DREDGE
Captain your fishing trawler to explore a collection of remote isles, and their surrounding depths, to see what lies below. Sell your catch to the locals and complete quests to learn more about each area’s troubled past. Outfit your boat with better equipment to trawl deep-sea trenches and navigate to far-off lands, but keep an eye on the time. You might not like what finds you in the dark…
Explore the Islands & Discover their Secrets
Starting from your new home in the remote archipelago, ‘The Marrows’, take to the water and scour the depths for curious collectables and over 125 deep sea denizens. Explore each area while completing quests and visiting neighbouring island regions – each with their own unique opportunities, inhabitants, and secrets.
Dredge the Depths
Someone wants you to dig up the past, but can you trust them and will it ever be enough?
Beware the Fog
Danger is everywhere, so watch for sharp rocks and shallow reefs, though the biggest threats of all lurk within the fog that cloaks the night-time seas…
Game Features:
- Unravel a Mystery: Captain your fishing trawler across a collection of remote islands, each with its own inhabitants to meet, wildlife to discover, and stories to unearth.
- Dredge the Depths: Scour the sea for hidden treasures and complete quests to gain access to strange new abilities
- Study Your Craft: Research special equipment and upgrade your boat’s capabilities to gain access to rare fish and valuable deep-sea curios.
- Fish to Survive: Sell your discoveries to the locals to learn more about each area, and upgrade your boat to reach even more secluded locations.
- Fight the Unfathomable: Strengthen your mind and use your abilities to survive trips out on the water after dark.
Steam User 528
30% Exploration
30% Fishing Mini-games
30% Inventory Management
10% Worrying about the Dark
If that sounds appealing, then I couldn't recommend this game more.
Steam User 200
At the time of this review, I am 7.7 hours into the game, and that means I am barely into the story and quest-lines.
I love the artwork.
I love the music and sound effects.
I love that I can play in short sessions and not feel like I won't remember where I was when I get back.
I love the slow burn, and build up of dread as the sun starts to go down, but I just have to try for one more fish or one more piece of scrap metal.
The economy is tight- but not unbalanced. If you are low on cash for upgrades or repairs you can go close to home to fish or throw out crab pots and make money at a decently fast pace.
I don't feel rushed into doing anything- the quests have no timers, I finish one whenever and the next one unlocks.
I can explore and get to know the map at my own pace.
End up smashing my boat to smithereens? The game lets me load up my last save or start over again- my choice.
You can turn off the scary stuff if you want to. I don't want to- the encounters add to the creepy Lovecraftian atmosphere. But if you don't like jump scares, or you have a younger child who wants to watch you play or wants to try it themselves- it's a nice option to be able to turn off the really freaky scary stuff.
The game has some good accessibility options, though the color palette the game uses *may* be an issue for people with certain forms of color-blindness.
The story and dialogue is all in text with no voice-overs, so it should be quite playable for Deaf and HoH gamers, though you will miss some subtle audio clues or prompts before monster attacks or wildlife encounters.
The story is delivered in small bits- no lengthy walls of text to deal with. It helps to click through every dialogue option, but they are all fairly short, easy to read and using language that doesn't require an advanced college degree.
The puzzles vary from easy to slightly challenging- trying to get things to fit neatly in your inventory or at shrines. But none have been brain-melters.
It runs really well on an older gaming laptop (with a discrete GPU), an older mid-range desktop, and a beefy newer desktop. I suspect it would run smoothly on a toaster, but I don't have one to test it on. As long as you have a dedicated discrete GPU, and you meet minimum specs (though I always recommend exceeding them, even just a little). No idea how it will run on a laptop with only a integrated chipset.
The only thing that bothers me is how quickly the day cycle runs- day to night a little too quickly. So you'll have to really think about how long fishing or dredging takes if you don't want the nighttime stress and madness to hit you. Remember to dock and sleep to stay sane.
Really enjoying the game, and I can and will whole-heartedly recommend it to anyone who wants a game that isn't high action, is a slow-burn kind of game, requires a little brain power, but isn't overly complex, and that has a really great immersive atmosphere that lets the dread settle in slowly and deeply.
(quick edit to fix some typos only- no changes to the text.)
I just finished The Pale Reach DLC, and reviewed it, if you care to read it:
(21 February, 2024)
Steam User 311
I can't help but feel a little betrayed by DREDGE. It promises a delicious and intriguing adventure, proves to you that it indeed can fulfill this promise - and then it just kinds of... trails off into mediocrity.
Okay, mediocrity is a bit of a strong word. The game still manages to be very engaging, and the way it channels the spirit of Lovecraft's... uh... craft - a nice surprise, considering how often "Lovecraftian" is just a shorthand for tentacled cosmic horrors. But that only strengthens the burning question I'm left with after beating it: what if?
Sunrise over Innsmouth the Marrows
See, DREDGE has a very strong start. Something's not right. You know something is going to happen. Fishing? Sure, let's fish, sell the fish, get better gear. Don't pay attention to the black ooze coming from the package you're asked to deliver. And make sure to come back before sundown.
Point is: the mood is there. On top of it, you're given a nice gameplay loop with an extensive upgrade tree. Oh yeah. This is going to be a great ride. Eventually, you begin the main quest in the earnest, and things really get moving.
A leak in the hull
But then you slowly start noticing the flaws. The pacing is not quite right, for example. When upgrading my boat, I often felt constrained in this... artificial way. Almost like I'm just supposed to do things in a specific way. This one's a bit hard to explain, and maybe it's a me problem; who knows.
Another artificial feeling comes when you realise how the game world is structured. It feels less like a living, breathing world, and more like, well, a set of video game levels. Everything is too deliberate; too functional. You might say that it's a good thing, keeps things lean. I say it's a tradeoff - one I personally didn't like too much.
Light up the night
And the final complaint is that once you begin the main quest, the dread just stops. Yes, there is the general feeling of 'what the hell am I even working towards' which keeps going until the very end, but that's about it. The areas start feeling sterile. The threats - all manageable with ease. Even the night stops being an issue after a while.
Also, the general design of the areas other than the central one is just... not very eldritch, if that makes any sense? There's nothing ominous about them. Yes, there are major, location-specific threats, but they're rather obvious and have some pretty fool-proof ways of neutralising. Maybe it's my fault for comparing this game in my mind to Sunless Sea (can you blame me?), where literally every place filled you with a dread of different flavour (even if the gameplay itself was nowhere near as fun as here).
Rise from the depths
Yeah, the game is fun, in spite of all these flaws. Fishing might be a collection of minigames, but they're varied and short. The inventory management is a pleasure throughout the entire game. And even though I said that the threats are all trivial to manage, it still remains a thrill to do so - mainly because your boat is very susceptible to damage, and every hit can ruin your haul.
And the main mystery, hoo boy. You're being fed pieces of the truth as you go, and let me tell you: I've seen a lot of mysteries. I hate the extent of my plot prediction abilities. And here? I managed to piece one thing together, but the final twist caught me off guard like a champ. And it's excellently foreshadowed.
Throw me back
I guess I just wanted... more. More mystery. More exploring. More upgrades. It's a great game, all things considered; and the combination of fishing and Lovecraft seems like such a natural concept. And yes, in spite of everything I wrote, I recommend this game wholeheartedly - even if, or perhaps especially if you're not very good with horror.
And for those who don't generally play indie titles - thanks for reading. DREDGE is a good game, but trust me, if you decide to, uh, dredge the depths of the Ocean of Steam, there are so many amazing experiences out there to find. For sure, play this one; just perhaps consider throwing your fishing line into the unknown sometime. You'll be very surprised by what you'll find.
Curator page
Steam User 411
It's definitely a good game, but it also has some major shortcomings that left me a little disappointed.
Let's start with the good stuff and work our way down.
The fishing minigames are phenomenal and the way that different fish have different shape as a component of inventory management makes for a truly exceptional mechanic.
The lore descriptions on the aberrant fish are absolutely top tier Lovecraft horror. Just so good! I can vividly imagine some of them, such as the defaced skate. Great stuff!
The graphics, music, and overall atmosphere are very solid as a package. Very clear art, sound, and style direction. Excellent work!
The story is pretty okay. If you spend any time at all talking to obviously important NPCs, you can probably predict the entire story before you're 1/4 of the way through it, just like I did. If you look at my achievements, you can see I have only the secret ending. This was not difficult to find and I went through the game entirely blind.
Let me give you a huge spoiler about literally every story in every game ever, especially indie titles:
If your main character starts the game with no memory and there are cryptic messages about someone going crazy/a disaster/the end of the world/some other catastrophe of mystery, then it's you. You're the bad guy. You caused it.
There is one NPC that handles all of your sales, upgrades, research, and resupply. They even sell the rare components for upgrades and her inventory refreshes. She also sells the unlockable "crafted" items and she's never very far away. This one-stop-shop makes every non-fishing mechanic feel cheap and simple. Why bother travelling anywhere when I can just farm crabs directly in front of the one NPC that can unlock everything.
The horror elements are actually kind of weak. The game breaks the "don't show the monster" rule very early, and consistently exposes you to the monsters directly. There were certainly some surprises in this part of the game, but nothing iconic or memorable (except for one event that happened to me only one time that I don't want to spoil). The worst part is that during the day, everything is fine, but during the night, the entire world becomes saturated with hazards, so you're constantly exposed to what should be a mostly imaginary threat. It shouldn't be so obvious.
Also, you're rarely required to go out at night, so you can totally ignore this part of the game most of the time. The game is at its best when you're trying to get home for the night, slowly navigating a treacherous waterway in the dark while being hounded by some imaginary threat. Sadly, this is extremely rare and is often overshadowed by silly monster antics and actual threats. If the map was better, this could have been a common occurrence, but this brings me to my final point.
The map is dull. It's extremely uniform and evenly distributed, the fishing locations are hyper-delineated, the islands are super close together, every island is marked and every island has a point of interest, so there are zero reasons to explore anywhere that you cannot directly see, and in that regard, you can see everywhere from anywhere unless there is something in the way.
I know the devs are planning a lot of updates that I will be eagerly watching, so here is my wishlist:
I wish there was a tackle box that could be used to attract different fish using different bait and lures instead of just "bait".
I wish there was a reason to go out on open water beyond trying to catch the last 4 fish I needed.
I wish the oceans had more than 2 types of weather (calm and bumpy). Cresting huge swells in the dark because a storm rolled in would be so cool.
I wish there were more secret locations.
I wish I could buy different ships with different hulls that were better at fishing different waterways, instead of weirdly upgrading one ship to go everywhere (for example, my ocean trawler should bottom out in a shallow swamp).
I wish there was a continuous reason to visit different towns (the treasure NPC is the perfect example. More of this please!)
I wish there was a late game money sink (I finished the game with ~50k saved up just by completing my pokedex).
I wish there was an animation for your boat sinking after taking damage, instead of an immediate and jarring respawn screen.
And more than anything, I really wish the islands were a lot further apart and you were forced to face your fears and sail the open seas in the dark. Take away 90% of the "spooky" things in the dark because they're far too common and are mostly a nuisance, and then scale the map to be 400% further between destinations.
Let me be clear, I loved the game. It was a great experience overall, but it did leave me longing for a lot more. The greatest strength of the game is the core fishing mechanic and the subtle horror of the mutated fish, and yet weirdly, that somehow takes a back seat to gimmicky threats in the dark and bizarre "boss" fish that I suppose are meant to scare you but mostly just act as a nuisance that prevent you from fishing.
Anyway, if you like fishing games and driving a cute little boat, play the game. It's a really good game. It deserves the rating that is has been given.
Steam User 155
A short adventure game full of mysteries. Immerse yourself in a fishing tale of exploration in which things are not what they seem. Explore the seas, dredge the depths, uncover your background and play Tetris with the monstrous catch of the day.
You play an amnesiac fisherman that sells whatever he is able to pull from the water for a living. Sometimes it’s useful parts that you can use to upgrade your boat. Sometimes it’s valuable relics that can be traded for cash. Sometimes it’s fragments of a terrible secret. Fish on and discover the truth.
The gameplay cycle is simple, easy and casual: traverse the seas and explore, fish for creatures and stuff, upgrade your fishing tools and boat, sell for a profit, and repeat. Interspersed come little missions that can be solved with a combination of the above: dredge the seas for trinkets and deliver them to someone. Upgrade to catch better things, more efficiently. Minigames for each activity keep things simple but engaging. Docks serve as saving points, and they are conveniently distributed around the map. You are never too far from any of them, so this game can be played in short bouts of a few minutes, if that is your wish. You cannot hop out of the boat, and your actions are permanently ocean-locked. Interactions with NPCs are also severely limited.
I have seen it compared to Sunless Sea, but this game is not as mythologically deep, and is much more approachable. While the former is terrifically specific—even to the point of information overload—Dredge is abstract and simple. This does not make either game any less poetic; they're each good in their own way. One with long novelesque winding prose, the other with short snippets of flavor text.
People call it Lovecraftian, but actual, direct relation is minimal. They refer to the tone and the setting of the story, rather than connections to the lore and work of H.P. A psychologically tormented protagonist in a small rural setting around the 1930’s, isolated from the rest of the world, where strange events start happening that seem to lead to a supernatural disaster, possibly involving undisclosed extraplanar entities. Such is the layout for every Lovecraft story, and also for this game. There's no blood and no gore and the few monsters you'll encounter are not really terrifying. We could classify the experience as a very mild psychological dread tale—a notch below actual horror.
The story is there, handed to you by means of messages and NPC dialogue, but you must piece it together yourself. In terms of lore, it gives you very little information and leaves the rest for you to imagine and complete the picture. Like Lovecraft himself, this is where both game and writer triumph. Unlike many other games lately, which force-feed you with mostly useless and abstruse lore, this game succeeds at being mysterious but also getting to the point quickly.
Mechanics-wise, the game has a clever way to highlight important concepts and ideas with colored text, but you must still pay attention. It is not, however, a hard game by any means, either cognitively or in terms of psychomotor abilities. No hand-holding, but very easy and logical puzzles. This is an extremely good point in an age of obscure puzzling, content bloat and game padding.
A big chunk of the gameplay experience seems to depend on luck—it's a fishing game, after all—and there's lots of species and varieties to collect. But still, it feels fair. I never sensed it forced me to waste my time. Even after setting up a voyage to deliberately fish a specific species, after a few minutes, usually less than five, I was able to catch it. Of course, you need to know what you're doing, but the game helps you a lot with that. The encyclopedia is very useful for this. Be sure to use your acquired skills constantly. They are real time-savers, and also help you get out of tight situations safely.
Physics are solid, and the controls do not feel floaty or unresponsive at all. I played with an XBox One wireless controller without issues. Movement while in spyglass mode, however, is terrible. It should have been adjusted for a finer control.
The graphics are weird at first, but you'll get used to them. Not ugly, by any means. Dredge captures correctly the sense of dread at night, of fear, and also the loneliness of the high seas. The water is beautifully rendered, and the sense of depth you get from the unfathomable ocean is fantastic. You can almost feel the cold of the sea breeze. The aberrant creatures are interesting and creative, and their otherworldly pictures perfectly convey their strangeness, complemented by delightful descriptions. Sounds are great and the ambience is excellent, but the music can get tiring, especially in its repetitiveness while resupplying at the Traveler's Pontoon.
Dredge has two possible endings, but if you play it right—especially the exploring part—you'll immediately detect the correct path. I found them a bit anticlimactic and simplistic—both of them. Perhaps a bit more production in the effects and music department could have done the trick. Still, it provides a closure even if poorly explained and quickly executed.
Despite the "mystery", objectives are clear, most of the time. The big red Xs on the map provide adequate guidance, and you can customize it with markers, too. For the rest of the riddles and puzzles, pay attention to the colored texts and you're good to go. It’s all very logical. Go in blind and avoid walkthroughs or guides. You can do this on your own.
It is a relatively short game that can be possibly finished in less than 8-10 hours. At a relaxed pace, I explored and admired everything, collecting all achievements in ~15 hours. The price seems fine for the experience. This is a game that respects your time, and that's commendable in an age of bloating and padding just for the sake of a hefty price tag.
Supernaturally recommended.
Steam User 133
Short review
Buy this game if:
✅ You're into fishing and naval-themed games, with a strong emphasis on Lovecraftian horror tropes;
✅ You like exploring open world games and farming (by fishing over 150 types of fishes);
✅ You enjoy spending your time exploring while upgrading your equipment and reading lore while doing sidequests;
Don't buy if:
❌ you don't like repetitiveness, as you'll navigate the whole map countless times;
❌ you were expecting fighting or fishing bizarre and/or challenging creatures;
Longer review
Even though steam's reviews for Dredge are extremely positive, please be aware before buying that:
1- It is indeed a nice looking game, but there's neither real horror nor implied horror mechanics. Do not buy the game if you were looking for thrilling moments or jumpscares.
2- All the upgradable equipment is made to make navigation and fishing much easier and faster, however I haven't personally seen anything original about it
3- Side characters aren't bad, but also aren't that compelling or engaging, even though there was lots of room to expand on their personal stories and struggles throughout the main story and some side quests
4- Why so many positive reviews then? Dredge is a nice indie, navigating and upgrading your boat and fishing tools feels rewarding, as each species has its own minigame that you'll need to overcome in order to be able to get your nets out and the fishes in, besides there aren't at the moment games such like these on Steam as Dredge is a nice mixture of navigation , open world and (simplified) commerce mechanics
Verdict: 7
Time required to finish the main game (without the DLC, which lasts 2 hours) : 9/10 hrs
Time required to complete it at 100% with the DLC: 20-22 hours (depending on luck)
Thanks for reading, leave a comment below if you have any questions or observations, feel free to follow my other reviews at:
Steam User 208
Inside you there are two fish games:
1. Funny sushi game (Dave the Diver)
2. Lovecraftian horror (Dredge)