this one person isn't indicative of an entire group of people with millions of members. I wish I could believe you that you really care, but you seem to genuinely believe I'm a bad person because of the group I happen to belong to and for no other reason.

In one of my replies to @oatmaster, I specifically denounced games like Mother 3 and Persona that have shown negative portrayals of gay and transgender individuals. If I can do that as a religious person, why can't you denounce games that negatively depict religion? Basically what you seem to be telling me is that "Facts don't care about your feelings," but isn't that exactly what Conservative groups have said to invalidate trans people? Or black people being told that they "love playing the race card" and "making themselves a victim?" It'd be great if we could all just start listening to each other with an open mind and an open heart, but I can see that isn't gonna happen.

Power dynamics shift constantly. I won't deny that people who call themselves Christians have done a lot of damage in the past--and continue to do so. (I do not identify with these radicals--we are not one and the same, though you insist on lumping us all together. Surely I don't need to tell you that not all Muslims are terrorists, right? Because it's the same difference.) In its inception, Christians were heavily persecuted and put to death and scapegoated for a fire that burned Rome in the 1st century, A.D. The paradigm shifted, and people abused the Bible as a tool of empirical control, but that can shift again. As humans attempt to claw their way into power, oppressed groups become the oppressors and vice-versa. It's a neverending cycle.

It's not a contradiction, for example, to acknowledge that the Jews were victims of a brutal genocide during WWII but that the Israel of today us apparently committing its own genocide against the people of Palestine. Or that China was the victim of imperial Japan's attempted conquest, but today China reportedly has millions of Muslims in concentration camps. Both things can be true. Likewise, I denounce the crusades and other "holy wars" fought by people toting a crucifix, but I'm also gonna call out hostility against Christianity where I see it. Just like it should be called out for any other group, whether or not they are the majority of today.

So, I may be an imperfect nerd fumbling his way through life--one who doesn't pretend he knows all the answers to solving global injustice. But I'm just gonna try to do my best to love and show respect to everybody, whether they happen to be gay or straight or religious or an atheist or black or white or what have you. To put my pre-conceived biases aside and earnestly listen to what they have to say. Because while society loves to celebrate our differences, we don't spend nearly enough time focusing on the myriad of ways we are all alike as the same human species. You may not be religious, but surely we can both agree with Jesus' message of treating everyone as they would want to be treated and loving our neighbor as ourselves, no? Is that not what makes for a good person?

Life would be so bland if we all saw things from the exact same point of view. I see no reason why we can't all just get along and co-exist. I wish no ill will against you and would very much like to be a friend and an ally. Whether you view me in the same light or not is your prerogative. I extend my love to you all the same.

@Markiemania95 Same meme works for "Nintendo Life trying not to score something an 8"

@Not_Soos Damn, let me just offer you some support please. I'm proud of what you accomplished for yourself and i know how it is to feel these things and have these thoughts. I'm also highly impressed by you for staying so calm when faced with misunderstanding and assumptions about you and your wish to have a fair and thorough discussion. It doesn't feel to me like you're going to get through to some people in this conversation. But the fact that you still stay so neutral, non-aggressive and make your points wonderfully clear is an incredible skill that only very few have and that i'm always trying to practice myself. Which is hard when i see someone like you expressing themselves in an innocent manner and getting such negative feedback for it. Anyway, proud of you my friend!

@BenAV I would agree with you on this, but this game runs perfectly on PC and all other consoles. It only struggles on Switch.

I love this game but there are so many annoying glitches i hope they patch out.

My cultists wont chop wood in the lumberyard after i leave my village on an expedition or other area until i reset the game.

My hunger meter never fills up more than half way even if i cook the required food until i reset.

My villagers disappear randomly lol.

I randomly found a way to get out of bounds in the dice game guys house.

Also i pretty much unlocked everything after 20 hours. Wish devotion was harder to get.

I'm really sorry that you are clearly struggling with a crisis of identity. Believe me, I've been there, and though my work with the LGBT+ community I've supported 100s of people going though the same thing. You are asking a lot of the right questions, and If I could offer you support as well, I would be happy to do so ... but this isn't the place.

Here, we are talking about video games and representation. Your post about history and belief systems, while contemplative for sure, isn't relevant to either.

Are married people who cheat good or bad people? That's a moral question. This is not a place to speak to moral questions.

Is is a problem that around 80% of the time we see someone cheat in a video game or movie it's a woman, but in real life men cheat around 3 times as often as woman? That's a representation problem. It's a conversation we should have any time a game uses marriage infidelity as a plot or character point.

The problem isn't that more woman should cheat on men, and it's not even that less men should cheat on women. Its not about if cheating is right or wrong. The problem is that we are portraying women as untrustworthy and men as victims far more often then is reflected by reality. If all you did was play video games, you would develop a belief system based on representation that WOMAN cheat all the time and MEN are faithful most of the time. This is a skewed representation that actually hurts both sides.

If all you did was play video games, you would think that Christianity and faith based originations are a force for almost universal good. You would think everyone agrees with Judo Christian values. You'll play 100s of games as a Jesus stand in bringing Western values to savages and saving them from themselves thinking that makes you a hero and never questioning if you had the right to destroy that culture and replace it with your own.

You would NOT know about the history of sexual abuse because there is no game where you play as a cardinal enabling Priests to abuse children by shielding them from the law. You would NOT know about the horrors of the residential school system because there is no game where you play a nun trying to get First Nation children to kill themselves. It is a sked representation of organized religion that is harmful to both sides.

This game is not part of the problem, it's part of the solution. It is a rare exploration of the bad parts.

You should always be careful of making yourself the victim from a position of power, because it is always transparently false. The "real" victims of representation in games can't be Christians, because 70%+ of the people making, pitching, approving, and paying for video game production are Christians. If they were really an offensive media, this group, which gets to completely and unanimously control most video game content, would have the power to simply change that. It's the 4% of the industry that is LGBT+ or the 20% that are women who truly CAN be victimized, as they lack the power to do anything about it.

@Not_Soos as a "christian", shouldn't you just "turn the other cheek"? Or do y'all just practice what is convenient? 🤣🤣comment removed in 3..2..

Hey, thanks so much for the kind words! I knew what I was getting myself into when I dropped the comment, but I'm trying to learn to stand firm in my beliefs--even when they go against the grain. That said, I acknowledge I don't know everything, and I'm always willing to be proven wrong, because I want to be on the right side of history as much as anyone. The last thing I want to do is blind myself to possible biases in my reasoning.

And while I can't force people to listen to what I have to say and show me respect, I've found that giving it to them first makes them much more likely to come around. Name-calling and vilifying people with opposing viewpoints gets us nowhere, because of course they're going to double-down in self defense if you make them out to be a monster.

I discussed my mental health struggle in a previous reply and how I was in therapy for about a year. Up until then, I was so terrified of cancel culture and the idea of being doxxed and harassed and threatened that I never shared any of my opinions online or in person. Putting my voice out there and accepting the inevitable criticism was actually an exposure exercise my therapist encouraged me to overtake. I've endured quite a bit of scrutiny from internet strangers, but I've also had plenty of meaningful conversations with people of diverse backgrounds.

I've had the opportunity to converse with people who are gay, trans, black, and Muslim, as well as those who have a drastically different view from myself on topics such as abortion. Not always, but in many cases, both parties have walked away with mutual respect and admiration, having learned something valuable from the other. A man once said to me, "as a gay Mexican, I wish more Christians were like you." The sentiment touched me so much I legitimately cried. So yeah, these open and honest conversations can be hard sometimes, but those exchanges make the negativity worth it.

Anyways, thank you again, friend! 🙂

@PhhhCough I didn't know I slapped anybody in the face?

People on here love to hear themselves talk.

I really appreciate the tone of this reply, which came across to me as much less accusatory and more open to a reasonable dialogue. I hear what you're saying and I don't necessarily disagree, with the exception that I think the good should always be depicted with the bad, so as not to paint a skewed picture either way.

This is why I love Disney's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," for example. You have Frollo, the leading villain--a corrupt priest who is a self-righteous murderer, racist, and sexual predator. He's easily the most despicable antagonist Disney has ever concocted, and it still shocks me that they were willing to go certain places with his character.

The movie has a strong moral theme about religious hypocrisy, which I think is a very important lesson. But, it juxtaposes this with the character of Esmerelda, a gypsy, whose ethnicity Frollo looks down upon in contempt as though her people are lesser human beings. Yet, we have a scene with Esmerelda where she piously and humbly prays to God. In this scene, she is embodying all the Christian virtues Frollo fails to encapsulate despite the fact he is a white, male church leader. It shows that not all people of faith are bad without sugarcoating the fact that prominent religious figures can, indeed, be corrupt. Jesus himself warns about such false teachers or "wolves in sheep's clothing." That's all I really want from media, whether video games or television or otherwise--to showcase both the good and the bad. Avatar: The Last Airbender always does an amazing job doing this, and that's why it's my favorite television series.

I perhaps didn't address every point you brought up, but I've rambled enough, and as you said, that isn't what this article is about. I just don't want to see anything cause hostility to grow toward any group--whether I happen to be a part of it or not. There was once a common perception in Germany--which still pervades in some places in the Middle East--that "Jews control the banks, they control all the power, we have to do something about it!" and we know how dangerous that sentiment can be when it's used as a scapegoating tactic. That's why I will acknowledge wrongdoings by white or Christian or male individuals, but I don't like ascribing to the idea of a protected, privileged class.

...Anyways, I'm done, lol. All the best.

@MsJubilee Nah, I sound like a nasally hick in real life. It's terrible.

Honestly I never take offense to games like this. Because it’s fiction. And I want to play as said fictions. So idk why I have to take it personally. It’s not like they made it in mind to offend Christian, as idk why they would be offended. But that just my two cents.

The game itself, actually has a really good idea for its gameplay loop, the combat compared to other rouge likes (yes it says lite) it’s the even comparable, it honestly really shallow. But that’s where it’s amazing life sim part comes in, to make sure that not all you have, because it’s far from it.

@Not_Soos I can see how this kind of games can be upsetting to people of faith. I personally think it's not to be taken as seriously however, and is made to be humourous (because cute lamb doing a cult, but it could also easily have been a cute alpaga or a cute frog), unlike Binding of Isaac which, without mocking anyone, is really about Christianity and the story of Abraham and Isaac (but again, I don't think the goal was to offend.) Religion is an easy theme : everyone know about the obvious reference, and you can do what you want with them. A fantasy rpg, a horror game, a sur natural world etc...(just look at Shin Megami Tensei, the parent of Persona, and all they have done with... well, every religion they could think of)

To comment on the Persona, it IS true that a particular event can be interpreted poorly in Persona 5: two queer person will talk to you and your male friend in a cutscene and will try to "force" the male friend to become a drag (I'm sorry, English is not my first language, I'm not sure of the word, a male who dress as a female). It's really short, means to be funny and is representatice of the Japanese humour (if you are familier with One Piece, and the Okama way, then you know haha). I also didn't feel it was mean to be offensive, but can understand queer people being offended if they feel it's a representation of their community as a whole (it all depends of our personal sense of humour I think).

If it can make you feel better, I have encounter some games where religion was presented in a positive way (in my opinion, which is of course by default not neutral)!

In the Soulsborne games, we of course have my man Solaire of Astoria (Dark souls 1) who was my only ray of light during the game : always joyous, helpful and ready for some joly cooperation, kind, and a religious dude. From the same game, a Npc name Rhea, depicted as kind and gentle. From Demon Souls, Astrea (an important character) who is a Saint of the Church and who have gone in a pilgrimage to help the sicks and destitutes.

Dragon quest series, where the church and god are generally a force of good (like, you HAVE to go to the church to bring your characters from the dead!). You even play as an angel is Dragon Quest 9.

Castlevania of course! A whole group of religious guys battling evil! And with cool whips too!

Legend of Zelda : the whole point is to battle the evil entity (generally our dear Ganon), and as a Hylian, Link believes in the Goddess Hylia and IS her champion. So, good religious boy (and best boy) battling evil!

Not really related to you, so please don't take it personally, but I think a lot of people are pretty sensitive and see negativity everywhere (like with the Persona thing I commented on above). Yes, sometimes things are done poorly. Yes, there is not enough representation of minority. We just also have to understand that poor representation, or humorous one, aren't necessarily there to offend.

But it's good to talk about these things so we can all understand each other better, and make the necessary changes in the video game industry.

Interesting comments, to be sure! Of course, there are relevant issues yet to address in the gaming community.

About the game itself, I added it to my wishlist (I liked that it seems to be a somewhat "easy" game) but reading about the performance issues, I will probably get it on XB.

@Not_Soos Dude I think your the only person on this site that had the guts to start such a topic. And be as respectful and open to what everyone it saying as possible. Like really is rare that someone starts a topic like this and not budge an inch. Your open to hearing what other people have to say. And for that. Kudos!

This game is in my backlog, sounds like once it gets patched it’s a 9-10 rated game? I can wait! This game must be on some ish! It set the comments section on fire!

@Not_Soos Did you really just choose to bring up the events of World War II to prove your point on an article about a video game?

Despite the surface-level blasphemy of this game, it honestly feels like the least offensive depiction of cults and religion I think I've ever seen in video games.

I was expecting it to be way more cheeky or cynical (as most fiction about cults are), but it plays itself pretty straight in tone and dialogue to an almost nuanced degree. Because the baseline of this game is that "The world is ruled by higher beings powered by faith," the only question to ask is if you want to be a benevolent leader or a rutheless one?

I got the Switch version the other day. I'm wondering if there is some kind of a memory leak issue or something with the game, because it started off playing just fine. But I prefer to leave games in sleep mode and set the switch in sleep rather than just shutting them down and reloading them when I want to start playing again. And the longer the game ran, the worse it started to get. The first dungeons were fine. Then the village started to jump and frame skip a bit. The second dungeon ran a bit worse than the first, at first, but started to get progressively worse by the time I got to the boss. Frame skipped around the village a bit and finally started the third dungeon path. The game got so jumpy and skippy that it was starting to actually make me a bit nauseous and eventually it just crashed completely. I've heard from others playing on PS that this has happened to them as well eventually: the longer you play at a time the worse it seems to get. Haven't been back on for a couple of days since it crashed, getting ready to give it another go. Because even with the frame skippy and lagging...I've been having a total blast with the game. I wish it had a longer progression in the village, though...because even before getting to the third dungeon I have already maxed out my village and Lamb progression. So now its just a matter of bringing my buildings up to higher levels and grinding out the dungeons? Although its been pretty nice seeing my cult go from barely able to make it through a day to just pumping out a bunch of meals in the morning then leaving to go do some crusades, and my cultists just take care of themselves...mostly. It does give a real sense of accomplishment. I also like how time continues in the village while in the dungeons, because seeing messages like "XXXX has died of old age" while fighting, and knowing that I now have a rotting corpse laying around the village gives a real sense of urgency to "do I just keep on...or abandon the hunt, warp back to the village, and clean things up before trying again?"

Really disappointed that the game only runs at 30 fps after playing the demo on Steam Deck on 60 fps with ultra settings. I did buy the Switch version too.

All I know after reading the comments is now I want a fighting game that includes both Jesus and RuPaul. Religion’s a deeply personal thing that honestly is better kept to yourself as there’s not much reason to go on about it. I still feel some comfort from occasionally attending Mass despite knowing that my very existence is anathema to the clergy. It’s a strange one and somebody a lot smarter than I am probably understands it more. I wouldn’t say this game is offensive despite being Catholic because it’s satirising Christian power structures, rather than attacking the people themselves. Like the difference between somebody criticising the clergy that covered up abuse and somebody from the other half of Glasgow gloating about the Battle of the Boyne.

@thom1414 just saved me 34.99 thank you! I’ll pass on this.

@Not_Soos in my country, Christians are trying to take over the government and put "God's law" in place. Well, "God's law" is not my law, so until the quiet Christians start stopping the psycho Christians, then memes and pushback are just fine by me.

@Not_Soos as a person who does not share your beliefs i can't say you are wrong, on the contrary, i think for the most part you hit the nail in the head. Having say that if you really pay atention, religion and in particular, the christian faith is all over the place, at least in my country (Christianity/ Catholicism) is everywhere and as stated before i do not share their point of view at all. We choose what to consume, it does not bother me at all that even at school (i have to elementary school-size kids) religion is shoved to them, they/we choose what to believe in and what content to consume. It pains me it messed up with your mental health as you just mention (mental health/psychology are my field of professional expertise) and hope you'll be able to cope with it.👍🏻

"Performance problems take the shine off things"

A.K.A Just buy it on PC.

@Not_Soos as Christian myself, I am there with you. You handled that brilliantly and Clearly.

This game gets an 8/10 but suffers from serious performance issues and bugs.. Maybe Mitch Vogel should have a second look at NintendoLife's rating criteria or stop taking handouts from the publisher/developer.

@EliSweetG Yeah, it's in a sloppy state alright. By NintendoLife's own metric, that should give this game a solid 4/10.

This game is so good, but I’m starting to hit serious bugs and performance issues. As soon as I hit about 12 followers, the game slowed immensely. Frame rate drops caused me to die on a run. Can’t chop wood, follower that asked you to marry them can’t be chosen from the list of followers, etc. Devs need to get a patch out ASAP.

I hate this “culture” of a publisher knowing a game has massive bugs but continuing to sell it “because at some point in the future” the bugs may be fixed.

If we bought an umbrella that leaked and the maker knew it leaked but kept selling it “because at some point in the future” they would repair the leak, we would say “hmm, you knew I would get wet with your umbrella but you continued to sell it, you fiend” and umbrellalife would be up in arms (unless they were being paid by the umbrella manufacturer in which case they would give the umbrella 8/10)

I expect umbrellalife - sorry, nintendolife - to delete my comments

@HeadPirate Don't most games ignore Christianity entirely? It doesn't seem accurate to claim most games portray "Christianity and faith based originations [as] a force for almost universal good." On the contrary, few games touch on Christianity, and among the few that do address religion are satires like The Binding of Isaac and Cult of the Lamb. Are you saying there are many more games that address Christianity positively (rather than ignoring it) than games portraying Christianity negatively?

@Jamessmooth This is a big problem that I keep running in to with any quest that requires a specific cultist for a ritual. If they don't come physically to watch the ritual (and for some reason I ONLY ever get around 6 cultists that show up, no matter how many I have in my camp), then they aren't ever on the ritual list. So I fail just about every quest that has that as a requirement (not that it holds my faith back, its very easy to get back up), and it is very annoying.

I'm not really sure if you're trolling, so if this is somehow a legitimate question, forgive the tone. I generally write replies like this for other readers, I never assume the OP actually wanted to engage in conversation. Hopefully I'm wrong, but as I'm about to point out, it's hard to believe that.

I find it basically impossible to respect your question because in Cult of the Lamb never mentions Christianity. YOU see parallels to Christianity, so you think it's showing Christianity in a negative light. You seem to understand this idea that a story can use allegory to communicate it's themes and messages ... then completely ignore it when it's time to argue your side.

Basically every moral system in all games rewards Judaeo-Christian values. This shows Christianity in a positive light because the game is saying this is the "right" way to live. Every game where a society based on Christian values is the one you are defending shows Christianity in a positive light. Every game that reveres sexual purity shows Christianity in a positive light. And so on.

You can't have it both ways. It's completely disingenuous to suggest that a game is against Christianity without having any mention of Christianity directly, but at the same time argue that no game shows Christianity in a positive light unless a character turns to the camera and says "I am following this value system as a direct endorsement of the real world religion of Christianity".

More then anything I encourage you to walk away from this with that idea in mind. In the game where everyone is clearly evil, where people do horrible things all the time, where the point is to be the worst possible leader possible, you find it imposable not to see it as a Christian allegory, as you see in this behaviour clear connections to how real Christians act. But in the billions of game where truly good and pious people do wonderful acts of kindness, in games where the whole point is showing others kindness, forgiveness, understanding, and love, in games where you are rewarded for protecting the persecuted and making yourself the living example of what is the exact Biblical example of Christ's love in the world ... you don't see any parallels to the Christian faith. That's just fantasy.

Most then anything I could ever say to you ... that should make you ask some questions.

@HeadPirate It was a legitimate question. If all you're saying is that many games promote Christian values without supporting Christianity per se, then I suppose you have a point. To the extent that religion gives insight into moral values, many games do reflect Christianity. Perhaps saying games "reflect Christian values" would be clearer than saying they "show Christianity in a positive light." After all, it obviously wasn't the evil focus of the game that made me think of it as a Christian allegory but rather, as @Not_Soos put it, the concept that the game "overtly evokes biblical imagery by using the lamb as a symbol and parodying quotes from scripture." But I get what you're saying better now, that many games promote Christian values, if not the religions directly. It'd be nice if the games promoting Christian values were the ones alluding to quotes from Scripture and similar allegorical references, but beyond that point, I think we're in agreement.

This is basically the largest problem with representation. The majority is the norm, so while almost all media endorses the majority, it's often invisible to people who are not conscious of different view points. Like how people complain about why there is no "white history month" without understanding that all of history is taught from a Eurocentric, pro-white prospective.

I said this in another post; this is about representation, not morality. If every game was against Christianity, I would be calling for more Christian representation. Everyone should have games where they can see themselves as the hero and, perhaps more importantly, no one should be forced to play a character that is actively endorsing an organization that is marginalizing them and oppressing them in real life in the majority of games.

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