Cult Of The Lamb Lead Says Lockdown Inspired Development And Darker Themes

Massive Monster and Devolver Digital’s acclaimed indie roguelite, Cult of the Lamb, has you following a lamb that owes a debt to “The One Who Waits” god for saving its life, and it received several accolades during its longevity since 2022. A Steven Universe project nearly supplanted the roguelite, but the game’s creative director recently said lockdown aided its development.

If you’re curious to step into the darker side of gameplay within a cute setting, check out our Cult of the Lamb review, which highlights the comical ways the title allows you to manage your resources and followers. It’s a thrilling experience for fans of horror and the roguelite genre and some of those darker themes came to light for the devs during the pandemic.

Lockdown And Other Horror Projects Fueled Cult Of The Lamb’s Development

In an interview with PC Gamer, the creative director of the Australian indie studio Massive Monster, Julian Wilton, discussed Cult of the Lamb’s development at length, touching on the studio’s flirtation with prior projects, the game’s pre-production stage, and its intricate mechanics designed to turn the player evil.

Wilton explained “A lot of the design was trying to encourage the player to be evil. Without clearly saying, ‘You, go! Go be evil!’” The idea was to persuade players to “go sacrifice this guy” in exchange for experience and leveling up, highlighted as being the quickest way to do so. Of course, there were alternative ways to achieve progression by being morally good, but the devs wanted players to indulge their darker side.

Cult of the Lamb’s development was a four-year endeavor for Massive Monster, with Wilton airing “They take too long these bloody games, I tell you.” The indie was also crafted during lockdown, which Wilton believed helped to hone the darker themes of the game and gave the studio ample time to produce the project.

“We had nothing else to do,” Wilton said about the studio’s time in lockdown, “So I’m like, might as well work on [Cult of the Lamb]. But maybe some of the dark themes came out of that a bit as well, just watching a lot of horror, getting bored and, you know, the dread of existence at the time.” Wilton didn’t touch on the horror projects that perhaps had a hand in inspiring the indie’s brainstorming sessions.

Before Cult of the Lamb even came to fruition, however, the director revealed that the studio came very close to making a different game entirely. “We nearly made a Steven Universe licensed game,” Wilton said, in addition to “hyper-casual mobile games” as a way of bringing in a more “sustainable revenue”, but ultimately, he was glad to take the risk with the roguelite.

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