I love the boss fights in Cult of the Lamb; they’re a welcome change of pace to what is otherwise a relatively peaceful dungeon-crawling experience. But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that my absolute favourite part of fighting a boss is getting to indoctrinate them and welcome their cute follower form into my cult.
Once you defeat a boss, you have the option to take them into your cult, where you can look after them and assign them tasks to do around the place for as long as they live, which sadly is never long enough.
So when I went into Marchosias’ big fight towards the end of Cult of the Lambs’ latest great expansion, Woolhaven, I was expecting to come back with a new cute little wolf follower to look after.
After defeating Marchosias, he lay in the centre of the arena bruised and bloodied. I went up and found the choice to either indoctrinate him or straight up execute him. Obviously, I went to indoctrinate him, but it didn’t work. I tried again and again until Marchosias had had enough of my antics and decided he’d rather rip himself in half than join my cult. I was left devastated and slightly insulted.
It also seems to be a choice that has confused some other players who were looking forward to Marchosias joining their cult. So I had to ask Massive Monster’s art director, James Pearmain, why they decided to make it this way when I talked to him last week.
“When we first started Cult of the Lamb, we decided, in this world, everything is cults, and the whole world is built around religion,” Pearmain tells me. “We have the bishops and the one who waits, and these different characters, and everyone’s sort of obsessed with religion. But we wanted to have a unique enemy boss in Woolhaven.
“We thought actually making Marchosias really against the religion and being really scarred by that would be more interesting than just another big bad guy. Marchosias is into science and is burned by religion. He hates it and does everything he can to avoid it. And so the decision not to let you indoctrinate him was a really important one, because it would have gone against his character.”
I do see the vision. As much as I’d love to have a new boss follower join the ranks, I understand that it would be rather odd to have Marchosias happily walking around your cult, given how much he clearly hates religion.
When you first meet Marchosias while running through the snowy mountain dungeon, he’s clearly suspicious of you. Later, he asks you why you spread such horrid rot around the mountain and tries to stifle your efforts by taking either rotburn or food from you. He’s obviously an enemy you’ll have to overcome, but I didn’t get the vibe that he was a particularly bad guy.
Surrounded by scientific equipment and books, Marchosias is clearly interested in a different kind of truth. Scarred by religion, he sees your acts on the mountain as nonsensical and probably greedy. He didn’t come looking for you or hurt your cult, and now you’re running around the mountain killing his people and spreading a rot that clearly isn’t good for anyone.
“I’m really, really glad that we did that, because I think if you had just forced him to join your cult, it would have gone against everything he stands for,” Pearmain adds. “It breaks player expectations, because you think, okay, you’re gonna get him to join your cult, but actually, he hates religion so much that he’d rather tear himself apart. I can understand why people are upset about it, but for me, I think that was a core part of his personality. I’m sorry he didn’t get your Marchosias, though.”
It’s ok, I forgive the devs for keeping Marchosias from me. In the end, it was the right choice for his story and character arc, and at the very least, I got to enjoy having the cultist versions of Hagar, Fester, Mestor, and Nestor roaming around my camp.
Read the full article here
