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Dredge Review: Thrilling horror maritime adventure

Dredge delves into our primal dread of the sea and the hidden creatures that lurk under the waves in the dark. It’s a brilliant, intriguing fishing adventure game with an eldritch twist; you upgrade your boat, nets, and rods, travel out further to catch new fish, and encounter nocturnal monsters that make you want to throw the controller in disgust. When you’re kilometres from a port and starting to notice things, the overarching horror narrative feels oppressively present.

You begin Dredge by arriving in a little fishing village on a somewhat larger island. The mayor of the town is looking for someone to provide its people with fish and lends you a tiny but capable boat to do so. Given that you’ll never have the chance to step foot on land in Dredge, it’s a godsend that fishing never seems tiresome. Each combat with a beast under the waves is a quick minigame involving timed button pushes. Each one’s format varies based on the type of fish you’re attempting to capture, but the core idea and general difficulty stay the same. Achieving all of them isn’t even necessary for a successful capture. Instead, your talent in each minigame just speeds up the process, which can help you reach back to shore before dusk.

You’ll ultimately do everything in your power to remain out as long as possible, improving your boat with the revenues of your catches to add more powerful engines, better lighting, and various types of rods, trawlers, and nets. You’ll also be able to scavenge driftwood, fabric, and machine parts from other unfortunate shipwrecks, outfitting your tug with larger cargo grids to store bigger fish, as well as extra rod and engine space to accept those larger, more powerful upgrade units. Rarer research pieces also allow you to devote time and effort into constructing more adaptable equipment on the side, allowing you to fish for greater rewards at new depths and in other sorts of water.

In the case of Dredge, they gain right angles, each luxuriant 2D fish depicting the centre of a clump of bricks that must be fitted into a cargo container depicted as an expanded grid. It’s a bloodless version of real-world commercial fish processing, with species being sliced up into tradeable morsels on the deck before they’ve ever completed suffocating. Tiny creatures, such as snailfish, take up a couple of squares and may be readily inserted between your ship’s engine or lights and the hull. Shark hauls resemble ungainly, rectilinear Christmas trees of fins and jaws: squeezing in more than one is usually a chore, but perhaps rearranging your mackerels will miraculously make room.

Dredge feels like it has it all: a great music, stunningly fluid graphics, and solid movement. It’s not a short experience, and those who don’t want to spend their in-game days managing assets may be put off by its unusual gameplay. Even if you’ve spent a week doing nothing, it’ll be difficult to find a game that makes every new day feel like a completely new challenge.

Dredge is a great chiller because it never says too much. It’s unsettling, but never outright horrible, and it can also be lovely and soothing. It’s mainly up to you whether you go out in the dark or remain to the shoreline during the day. The way its tone can shift so fast, as well as the intrigue of its little stated tale, kept us interested.

Harry S

harry

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