Worshippers of Cthulhu is a game that has everything you want from a colony sim city-builder. It has buildings, professions, resource management, and of course, serving our all-powerful God Cthulhu with human sacrifices.
I’ve been playing city builder games for a while. I fell in love with the genre thanks to the Anno series and then went on to experience more fun games like Tropico. But Worshippers of Cthulhu is the most uniquely interesting city builder I’ve ever played, so far.
Truth be told, I was not a fan of the Cthulhu stories and I wasn’t aware of the whole lore behind this fictional God that dates back to the early 1900s. But that didn’t prevent me from enjoying this game.
So, whether you’re a huge Cthulhu nerd or have no idea what it is, you will surely enjoy this game if you’re a fan of colony sim and city management games. Worshippers of Cthulhu is definitely worth buying!
Simply put, Worshippers of Cthulhu is a horror-themed city management game with a spooky twist. Read on for more on my experience with this game.
What is Worshippers of Cthulhu?
Worshippers of Cthulhu is a unique colony sim and city management game developed by Crazy Goat Games and published by Creativo. The game was released into early access on October 21st, 2024 and it’s already in solid shape, except for a few minor bugs.
This game has everything you’d expect from a city builder, like resource management, city planning, influence control, and managing population. However, unlike other usual city-building games, Worshippers of Cthulhu has a twist.
In this game, you are not building your city to earn millions or advance through civilizations. Not at all! Here, your goal is to serve the all-mighty lord Cthulhu and keep your god satisfied through blood and human sacrifices.
The currency you earn in this game is not money, it’s the influence you have over your obedient followers. You unlock new buildings and skills, by sacrificing idols to your god and branding your followers with blood tattoos that you carve out by yourself.
As you can imagine, this is not a game for kids or even for the faint-hearted. This city-builder is for mature audiences only!
Unique Mechanics
Similar to other colony sims, this game starts you off on an island. Your goal is to build a thriving and self-sustained city for your loyal Cthulhu followers. However, at first sight, you will feel the eerie vibe this game brings to your screen.
Worshippers of Cthulhu features a very mysterious and dark vibe across all aspects of the game. The moment you start your playthrough, you know you’re in a horror game. Everything from the UI to buildings and the skill tree is designed with this goal in mind.
In this game, your goal is to maintain the faith of your population and make sure they all follow and fear the all-powerful Cthulhu. You do this by building structures that grow your influence as well as setting up industrial buildings for gathering resources.
Make no mistake, you won’t be chasing monetary goals in this game. While you are tasked with tending to your population’s needs, your ultimate goal is to serve Cthulhu. You do this by building altars and creating idols to satisfy your God.
The all-powerful Cthulhu is an impatient god. At least that’s how it is in this game. There’s a timer that you’ll have to keep a close eye on as you progress. This timer shows the Cthulhu’s patience. You need to make sacrifices in order to keep your God happy.
This is one of the few aspects of the game that I did not like. When playing city management games, I prefer to have the freedom to choose a path I want to play. This mechanic made me more focused and anxious about serving God rather than exploring other aspects. Hopefully, the developers will improve this in the future.
In addition to these religious-themed activities, there are war-based mechanics in the game as well. You can go to war and invade other colonies of people who worship fake and less-powerful entities and turn them into obedient Cthulhu followers as well.
Mature Audiences Only!
As I mentioned repeatedly, Worshippers of Cthulhu is not just another colony sim game. It has some 18+/mature audience content that makes this game quite special.
In addition to all the human sacrifices, the game also tasks you with making some tough decisions. Like deciding whether to kill or save people. Or which type of punishment to use to teach people a lesson. Although, my favorite of all these mechanics is the brand-carving system.
After building an altar, you can take your most loyal Cthulhu followers up there to hold a ceremony and brand them as a lifelong Cthulhu follower. You do this by carving into the flesh of this person.
The fun part is, that you actually get to carve this tattoo with a knife as the person screams and blood drips down their back. But you get to have some fun with it. You can carve any shape or symbol you want, including smiley faces. I know I have some serious issues for enjoying this part of the game.
Rough Around the Edges
The gameplay felt smooth and balanced. The graphics and audio were also on par with modern colony sim games. The game also has some really cool animations and cut scenes that create an immersive experience.
Since the game is still in early access, I expected to come across lots of bugs and issues. To my surprise, there were only a few minor issues, like clicks not registering. Other than that, my experience in the game was quite smooth.
The developers have been rolling out patches and fixes almost daily following the launch for almost two weeks (as of the time of this writing). And it showed how committed the developers are to delivering a great experience to users.
More On The Way
Worshippers of Cthulhu content roadmap revealed big updates on the way very soon. I will be keeping a close eye on this game. Since the game was well received by the community at launch, I have no doubt the developers will have big plans for expanding this game up until and beyond its full release.
I will update this review as the game gets bigger with new content drops and expansions, hopefully in the near future.
Is Worshippers of Cthulhu Worth Buying?
Worshippers of Cthulhu is one of the top games on my list I was excited to play as it offered a unique perspective into colony sims and management.
In this day and age where every developer tries to “play it safe” to satisfy everyone, Worshippers of Cthulhu takes us back to the good old days when games were made by true gamers without being afraid to take risks.
Sure, as always, there will be people complaining about some of the mature gameplay mechanics and human-sacrificing stuff, but those mechanics make this game a more memorable and interesting experience. And it does a perfect job of satisfying that niche audience who seeks more engaging and distinctive games with a twist.
For me, Worshippers of Cthulhu offered a refreshing experience. In fact, it kept me awake a couple of nights thinking about carving different branding for my loyal Cthulhu followers. If you’re into that kind of thing or even looking for a different type of city-building/colony sim experience, this game is worth checking out.
Disclaimer: I received a review key for this game from the developers via Keymailer. However, the review is not sponsored or in any way influenced by the developers or the publishers of the game.