Cultic Review

Hell on Earth has a brand-new meaning in Cultic, a first-person horror game styled as a classic boomer-shooter made by Jasozz Games, who, as trends are becoming to set, is a one-person development team. However, developer Jason Smith’s current sole focus is to create a deeply unsettling world of rituals and cults, nestled in front of a hardcore shoot-em-up with all the blood and gore you could ask for. Since releasing on PC back in 2022, Cultic has finally come to consoles, consisting of two brutal chapters, an interlude, and survival maps, brimming with an engaging story, bloodthirsty enemies, and a foreboding environment.

 

No Holds Barred

As an unnamed, muted protagonist, we find ourselves in the middle of an evil community after being kidnapped during an investigation. Waking up within an unmarked grave, we venture forth and discover numerous hooded assailants with a taste for blood, gore, and another body to dump on the roadside. As we stumble each step closer within this unidentified hellscape, we are met with corpses littering the streets, corridors and alleyways, both full-bodied and others…not so much. Cultic gravitates towards two spectrums of the horror genre, i.e., a gun-blazing gorefest or a careful, stealthy journey where enemies can be picked off one-by-one. Personally, I’ve always enjoyed going into enemy encounters with guns blazing, and I wasn’t disappointed with the chunky pieces of flesh that flew back at me upon hitting enemies with every kind of bullet imaginable.

 

A True Nightmare

Every stage in Cultic has its own story, additional enemy types, and secrets to behold. For instance, the first stage simply introduces hooded cultists packing guns and melee weapons. Further into the game, you will be introduced to zombies, chainsaw-wielding maniacs, and floating deities covered in cloth, the latter holding the ability to throw objects with their mind or damage the player using simple eye contact. Secrets within each level may hold extra ammunition, health, body armour, or even a piece of lore written onto a notebook or typewriter. These small pieces of lore drops are really a backdrop in the oncoming action, and if the title of the game doesn’t tell you what the premise is all about, I’m afraid you should pick a different hobby. Most of the game is a run-and-gun, death-dealing extravaganza; however, there are aspects of horror here that should be praised.

 

You Don’t Always Run and Gun

What lurks behind the splatterfest in Cultic are sections of deeper, hauntingly quiet spooks that are more unsettling than jumpy. For instance, I found myself lurking through a cavernous system of hanging bodies with no enemies in sight for far too long. After arriving in a room with a bed, a note, and a key, the manic cackle of an unseen monster sent shivers to my core, and one by one, the formerly deceased carcasses fell from the ceiling, and behind them was a chainsaw-revving psychopath hoping to use my teeth as a necklace. These small but numerous moments are what kept me playing because, in the least weird way possible, I enjoy a good scare or seven. These sections definitely help the pacing, allowing players who enjoy a good scare to take it slower and sneak around a little more, giving opportunities to save ammo and use the hatchets to silently pick off any wandering enemies.

 

This Is My Boomstick

Once the spooky vibes wear off and the ammo is stocked, the end of each level in Cultic treats players to an adrenaline-filled battle where blood, guts, and gore are all welcome. Cultic throws everything at the player with an awesome soundtrack that completely injects an incredible high into every vein imaginable. There are plenty of weapons to grit your teeth into, including pistols, shotguns, machine guns, hatchets, and throwables, like Molotov cocktails and TNT. Throwables can even be combined, meaning you can set fire to a large group of adversaries and take them out with a blazing explosion, a perfect way to make short work of foes or for anybody with morbid curiosity on what a blown up flaming body looks like. Popping the head on the very last enemy for a cool, slow-motion shot just seems to itch at the scratch of satisfaction.

 

That’s Not Supposed to Happen

Unfortunately, my playthroughs of Cultic have been met with annoying bugs and glitches that have affected some of the action sequences of this otherwise brilliant video game. Ever played through a level in a game and thought to yourself, “Where on Earth am I getting shot from?”? In Cultic, sometimes it’s from an enemy who’s far away or an enemy who is stuck completely inside a wall, being given the ability to shoot the player without worrying about the player shooting back. Alas, what fun can be had when your enemies are fully impervious because the game decided to tell the player to go screw themselves? One early mission of my playthrough involved one of the many machine-gunning, robed lunatics taking cover behind the actual geometry of a wall. Here, a mysterious one-way portal allowed his shots to damage me, compared to my own ammunition being dumped onto its solid foundation with no way of killing them. Dying to these types of bugs are one of the many ways that Cultic has decided to take me down, albeit not through any fault of my own.

 

Final Thoughts

In many ways, Cultic has cemented itself well within the confines of the boomer-shooter genre, adding touches of environmental storytelling and horror sequences to give it a unique flair. Setting aside its minor flaws, the game’s gunplay and mayhem heavily outweigh what might otherwise have been another casual FPS, and it has instead proven itself to be an amazing addition to solo first-person horror titles.

Developer: Jason’s Games

Publisher: 3D Realms

Platforms: Windows, Xbox, PS5

Release Date: 23rd July 2026

Gaming Respawn’s copy of Cultic was provided by the publisher.