DREDGE: The calm before the Storm

DREDGE is a very particular single-player adventure that balances fishing mechanics with horror elements inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. After crashing with your ship into the port of Greater Marrow, you meet the local mayor and are granted a new boat, which you need to repay by working as a fisherman.

Fishing is actually a really simple task that involves completing a short mini-game and usually takes just a couple of seconds. Your inventory is limited though, so you must be good at Tetris to carefully store each fish you’ve caught while also deciding which piece of equipment to bring with you, such as lights, engine, traps and extra rods.

There are 128 types of fish to catch, including sharks, crabs and strange aberrations that you can only discover at certain conditions. Once you are free of your debt with the mayor, you will meet new interesting characters and receive a new mysterious quest that requires to explore the entire archipelago and its five different biomes.

The story is clearly not the main point, but it’s motivating enough to keep you interested in the lore and events that take place in the world of DREDGE.

Catch fishes if you can

The game also includes a clever time management system. Time only advances when you move or complete any task (such as fishing). The reason why organizing your activities throughout the day can be very important is because you will be constantly in danger when the night comes.

Panic will rise, you will start to see things that don’t exist and hear sounds that are not from this world. If your panic is really high, you will be exposed to bizarre sea creatures that will chase and damage your boat until it sinks.

To lower your panic level, you can sleep at any port but, due to the long distance of each island, you will often sail through the night with no place where to rest.

If you think the game can be easy by simply avoiding fishing during the night, you should know that some quests will also require you to retrieve a specific item or catch a special fish that appear only at night time.

Visually the game looks rather simple, with a sort of painted effect that makes it very relaxing to play. The atmosphere suddenly changes at night, when you can see red eyes watching you through the darkness and hear spooky noises from the distance.

The game atmosphere is obviously inspired by Lovecraft works, particularly the creatures and the recurrent whispers that affect your mind and your panic level. The PC version of the game runs flawlessly with no issues and can be even supported by low-specs hardware since it’s not really demanding.

DREDGE is not suited for Livestreams

DREDGE can be a very particular game to stream. While it certainly has moments of fear and terror that will keep your audience on the hook, there are also many moments of simply relaxing in the middle of the sea, doing nothing else but fishing.

There is a risk your viewers will get bored if you don’t keep them engaged during those moments. This is why I can’t entirely recommend it as a game to play on livestream, unless you are really good at entertaining your community during your routine activities.

Unfortunately, there isn’t any replayability either. Once you have completed the main quest and catched all the fishes, there is no reason to play the game again.

marcoleo

I’m a passionate guy who loves videogames, movies, anime and comics. I like to talk about videogames and share my opinion with the world.