Grisly cult management sim Worshippers of Cthulhu has confirmed an October release date, but devout fans can play a free demo now

Put your loyal cultists to work (or just sacrifice them) in this Lovecraftian city building sim

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For anyone who doesn’t mind getting their brain dirty with a bit of forbidden knowledge, developer Crazy Goat Games has some very good news. Worshippers of Cthulhu, the studio’s Lovecraftian city builder and cult management sim, will be summoned into this realm – er, released – on October 21, 2024, and a free demo is already available to play on PC.

For those of us who like our management sims with a splash of supernatural grime (and an eerily foreboding soundtrack by music label Cryo Chamber), there’s a lot to be excited for here. Worshippers of Cthulhu’s latest trailer, which debuted exclusively at theFuture Games Showat Gamescom Presented by Sid Meier’s Civilization® VII, teases everything you’d expect from a game about life serving Cthulhu. Furled tentacles and giant statues of Cthulhu sit between housing plots and tomato fields, and you’ll need to “harness human toil” – that’s cult-speak for putting people to work – to ensure faith and building materials flow.

However, the most important resource will arguably be the people we’ll be lording over. Besides gathering resources and working industriously, cultists will also be able to devote their lives to some pretty gnarly-looking rituals. One particularly brutal mechanic requires you to carve the right symbol into someone’s back, while another shot from the trailer shows a plucky cultist bursting into a mass of tentacles before casting themselves into the ocean, from which a toothy monstrosity emerges. The Necronomicon even makes a brief appearance, which will let us summon demons to do our bidding in combat.But the worst fate of all is reserved for “Mark from work,” a subject who Crazy Goat Games goes to great lengths to rename and burn at stake. It’s hard to tell what Mark’s sacrifice achieves, but if it’s a ritual designed to pique interest in Worshippers of Cthulhu – which will also be showcasing a demo during October’s Steam Next Fest – it’s certainly worked on us.

If you’re looking for more excellent games from today’s Future Games Show, have a look atour official Steam page.

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Andy Brown is the Features Editor of Gamesradar+, and joined the site in June 2024. Before arriving here, Andy earned a degree in Journalism and wrote about games and music at NME, all while trying (and failing) to hide a crippling obsession with strategy games. When he’s not bossing soldiers around in Total War, Andy can usually be found cleaning up after his chaotic husky Teemo, lost in a massive RPG, or diving into the latest soulslike – and writing about it for your amusement.

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