Booting up Dredge, everything seems just as it should. Granted, the protagonist has mysteriously crashed and been washed ashore, but otherwise things progress as you’d expect.
That is, until night comes around, which leads to Dredge being one of the most stunning experiences this year.
You never know what’s around the corner when sailing these seas. That feeling encapsulated my entire playthrough. It was difficult to discern what was anxiety and what was actually a threat.
For those who can buy a game simply off of a recommendation, this is a good stopping point. Black Salt Games has developed a beautiful and highly engaging experience that is best played completely blind.
I fully recommend the game. You should expect a six to eight hour experience, and even more for completionists.
For those who need some more critically balanced commentary, or have already played this title, let’s talk a little more. Dredge is very much akin to Animal Crossing, or at least what I love about that series: the menial collecting of bugs, fish, and furniture. Being a fishing game, there are over a hundred different species of fish to acquire. All have different geographical, time, and tool requirements in order to fulfill your journal.
This premise brought me to Dredge, but its night time mechanics kept me playing.
Dredge starts you with nothing except a loaner boat and some junk supplies. From here, the initiative must be taken to upgrade the ship and adventure forth. This journey starts as peaceful as you can get, but quickly spirals out of control. When nightfall strikes, Dredge goes from whimsical to utterly disturbing.
Your vision becomes severely limited and the player character begins to panic. As this panic escalates, the threats get worse and worse; this is communicated right away.
The enemy visual design is truly terrifying and shrouded in mystique. These enemies revel in the fear of the unknown and turn night time ventures into a completely different game.
Contrasting day and night allows the game to push and pull the player’s emotions. I wish I could go in depth on the enemy design here, but you truly have to experience it first hand.
Helping in this are the upgrades. Starting out, the ship is severely limited in how far out it can travel. The basic equipment makes any journey even outside of the starting zone incredibly risky. For this, I initially loved the upgrade system. Each upgrade acquired early on was a significant moment.
Unfortunately, the difficulty doesn’t last.
The main objective requires the player to travel across all major destinations on the world map. Initially this is fine, but there are few key design errors I see here.
Each individual area, of course, is going to have its own quest line before you’re allowed to finish the main task and leave. Thankfully, not all of these quests have fishing as the primary objective.
Of course, fishing motivates most of the game, but some objectives require you to locate certain items along shorelines or interact with the environment.
While technically non-linear, the game certainly recommends the best direction to travel and deviating from this may result in trouble. Regrettably, these journeys are only one-way.
One of the protagonist’s major abilities will allow them to teleport right back to the primary point of interest. All the planning involved in making the trip one way is rendered completely null when making the return.
This barely matters anyhow, as the upgrades quickly spiral out of control. By the end of the game, I was effectively able to outrun most enemies or had means of completely nullifying them. It’s not like I had any of the max upgrades either; there was drastic room for improvement.
It gets to the point where hitting a certain threshold of upgrades means peace of mind against certain entities.
Thankfully, the game never becomes mindless as there are still a few enemies that are unequivocally deadly.
When the ship takes damage, parts of the ship become unusable. If that part happens to a critical component, then you’re going to be in for some real trouble. This had plenty of knock on effects and made it so that enemies were always threatening in some aspect.
If you recall earlier, there was always a way to mitigate these situations.
Despite this, the atmosphere truly never let up. Despite my numerous upgrades, there were still moments that had me reeling in my seat.
The storyline is fantastic at keeping pace. As the game continues, it becomes more and more apparent what the game is attempting. Clearly inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, the game’s story takes a dark yet weird turn.
My only complaint with the story is that Dredge’s revelation is immediately followed up by the ending, but aren’t one in the same , and there’s no time to reflect before it’s over. For being a slow-paced game, I think this rushed ending botches the final experience.
For as critical as I am – pointing out flaws is important – it helps you decide if this game is really for you.
Dredge is never boring. I was always entertained by some aspect of the game. Where other games I put down after an hour, this title made me forget about my daily responsibilities. Few games do that for me today.
I still had plenty of content leftover when I finished my playthrough. There were more quests, missions, and lots of fish to find.
Dredge is a game that has you perfectly relaxed one moment and jolted with fear the next.
The game’s flaws don’t take away from its core principle: it’s a game about fishing. For those who yearn for fishing collectathon games like I do, you’re in for a real treat.
