Cult of the Lamb Woolhaven Nails What a Great Expansion Should Be

In the age of DLC and content drops, truly meaty expansions that meaningfully build on the base game are a rare treat. Woolhaven for Cult of the Lamb is exactly that, a classic-style paid expansion that adds enough content to nearly double the overall length of the experience.

Woolhaven Makes Cult of the Lamb Even Better

Massive Monster has cleverly integrated the expansion into the game by making it accessible when you’re close to the end of the main campaign. It’s sort of like how FromSoftware handles their expansions, so you’re able to enjoy new content that doesn’t feel too easy or familiar. Just as importantly, Woolhaven doesn’t overwhelm you all at once, letting its systems unfold at a steady pace.

The new systems in the expansion feel fresh because they don’t really directly rely on older content, but rather use and generate new resources. Winter survival is the key element here, and you’ll build a furnace that requires a supply of Rotburn to function. Think Frostpunk, but much more streamlined and approachable.

As always, taking care of your followers’ needs during this new challenge remains a fun pastime, and harvesting meat from their frozen bodies is funnier than I expected. Their responses, requests, and behavior are what make the management part so much fun to constantly engage with.

There’s a new building tree for Woolhaven, and it also introduces Ranching. Yes, even though you’re an anthropomorphic being, livestock does exist in this world, and you’ll raise, feed, pet, milk, and shear them as well. While the livestock don’t have complex emotions like your followers, they do require care and attention from you, so it’s a very active form of engagement.

More Quests, Dungeons, and New Characters

While the new systems are great, I’m enjoying the added story content as well. Yngya, the giant sheep and central character of Woolhaven, is another victim of the Bishops, and uncovering her tale and that of her followers is pretty sad and upsetting. You do get to revive her followers in Ghost form, who inhabit the Woolhaven section near your base. It becomes a fun little town with each follower offering several quests to finish, which often require you to visit areas through the teleporter as well.

You’ll explore the frozen mountain and the rot underneath to fight all manner of new enemies and bosses. It’s the tried and tested rogue-lite combat, which always feels approachable but hits hard and feels great thanks to the variety of spells, weapons, and incredible animation work.

I don’t think I fully appreciated the presentation when I first played Cult of the Lamb, but the audio and visual elements across the base game and Woolhaven are truly superb. Every corner of this game is so beautifully realized, full of detail and begging to be explored.

If I had to go by just the sheer variety of content here, Woolhaven is sequel-sized, but it integrates well with your existing progress, and I really appreciate that approach. If Massive Monster decides to release another expansion for Cult of the Lamb, following this structure would be an easy win, because Woolhaven sets a new bar for what a meaningful expansion should look like.

Cult of the Lamb: Woolhaven is out now on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 & 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One for $16.99.