In Dredge, you play a fisherman whose boat has run aground in a small archipelago of islands. The islands are populated by some small towns and outposts strewn throughout the ocean but it’s a somewhat meager existence and most people aren’t doing that well. When you show up at the first area, The Marrows, the Mayor is thrilled to have a new fisherman to help support the town because the other one well…vanished. What happened? That’s probably none of your concern, right? Just, um, be careful going out after dark. After all, if you’re up too late, who knows what you might see?
There’s a clear theme of being the outsider in Dredge and it is parallel to the currents that run in Lovecraftian stories of all sorts. Things are definitely ‘out there’; strange, malevolent entities that are vast beyond measure and threaten to reduce those who see them to gibbering madness. As a fisherman though, it’s up to you to catch fish and sell them to the local merchants in order to get by. Now if those fish have odd deformities and weird additional organs they might be worth a little extra too, but it’s best not to think about why that might be happening, isn’t it?
In addition to fishing, you’ll need to run some errands for the townsfolk as well. Many simply don’t or can’t go on the water anymore for a variety of reasons but they need supplies and items that only you can find and dredge from the water. You can sell some of the loot you pull from the depths but other items must be taken to specific people to progress in various missions. Help enough people and you’ll end up with additional skills, new equipment, and a host of other benefits. But if you want to simply fish to your heart’s content, there’s nothing stopping you.
Fishing and dredging are the main portions of the game and they’re quite easy to get the hang of. You’ll have to have the right equipment for the job however. You start off in a rickety old boat that has rods capable of fishing in shallows and coastal waters. This allows you to fish around the Marrows while you get the feel of things. Once you move to an area where fish are (the water is churning), you simply press Y. Different fish have different types of quick time events but you can just let the rod reel in if you’re in no hurry. Hitting the Y button while a needle (or ring or dot or whatnot) is in the green will speed up your reel, bringing fish in faster and saving you precious time before the monsters come out the play. Miss the green and you’re back to square one.
Seems easy, right? But keep in mind that the whole time you are fishing, time is ticking by and the longer you take, the darker it gets and the darker it gets, the more dangerous being out on the water is. You’re more likely to find aberrations in the dark (swirling colors where they waters are churning) but the lights on your boat don’t reach very far and without lights, rocks are entirely invisible. Hit a rock and you can do damage to your hull and equipment and even lose cargo. You’ll also lose cargo space and have to bring your ship in for repairs, costing you some cash and cutting into your progress. The darker it gets, the more you panic as well. There are things out there with too many eyes, huge tentacles, gnashing teeth and more. Colors will swirl in the dark warning you that things are about to get particularly dangerous and in the deep, anything can happen and often does, leaving your boat a shattered ruin as your body becomes food for the fish.
Missions get more and more complex as you progress through the game and the various creatures you must deal with get nastier as well. It’s important to plan your resources for the missions you’ll be working through by installing the correct nets, poles, and traps for the area and ensuring that you continue to upgrade your boat, engines, and lights. Faster fishing and a faster boat means less daylight wasted and more to be achieved per day but time moves inexorably forward as you play. There’s plenty to explore in Dredge and the progress, while incremental, feels natural and not too slow. That’s a nice change from other games which drag on with events that take too long to resolve.
Between upgrading, missions, fishing, and exploring, you’re never short on things to do in Dredge and if you want to take a couple of days and just fish, it’s remarkably relaxing to do so and just zip around the waters of the archipelago. The balance in variety is excellent and you’re never entirely stuck unless you take a few too many risks and end up with a damaged engine, limping to port as night falls. Then, any moment could be your last and it’s your own damned fault.
What’s also interesting about Dredge is the visual approach. Rather than shooting for any sort of realism, the game is designed with a cartoonish look, but not a silly one. Visuals are crisp but minimalist, showing age and stress in every character not through extensive detail but through thicker lines and creative uses of color. The game design is similar, using color as an indicator of a variety of things from aberrant fish to personal stress and even monsters approaching. The visuals are spectacular and once you meet the photographer, you’ll even have the ability to take pictures of your favorite scenes.
There’s never any confusion over whether an area is accessible or not in Dredge or whether you can interact with something or not as the iconography is clear and simple. The entire GUI is fairly straightforward with the only odd thing being the use of the L3 and R3 buttons to transfer items from one screen to the other. It’s definitely a hassle to use R3 to do this as it’s not a button that’s typically used often and it never seems to become second nature during gameplay. But reading the menu system and figuring out what to do is always clearly delineated and always looks cool no matter what you’re doing.
What’s even better about Dredge is that the music is delicately interwoven with the gameplay in such a way that it elevates the game impressively. As monsters start to threaten, the music comes up and becomes menacing, slowly ramping down when the situation requires. Each time you end up with different tracks however and the end result is a rich soundtrack that ebbs and flows with the action and manages to not feel repetitive at all. The sound effects are also highly advanced, with each creak and groan complementing the motion that’s on screen, creating a much more significant impact for all the little noises that boats, reels, ropes and chains make. Everything has unique sounds and the end result is a fascinating combination of sound effects and music that will enthrall players.
There hasn’t even been a chance to talk about Dredge: The Pale Reach yet! This new DLC for Dredge adds a 6th area to discover; a frozen Antarctic-style wasteland filled with unique problems to solve and fish to catch. Horror aficionados will notice ample nods to “Who Goes There?” by John Campbell as well as John Carpenter’s “The Thing”. There are some nasty monsters to deal with down south and the rewards you get are interesting too. For an extra $6, if you’re enjoying Dredge, you’re not going to want to miss out on The Pale Reach DLC! Perhaps the most interesting thing about this expansion is how seamlessly it integrates with the main game. Once you’ve got the Pale Reach installed, it’s like it was always there as part of the game and it’s hard to imaging Dredge without it. The magic anchor you’ll eventually get is particularly valuable and the specialized trawling net available in the icy south once you’ve completed the correct pursuit is outstanding too. Everything about the Pale Reach DLC just makes the Dredge experience better and there’s no way to sugar coat that. This is DLC that should be part of a complete release, so let’s hope for the best!
For $25, Dredge is one hell of a fun experience. There’s more than a healthy dose of horror injected into the strata of the game and many situations and storylines are more than just a little unsettling, even if you don’t have all the details. Chances are you’re not going to be lying awake at night from playing this one though (unless you’re particularly sensitive), so don’t sweat it. Tacking on the Pale Reach DLC bumps the price up a bit over $30 for retail but it’s worth every penny. With the 10-20 hours you’ll get out of the main game and the few hours The Pale Reach adds, you’ll be absorbed from beginning to end. All that’s left now is for you to get out there and taste the salt in the air, feel the wind on your face, and look out for the tentacles slithering across your deck!
This review is based on digital copies of Dredge and The Pale Reach DLC provided by the publisher. It was played on a Nintendo Switch in both docked and undocked modes and played equally well in both. Dredge and The Pale Reach are also available for Playstation 4/5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on Steam.
Nate Van Lindt has been a gamer since the days of yore (aka Commodore 64), and has played a bit of virtually everything out there. He's also an avid comic book collector, both vintage and current, and reads a fair amount of sci-fi and fantasy. On top of that, he watches a fair number of movies and TV shows as well. Oh, and he has a family, a full-time job, and lives somewhere in the urban wilds of Southwestern Ontario, Canada, foraging for old video cables and forgotten game soundtracks.