Worshippers of Cthulhu

I've put enough hours into Anno, Against the Storm, and Frostpunk to know exactly when a city-builder is dressing up old mechanics versus actually rethinking them. Worshippers of Cthulhu sits somewhere in the middle of that spectrum, and that's a more interesting position than it sounds. Crazy Goat Games, the developer behind Republic of Pirates, released this full version in May 2025 after an early access run that clearly shaped the final product, and what landed is a production-chain sim that's immediately legible to genre veterans while piling on enough cult-flavored friction to keep things from feeling like a reskin. The core loop will feel familiar fast. You start on the island of Dreamshroud with a handful of followers and a monument, build a lumberjack hut, connect everything by road, and begin climbing a tiered production chain. Wood gives way to advanced materials, housing drives a zealotry level that functions like a happiness modifier granting colony-wide bonuses, and the whole economic engine runs on faith points instead of gold. That substitution matters more than it sounds: faith is earned by meeting follower needs, which creates a feedback loop where neglected acolytes quietly starve your income before they bolt. For strategy players who track resource ratios obsessively, that dependency is clean and legible. For newcomers, the first campaign map introduces mechanics at a pace that reviewers have consistently praised, with an in-game guide that holds your hand without condescending. The UI is notably uncluttered for the genre, with key information reachable in a couple of clicks, which is rarer than it should be among city-builders. Where the game gets genuinely weird, in a good way, is in the systems layered on top of the economic base. Eldritch Favour, earned through ritual sacrifices and wood idol carvings, gates the building tech tree. Cthulhu's Patience is a mission timer that drains steadily and triggers a loss state if depleted, though you can disable it if you prefer a sandbox pace. Changing a follower's vocation requires carving runes into their back, a mechanic that plays out as a brief mouse-gesture minigame. Summoning an Eldritch Horror for island conquest costs specific materials and designates followers for exaltation, and the creature's health burns down during use, so timing and resource prep matter. Sea combat exists to unlock new archipelago islands but lands as underdeveloped in its current state, a clear gap the roadmap intends to address. Some players in the community have also noted that the late-game ramps up defensive pressure to a point where the cult feels less like a dominant cosmic force and more like a fragile outpost, which cuts against the thematic fantasy. The tension at the heart of the game is one that honest reviewers keep circling: the Lovecraftian skin is atmospheric and well-executed visually, but the underlying mechanics are recognizably Anno-adjacent. Branching story events, moral choices about follower welfare, and the ritual systems do meaningful work to differentiate the experience, but players expecting a horror game with city-builder elements will get a city-builder with horror elements instead. Steam's community sits at around 80 percent positive across over a thousand reviews, which for an early-access-to-full-release transition is a solid signal that the fundamentals hold up. Developers have been active with patches. A sandbox mode is on the roadmap. The bones are sound. For strategy and sim players specifically, this is a straightforward recommendation with one footnote: go in for the production-chain depth and the satisfying economic tension of the faith system, not for cosmic dread. The atmosphere earns its keep, the tutorial respects your intelligence without throwing you in cold, and the archipelago multi-island structure gives the mid-to-late game genuine complexity. If you bounced off Anno's historical setting or want Against the Storm's roguelite cadence but slower and moodier, this slots in cleanly. Just don't expect the mechanics to feel as transgressive as sacrificing your own workers sounds on paper.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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