Yesterday's Nintendo Indie World Showcase may have only been 20-minutes long, but that 20 minutes was jam-packed with new reveals, announcements, and updates. Rift of the NecroDancer was one of the most exciting things shown, taking the rhythm-based gameplay of Crypt of the NecroDancer and distilling it down into a Guitar Hero-like game. Blasphemous 2 was another big announcement, giving Switch players yet another Soulslike on the go. But by far the most eye-catching reveal was Cult of the Lamb and its new Relics of the Old Faith DLC.
Available on April 24, just a few days from now, Cult of the Lamb's Relics of the Old Faith DLC is a free update that's set to add an absurd amount of content to the game. New buildings, new follower types, new bosses, new enemies, new attacks, new quests, and new missions are all coming to Cult of the Lamb. This heap of new content will surely be more than enough to entice old players to hop back on for at least a few hours, but coming back to Cult of the Lamb after a lengthy hiatus could end up being more awkward than some would think.
Cult of the Lamb's Cultists Have Been Abandoned For Quite Some Time
Cult of the Lamb released back in August of last year, and while that might only feel like yesterday for many gamers, it's actually been over eight months since then. For many early adopters of Cult of the Lamb, it's highly likely that they played the game religiously for its first few weeks or so, put a good 15-20 hours into it, rolled credits, maybe even got the platinum trophy, and then never played the game again. For many fans of Cult of the Lamb, that means their cult has been without a leader for about eight months, and their followers aren't going to be too happy about that.
With its new DLC, Cult of the Lamb should add a new mechanic where followers comment on how long the player has left them there, in a similar vein to Animal Crossing. In Animal Crossing, if the player hasn't logged in for a while, then their village can get a little unruly. Returning after a long hiatus, Animal Crossing players will notice that their town is full of weeds and that sticks litter the floor. Their house will also have cockroaches and their hair will be unkempt. Each villager will also have a unique reaction to the player's absence, with some being ecstatic that they've returned and others holding a grudge, believing that the player had abandoned them.
Cult of the Lamb's Relics of the Old Faith DLC has the perfect opportunity to implement a similar mechanic for its own social systems. A lot of Cult of the Lamb's core gameplay loop revolves around recruiting new followers, and keeping them happy. It only makes sense, then, that in the player's absence the cult would have fallen into a bit of a state of disarray. At the bare minimum, Cult of the Lamb's new update should make it so that followers condemn the player for leaving them for so long.
If Cult of the Lamb wanted to be truly cruel, then it could make the player's absence also have a gameplay effect. For instance, in their absence, the cult has gone mad and decided to trash the village, requiring the player to rebuild their camp. Or in their absence, the rest of the cult has continued to grow old, meaning that players could return to a village filled with old followers that are unable to work. They could all comment on the fact that they haven't seen their leader in so long, making players feel bad for leaving their loyal team behind.
Cult of the Lamb is available now for Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
