I recently went trawling through my GOG library for games to play on my Ayn Thor and pulled up Dredge, Black Salt Games’ cosmic-horror fishing adventure from 2023. I played a taste of this near release (not even a full first hour), and have been intrigued by its premise and the fishing gameplay. Somehow fishing has almost become a core mechanic in video games so I’m always interested to see how it’s implemented. Let’s set sail.
The basic loop in Dredge is pretty successful: take your boat out, find fishing spots, fish until they’re empty, and return to town to sell your catch. Instead of stocking bait you manage your inventory in a system similar to Resident Evil games where you have a basic grid and the fish feature different shapes. There’s some inventory management every time your boat fills up with fish requiring you to move and spin your haul to maximize space. It’s kind of like playing a game of Tetris without the falling blocks. Sharing your inventory space are your installed engines, rods, and lamps, requiring you to work around them.
Fishing or dredging for items is reduced to a little minigame, it’s nowhere near as complex or demanding as Stardew Valley’s fishing. Honestly I think you could choose to not engage in the timing aspects of it at all and you’ll still catch all the fish, though I don’t think that would work for dredging up loot. There’s a bit of variety in catching fish but it pretty much just comes down to hitting the A button at certain intervals.
At town you can navigate menus to sell your fish, buy and install new equipment on your boat, take on quests, and meet the locals. You’ll also need to repair your ship if you ran into rocks or were attacked by a sea monster. Taking on too much damage triggers a game over, but even just a small bump into an obstacle can cause individual parts of your inventory to become useless until you repair them. Sometimes this will cause you to lose a fish or even knock out your fishing rod or engine. I found the damage system far too sensitive, making some of the later areas a huge pain to navigate through. I found myself fighting with the camera more than the Cthulhu-esque monsters later in the game.
The mood of the game is consistently well done throughout, featuring a bunch of weirdos in distress on a small set of islands. The main drive is a fetch quest taking you to the four corners of the map to collect trinkets, with each area upping the challenge and throwing in some minor gameplay twists. I was never blown away by the new areas though, while there may be supernatural fish in the sea the environments themselves were rather normal. And tying into my previous complaint, the later areas mostly just got busier, forcing you to go very slowly so as to not get damaged or take relatively long routes to not get attacked.
There’s also a day/night system that vibes with the game’s themes but feels underused in the end. If you stay out at night you’ll see strange mirages and sometimes get attacked, discouraging you from fishing and traveling after dark. Other than a few fish that are only available at night, I feel like a major part of the game is completely optional. Dredge basically has a sanity meter like Eternal Darkness!
Cleaning up, Dredge hits a nice length at 10 hours, so I didn’t have time to get burned out, but any longer and I may have bailed. The gameplay loop is fun, but it doesn’t vary much throughout the game. Later in the game your inventory will fill up very quickly from large fish, requiring you to return to towns more often, shortening the overall loop. The quest management system is solid though and allows you to pick up where you left off quickly. And finally, the damage system is sensitive but the boat controls very well for being, well, a boat.
Check out at least the first hour of Dredge if you’re into fishing, Lovecraftian horror, or the new Widow’s Bay television show. I think the game is a success and I’m looking forward to Black Salt Games’ next release.
