Worship Early Access Review

As a child, I was traumatized by Pikmin. I played the first Pikmin game on the Gamecube, drawn to it for the obvious reason: all the little guys. My dreams of palling around alien planets with my crew of tiny dudes were quickly dashed when I discovered that my not-yet-fully developed prefrontal cortex wasn’t equipped for the task of keeping them alive amid the chaos of the mission. I was even less prepared for the concept of “cutting my losses.” For the collateral damage. For the idea that not all of my Pikmin would live to see the weirdly capitalistic future they fought so hard (possibly non-consensually) to achieve.

Maybe that’s why Worship, which features a dark and twisted take on Pikmin-style gameplay, clicked for me on a conceptual level immediately. We’ve used and abused these little lads for so long, why not lay our cards on the table and be honest about it?

Worship, developed by Chasing Rats Games, is a co-op roguelite set in a whimsical and twisted cartoon world full of false prophets and shuttered churches. You play as a cult leader, serving an ancient eldritch god who is seeking to expand their influence in a crumbling and chaotic world. Said world is depicted through striking black and white 2D line art that blends cute and cursed vibes.

Worship in Action

Since this is a roguelite, the gameplay loop is of utmost importance here. Your eldritch benefactor sends you off into a procedurally generated map to convert followers, who will help you take down corrupted creatures and zealots of other competing religions. The world is full of these combat encounters, as well as tidbits of lore and puzzle-solving opportunities. Once you and your little minions generate enough devotion, you progress onto a mini boss (called a Test of Faith), and then out into the world again to grow your cult, until finally encountering the big boss for that run.

The mechanics of guiding and managing your followers will feel extremely familiar to Pikmin fans. You can send the group off to engage with an enemy or retrieve an item, then recall them back to you, as well as command them all to drop everything and stop following you until recalled. You can even pick up a single follower and chuck them in a specific direction, which happens to be a great tactical decision in a surprising number of situations. One feature that strays from traditional Pikmin gameplay is the ability to pick up and stab them in order to generate more blood for ritual casting (which I will explain momentarily). It may seem morbid and cruel, but this is the harsh reality of the twisted world of Worship.

Spell-ing is as easy as circle, square, triangle

Though they offer many ways to interact with this world, our character’s Pikmin-esque abilities are only one side of the coin. Your Eldritch patron also grants you spell casting abilities, in the form of blood rituals. This power introduces us to our primary resource in the game: blood. You start off with a full bank of blood, displayed at all times in the bottom corner of the screen, which also doubles as your health. You can then choose to spill a trail of blood on the ground as you walk, which allows you to draw rune shapes and cast various spells. The runes start off simple: drawing a circle around unindoctrinated humans and activating the spell will convert them to followers. A circle with a triangle in the middle casts an offering ritual that exchanges bodies for offerings for you to bring to your god. 

Over the course of the game, though, you’ll unlock increasingly complex shapes that cast everything from stat buffs to powerful attacks. These rituals can consume quite a bit of blood, so it’s important to always be looking for fresh sources. You can gather the blood spilled by your enemies (or your followers) in battle, as well as from various fountains and natural sources throughout the world.

Micromanaging bloodshed

Because it doubles as your health, replenishing your pool of blood is also essential because walking around with low levels will leave you more vulnerable to death from enemy attacks. I found that I also needed to be aware not to waste blood on unnecessary ritual casting, as there are a finite number of sources and each blood source can run dry with use. While there are a variety of ways to unlock more blood sources, it is theoretically possible to run out of viable ways to reload your stock.

I can already see that this game shines brightest when played with others. That ability to specialize sounds like a dream come true for me, as I actually really enjoyed both commanding my followers and exploring all the options available for ritual casting. Just not both at once.

Now if you’re thinking that Chasing Rats Games basically took all of the features and mechanics of Pikmin, and layered a whole second games’ worth of mechanics on top of that, I would say you’re right. If you’re thinking that sounds like a lot for one person to manage simultaneously, especially in a real-time combat situation, I would also say you’re right. I frequently felt in over my head, split between the need to manage my followers and to cast rituals in order to succeed in an encounter.

The end result often looked like a chicken with its head cut off: me, running around to evade attacks, deploying my troops toward the enemy, then getting halfway through drawing a rune before realizing I needed to call my little guys back, away from danger. The boss fights (called Trials of Faith) in particular felt overwhelming to tackle on my own. When I did beat them, it usually felt like divine intervention or sheer force of will, rather than a successful display of my gaming skills. That said, I did eventually develop a balance between the two aspects of gameplay and enjoyed getting familiar with the world and the strategies I uncovered.

Best enjoyed with others

While I haven’t gotten to play Worship in its co-op mode yet, I can already see that this game shines brightest when played with others. The ability to divide up tasks would have drastically reduced the multitasking panic that completely pervaded my gameplay experience. At the launch of Early Access, Worship will support 2-player co-op, and will eventually allow up to four players over the course of development. I imagine most duos will split up tasks so that one player micromanages the followers and the other focuses on ritual casting, rather than both players doing a little of both. That ability to specialize sounds like a dream come true for me, as I actually really enjoyed both commanding my followers and exploring all the options available for ritual casting. Just not both at once. I’ll be curious to see how strategy evolves for groups of four.

Worship Early Access Trailer

The question now is whether, in this new era of so-called “friendslop”, Worship can stand out among the firehose of indie co-op sensations. The success of many of these viral co-op experiences like PEAK, Lethal Company, and REPO, has hinged on their ability to create unexpected moments of pure absurdity. Your climbing buddy in PEAK narrowly saves you from a deadly fall, only to be shot off the same cliff moments later by a geyser. You think you’re about to die in a series of never-ending hallways, running for your life from a Thumper in Lethal Company, just barely escaping and immediately finding that your crew mate has accidentally taken off in the ship without you. These games are simple in concept, but rife with opportunities for serendipitous humor, best shared with friends.

It’s not clear to me that Worship is setting itself up for that specific type of viral co-op notoriety. And maybe that isn’t the target that Chasing Rats Games is trying to hit. After all, there aren’t that many co-op roguelites out there, so player expectations will likely be a bit more open-ended for those attracted to the concept. I think the game’s success in this Early Access stage is going to depend on the amount and cadence of new content that gets added to keep the gameplay fresh and expand on the bits of lore we’re learning about this universe. There are a lot of engaging and well-executed elements in Worship, and I look forward to enjoying them even more individually once I get the chance to dive into the co-op gameplay.

No Small Games was provided with a review key for Worship in Early Access by Chasing Rats Games

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