I’ve always loved when a game has a creepy setting whether its meant to be Horror or not. Developer Black Salt Games and publisher Team17 set sail with Dredge in an attempt to capture the eerie nature of Eldritch Horror while keeping it grounded to a fishing game. Let’s find out how they did….

Story

In Dredge you are a fisherman who is heading into unfamiliar lands at night when your travel is interrupted by an unwarned crash. You have arrived at the dim lit town of Greater Marrow where you have crash-landed and totaled your ship. The village mayor comes out to great you and makes sure that you’re alright, and then he welcomes you to town with the very generous gift of a new ship! That you end up having to pay off as a loan, which keeps you grounded in this town for a little while. The villagers then start to come out to meet you. You meet a fishmonger, a mechanic, and the grumpy lady that lives at the lighthouse who seems to be unhappy with your crash landing. From here you quickly pay off your boat debt by selling fish and once your debt is paid you are able to set out to explore the other islands.

A mysterious stranger seems to be spying on you when you sell a certain type of fish to the fishmonger, and he stops you on your way out. Saying he knows what you saw, the mysterious man asks you to meet him on his small island outside of the bay of Greater Marrow. When you meet this stranger on his island, he informs you about some strange things that have been sighted and what is causing them. He asks you for assistance in gathering some artifacts for him. As you gather these artifacts he will send you to the different islands around the map while also giving you new abilities to avoid dangers, travel quicker and dredge through scrap piles in the ocean.

Throughout the story you will meet plenty of individuals with their own favors to ask for and backstories that can seem pretty grim. But it fits the vibe of the game perfectly. As you explore and complete peoples missions or what they call in the game “pursuits” you start to become familiar with the land and learn of the dangers that lurk in the dark. Are you afraid of the dark? No? Well you should be.

Gameplay

As stated before, you are crash landed in Greater Marrow where you are given a replacement ship that you get to use to earn your keep on it. You set out on daily voyages catching fish and making sure the shapes of the fish fit onto your hull. The way the inventory works on your hull is reminiscent of the old Resident Evil inventory system where you have you have a certain amount of slots and bigger items, take up more slots and you can rotate items to fit them into each other like a puzzle. After your first trip out and you fill your hull, by the time you start heading back to dock it’s starting to get dark. You dock up and the Mayor is waiting yet again, this time to inform you to be careful during the night as something is not right. Then you take your fish that you caught for the day, sell them off with a portion being taken to satisfy your loan.

Once you finish selling for the first time you are informed of the Shipworker in Greater Marrow who is able to fix and upgrade your boat. So if your hull is damaged because you haven’t quite learned how to steer yet, no worries, you’re able to fix it pretty quickly. You are gifted a few research points which you can spend while docked to unlock upgrades which then unlock new attachments for your boat that you can purchase from the Shipworker. You will shortly after this will pay off your loan and keep all your money for yourself and upgrade to your hearts content.

During your second night, you catch a weird-looking fish, seemingly mutated. You take it to the fishmonger and he inspects it and informs you that he’s seen it before, and it’s starting to happen more and more often now. You then spot an eerie figure spying on you, and as you leave the fishmonger he stops you and says he knows what you’ve seen and asks you to meet him on his island.

When you go to his island you find a tower that he lives in, and when you speak to him he tells you about this light in the sky and what he suspects it might be. He tells you it could be one of the artifacts he’s looking for. He then equips your vessel with Dredging equipment and sets you out at night to find the artifact. When you bring it back to him, he is pleased, and instead of rewarding you with money, he rewards you with supernatural seeming abilities. He then asks you to help him find the other artifacts he is looking for at each of the other islands.

When sailing at night you have to be extra careful. You will start to lose your sanity. The longer you stay out, the more terrified you will become. You will start to see things, you will start to panic, and rocks will appear seemingly out of nowhere. You will start to see other boats approach you at abnormally fast speeds only to find that it might not be a boat at all. You’ll start to hear whispers in the night, your catch will become infected or stolen by crows if you don’t take care of yourself. If you find yourself in these dire situations, just sleep it off, you might have to sleep for a full day or so if you’ve been out for too long.

Audio and Visual

Dredge stuck to darker visuals throughout the whole game, from straight darkness during the night to monsters lurking in the shadows. The different fish and their mutated versions have amazing artwork. You are sailing the seas and they do a great job of making it vast while at the same time not just leaving you sailing and it being boring.

The music in the game while at sea makes you feel adventurous and ready for everything! Then the nights hit and the score behind the night hits you with dread, making you feel the panic that the fisherman must be feeling. It really gets you into the feeling of questioning what you’re seeing.

Replayability

This is one part of the game that I think was done very well! There are plenty of fish to catch to fill out your Encyclopedia. Some fish are more rare that can only be caught during certain parts of the day, and all fish have multiple aberrations or mutations that you can sometimes find. On top of that, the game doesn’t require you to do any pursuits so you can go back into the game to finish those. There are also small islands on the maps that have bits of scenery to explore that tell little stories and you can generally find townfolk there as well to give you extra pursuits. The fishing on it’s own, I feel has enough to reel me back in just to pass some time.

What It Could Have Done Better

I don’t have much criticism for the title. I enjoyed just about every aspect of the game. The only thing that I wish I could have seen make its way into the game is customization options. Your ship stays the same the whole time, which isn’t a big deal but during the night its the only thing you can see so maybe if I could have personalized it a little bit would have been a nice touch.

Verdict

Simply put, Dredge was a great experience. The dark themes it had were welcomed. It was relaxing but stressful when it needed to be. The story line had me wanting to learn more about what I was getting myself into and I can easily see myself coming back to fill out my encyclopedia. For $24.99 USD it’s totally worth it. It played perfectly on the Switch so I would imagine that it’s good anywhere, but I think it makes the perfect grab and go game.

Dredge will be available on March 30th but you can pre-order it now. It will be available for PC via Steam or GOG, and consoles Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.