Dredge
Avoid certain death and nab yourself a tuna. Dredge (2023)
A single-player fishing game with a sinister undercurrent that caught my heart.
Developer: Black Salt Games
Publisher: Team 17
Released: 2023 PC, XBox One, Playstation 4/5, Nintendo Swtich
The author played this game on a PlayStation 4.Winner of multiple video game awards, from “Best Indie Game” to “Best Setting” to “Best Horror” and even SXSW Sydney’s “Game of the Year”, Dredge proved to be worthy of all those accolades. It delivered a compelling story with an unforgettable conclusion that left me a little shook. Beyond the game’s story, its sound and visual design continued a trend of indie games flexing a type of creativity that brings the work to life and draws the player into a unique world.
Dredge starts of innocently enough, placing you, the unnamed Fisherman, in a vessel in the middle of an archipelago that presents five different island environments, each with their own mysterious lore that is connected to the archipelago’s dark history. You begin in an area of the map known as The Marrows. You sail into the bayside village of Greater Marrow, the largest fishing village in the game, and the course for your sea-faring adventure is set from that point. Along the voyage towards the game’s conclusion, you encounter characters scattered throughout the archipelago and do some standard video game stuff with them (i.e. help them acquire something, do something, go somewhere, etc.). The archipelago’s waters are filled with 128 different types of fish, from the ones you would see on Blue Planet to some aberrations of the eldritch variety.
Inspired by the xenomorph design?
You sail around the archipelago, catching these fish with rods, nets, pots, and trawls, and sell these creatures to fish merchants scattered across the map. You can use that money (and Research Parts) to buy and create upgrades for your vessel, and you unlock upgrades by completing quests for the variety of characters that you meet throughout your adventure. Despite this, there is only one character, known as The Collector, for whom you carry out the main storyline quests. Standard open-world video game stuff, but on a fishing boat.
The Port of Greater Marrow (crab pots not included).
Complicating your fishing trips is the group of aggressive Lovecraftian sea monsters that lurk in the depths. They are downright creepy, and they more or less kick your ass until you can upgrade your way out of trouble. In addition to those monsters, the Fisherman will also have to deal with the dreaded fog that blankets the archipelago at night. You might say to yourself, “I’ll just avoid the sea at night”, and you would be smart to play that tactic, but the game forces you into the uncomfortable situation of having to catch nocturnal creatures while also keeping an eye out for the way the fog steers you into rocks, or the massive angler fish stalking your hull, or the bizarre red fog that randomly appears, surrounding your little boat like a homing beacon for the Leviathan to attack. No joke. It happens. If it’s not the wildlife out to get you, it’s the weather or even your own mind playing tricks on you if you don’t get enough rest. It is a bit frustrating at first to only be able to do so much and get so far, and the momentum build towards the first few upgrades is a little laborious, but once you upgrade enough to even out the playing field and are able to explore further, Dredge becomes an addiction.
This freak comes out at night.
Two things that stood out to me about Dredge are the clever day-night cycle the game developers implemented, and the game’s brilliant score and sound design. The way that time moves in this game is clever in that it speeds up the fast you go in your boat. For example, if you shoot out of The Marrows on your way out to Gale Cliffs, and you’re throttling your engine, it’ll be dark by the time you get to the Cliffs because you will have accelerated time, and in Dredge things get weird in the dark.
The music and sounds that come out of Dredge are the best thing about this game. Composer David Mason must have spent weeks at sea to produce such an inspired piece of work. The ambient sound of your boat’s motor pushing through the water, or sea birds squawking overhead, or the terrifying roars from the monsters below are what pulled me into this world. It enhanced the simple (but beautiful) graphics and set a haunting mood when I dredged the sea at night. My favorite piece of music from Dredge is “The Resilient Traveller”.
If you don’t want to deal with the monsters and generally don’t like a little thrill in your life, and prefer your food without some seasoning, you can always put the game in “Passive” mode, so the scary monsters and nasty fog won’t get you. It removes the game of any challenge, but to each their own. Either way you play it, Dredge is worth your time.
