Cult of the Lamb: Woolhaven review – A must-play DLC

Have you played Cult of the Lamb yet? If you haven’t, then stop reading this right now and go and play it. This DLC isn’t relevant to you, anyway; you need to have essentially completed the base game before Woolhaven becomes available to you. But if you have played this excellent game that I previously described as ‘The Binding of Isaac meets Animal Crossing’, then you absolutely must play Woolhaven.

The biggest expansion to land in the game yet, Woolhaven essentially doubles the amount of content available to you in Cult of the Lamb. After defeating the heretics of the main campaign, you’ll be granted access to Woolhaven, a brand new area that was once run by sheep. Now a shadow of its former self, it’s down to you to restore it, to free the spirits of the sheep that once resided there and, of course, defeat a whole lot of enemies along the way.

Yes, in its essence, this is simply more Cult of the Lamb. The core loop of the game remains the same: complete dungeons while watching over your flock of followers, ensuring they’re happy and fed. But Cult of the Lamb: Woolhaven adds enough new content to feel substantially different in almost all areas. Combat feels like a big step up, for example. New enemies come with new attacks and, even with additional weapon power, they’re much harder to defeat than anything you’ve come up against before. Expect to be showered with bombs, faced with numerous armoured enemies, and a whole lot more.

You’ll have new weapons to use against enemies, which mixes things up a bit. My favourite of them is a mace, which can deal high damage from a safe distance. Not only is it fast but it performs a satisfying combo too, making it one of my favourite ways to defeat enemies. Of course, the weapons you are given in a run are still random, so you might have an ultra-slow hammer, a fast dagger or a gun.

Also new to Cult of the Lamb: Woolhaven are legendary weapons. These one-of-a-kind weapons deal serious damage, but they need to be found and repaired before you can use them. And, of course, like all other weapons, it’s down to luck whether they’ll appear at the start of a run. They are absolutely worth seeking out, though, as they can make for a very successful run.

As fun as dungeons are, though, it’s perhaps in caring for your cult where Woolhaven makes the most changes. Are all those changes for the better? Well, I suppose that depends on how you feel about the cult-raising aspects of the game. As much as I love tending to my flock, I also feel like sometimes I want to simply get on with combat, rather than needing to make food, bury bodies, tend to sick followers and all the other admin that comes along with having your own cult. But needs must.

Woolhaven makes things a little more difficult by adding in winter weather conditions. Gone are your constantly sunny days, and for days at a time, your followers will be subject to harsh, snowy winters. You’ll need to build a furnace to keep them warm, and that furnace will need powering with a new resource, gathered through completing dungeons. It means your followers can freeze if you aren’t actively keeping them warm. Worse are the blizzards, which come out of nowhere and make conditions so harsh that not only are your followers’ lives at risk, but they can’t even work.

There are lots of new facilities available to you, however, to make your cult stronger and more productive than ever before. Woolhaven has its own upgrade tree, where you can unlock new structures and buildings. My favourite is a ranch, which allows you to raise your own sheep and alpacas in order to harvest wool from them. Wool is, unsurprisingly, one of the main currencies of Woolhaven, so having plenty of it will come in very handy indeed.

Woolhaven itself offers plenty for you to do, too, although you won’t spend as much time here as you do in your cult or in the dungeons. As you restore the ruins of the town, you’ll open up a wealth of facilities each offering you various daily challenges that you can pick up at will. You’ll be able to get new animals for your ranch here, collect those legendary weapons, and play a brand new minigame: Flockade. It’s no Knucklebones, but this rock-paper-scissors style strategy game is still a fun way to pass the time (and gain wool, if you’re up for a bit of gambling).

Ultimately, Cult of the Lamb: Woolhaven gives players more of what they love: a seamless blend of cult management and fast-paced combat, and it’s just as entertaining as ever. A whole new series of challenges and dungeons refreshes the base game in meaningful and substantial ways, and Woolhaven expands on what already existed without simply retreading the same content. This is a seriously worthy expansion, and if you enjoyed what Cult of the Lamb offered when it released back in 2022, consider Woolhaven a must-have.

This review of Cult of the Lamb: Woolhaven is based on the PC version of the game, via a code provided by the publisher. It’s available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch and PC.