Released on January 22, 2026, the Cult of the Lamb: Woolhaven DLC is now available across multiple platforms, including Steam, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation. This highly anticipated expansion builds on the original game’s mix of adorable yet sinister cult management and dungeon-crawling combat, bringing players into a frozen mountain region filled with new challenges, lore, and mechanics. Whether you’re returning to tend to your followers or diving back in for the first time since the base game, Woolhaven promises to expand the world of Cult of the Lamb in ways both familiar and surprising.
Before I dive in, a quick note: this is an early review. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Woolhaven, but I haven’t seen everything the expansion has to offer yet. There are still dungeons to explore, secrets to uncover, and systems I haven’t fully tested, so while my impressions are positive, they might shift slightly as I dig deeper. That said, what I’ve experienced so far is more than enough to talk about, and honestly, it’s left me excited to spend more time here.
When Cult of the Lamb was first released, it immediately struck me as a game with a wonderfully strange duality. On one hand, it’s cute, with adorable creatures dotting your cult. On the other, it’s dark, full of sinister rituals and dungeon-crawling combat that often has you juggling the demands of your followers with the threats of the world outside. It was one of those rare games that could make you feel both powerfully in control and constantly slightly guilty at the same time. So when the Woolhaven DLC dropped, I was curious to see whether it would simply add more of the same or shake things up in a meaningful way.
And the short answer is: it absolutely shakes things up.
A harsher, colder cult life
The most immediate thing that hits you in Woolhaven is the setting. Unlike the base game’s lush forests and neutral village landscapes, Woolhaven is a frozen mountain region. Snow blankets almost everything, the skies are a muted grey, and the winds howl through the settlements in ways that make it feel both isolated and alive. Winter isn’t just an aesthetic choice here. Your followers can freeze if they aren’t cared for, your crops don’t grow as quickly, and you suddenly have to manage more resources than ever just to keep your cult functioning. Food, warmth, and shelter become not just tasks, but pressing concerns, giving the cult management side of the game a fresh layer of tension.
This change makes every decision feel weightier. Every time I sent a follower on a quest or had to allocate limited supplies, it carried a sense of real consequence. Part of this comes from the new furnace system: you can build a heater for your village, but it’s not just a “set it and forget it” deal. You need to harvest and collect a resource called Rotburn to keep it running, which adds another layer of management to your daily cult duties. Balancing dungeon crawling, day-to-day follower care, and making sure you’re stocked up for winter quickly becomes a careful juggling act. And the winters don’t stay the same—they get harsher as you progress, meaning that what worked last week might not be enough next week. The survival mechanics may feel overwhelming at first, especially for those coming straight from the base game, but they also add a sense of realism and immersion that makes Woolhaven feel like a living, breathing challenge rather than just a stage for more cute chaos.
And then there’s the ranching system.
Yes, you can now raise animals. Woolhaven adds a layer of farm management that, at first glance, seems almost absurdly cosy for a game about leading a cult. You can raise animals for wool, food, or even as part of the expansion’s resource economy. Seeing your little animals happily wandering your cult’s snowy compound is strangely comforting, almost like a reward for all the careful planning required to keep everyone alive in harsh conditions. The contrast between the sinister rituals you perform and the warm, domestic side of keeping animals alive is exactly the kind of tonal balance that made the base game so memorable, and it carries over here beautifully.
But the expansion goes even further. You can now breed your followers, creating new generations to strengthen your cult and maintain your population as winters grow harsher. Alongside this, there are also new “Rotten” followers—twisted, unnatural figures who don’t need to eat or sleep, but age and die faster than normal followers. They’re a fascinating strategic element: you can use them for dangerous tasks without worrying about regular upkeep, but their fragility means you need to be careful about how you deploy them. These new mechanics add another layer of decision-making to your cult management, balancing risk, reward, and survival in ways the base game never did.
And don’t worry if you ran out of space in your original cult. Woolhaven introduces a new NPC who can visit your village and offer to expand your land. With their help, you can increase the size of your settlement, giving you more room for buildings, followers, and livestock—so, in theory, you should never run out of space again. But, as with everything in this game, more space isn’t just a free bonus. More room means more followers to feed, more buildings to maintain, and more resources to gather. Expanding your cult might feel satisfying at first, but it also adds another layer of management—you’ll need to stay on your toes to make sure your bigger settlement doesn’t spiral out of control.
New dungeons, enemies, weapons and lore
Of course, Woolhaven isn’t just about snow and livestock. The expansion also delivers substantial combat content. There are new dungeons scattered across the mountains, each with its own hazards and environmental challenges. Ice-covered floors can make movement tricky, blizzards reduce visibility, and some enemies now come equipped with armour, meaning your attacks do less damage unless you adjust your strategy. These changes force you to think differently about every encounter. You can’t rely solely on the tactics that carried you through the base game; Woolhaven demands flexibility, careful planning, and a willingness to adapt on the fly.
To help with these challenges, Woolhaven also introduces a range of new weapons, including the blunderbuss, which dramatically alters combat. Suddenly, positioning, timing, and crowd control become more important than ever, and you’ll find yourself experimenting with different loadouts to handle the tougher, better-armoured foes. The combination of environmental hazards, new enemy types, and new tools creates combat encounters that are consistently tense and satisfying.
Lore-wise, Woolhaven digs deeper than the base game. The expansion reveals bits of forgotten history, long-lost settlements, and the origins of certain factions and deities. The frozen villages and ruined towns carry a melancholic undertone, a quiet sense of things lost to time and harsh winters. For players who enjoy uncovering the stories behind the world of Cult of the Lamb, Woolhaven adds layers of depth that are both satisfying and haunting, making exploration feel both meaningful and challenging.
It really does feel like an expansion
One of the strongest things about Woolhaven is how substantial it feels. This isn’t a small add-on or a handful of extra quests—it’s almost a full sequel in its own right. The content is dense, the story is meaningful, and the new mechanics fundamentally change how you approach the game. By the time I finished the first couple of dungeons and set up the early parts of the settlement, I was already noticing how much more involved and strategic the expansion feels compared to the base game.
This is the kind of DLC that could easily justify its price purely on the amount of playtime it adds. For fans of the base game, Woolhaven provides a reason to come back, and it does so without rehashing the same old systems. It’s a proper continuation that expands the Cult of the Lamb experience both narratively and mechanically.
A few rough edges
That said, Woolhaven isn’t perfect. As I mentioned above, the winter and survival mechanics can feel daunting at first, particularly if you’re jumping into a save from the base game and you haven’t played for a while. It took me a little while to remember how best to manage resources and follower behaviour, and even after getting used to it, there are moments where the system feels punishing.
There are also minor bugs that I’ve encountered so far, typical of a new expansion launch these days, like followers getting stuck or resource counts behaving strangely. None of these have broken the game for me, but they are worth keeping in mind, especially if you’re sensitive to technical issues.
Final thoughts
Woolhaven is a natural evolution of what made Cult of the Lamb so memorable. It preserves the adorable, dark charm of the base game while introducing systems and environments that feel genuinely fresh. The snow, the cold, and the survival mechanics all work together to create a tense but satisfying layer of strategy, while the ranching and follower breeding systems, and expanded lore give players plenty of reason to explore and invest in their cult.
Even as an early review, it’s clear that Woolhaven is a substantial and worthwhile expansion. It may be colder and more challenging, but it’s also richer and more engaging, providing new ways to experience a world that’s already delightfully weird and compelling.
Overall: 9/10
A chilly, content-packed expansion that adds real depth without losing the weird charm of the original. I’m excited to see what else Woolhaven has in store as I continue exploring it. This is what a DLC should be.
Gareth Ellis - Author 