In Dredge, some things are inevitable: the damage you will incur when attempting to park your boat after a long day on the ocean, or the inability to tessellate perfectly in your inventory all the fish you catch. Oh and the nightly fog. The fog never fails.
Was it the fog that led you to dash your boat on the rocks at Greater Marrow? It certainly seems that way when your character in this fishing-simulator and survival-horror hybrid awakes damp and salt-encrusted on the town jetty. The mayor very kindly finds you a new boat before less kindly sending you off to fish your way out of his debt. He offers just one piece of advice: get back before sundown, when the fog starts to roll in, or you’ll end up like the town’s former fisherman who . . . well, let’s just say the locals seem reluctant to talk about his demise.
Trawling the oceans proves surprisingly straightforward. By completing mini-games you gradually pull things up from the deep: time your button-presses correctly and the process will speed up; mistime one and you’ll have to start again. It’s quietly satisfying, without attempting to mimic the actual motions of fishing. Different fish require different rods, form different shapes in your inventory and sell better in some places than others. Upgrading your vessel and equipment requires money and bits of wood and string that you’ll find floating conveniently on the surface, but will help you see further, glide faster and work more efficiently.
But there’s still that pesky fog to contend with. A dockworker tells you what he overheard in a tavern many years ago: a fisherman found a sealed casket on the seafloor, and no sooner had he plundered it than the fog rolled in. The contents and the crew who laid eyes on them disappeared without a trace, but the fog remained.
Linger too long over that distant patch of grouper and you’ll soon find the sun setting and your boat enveloped in the gloom. Visibility drops, panic sets in and monsters come out. Also, colliding with things — rocks, wrecks, hulking Cthulhus — will slowly damage your boat until your career comes to a watery end. Things quickly turn from fishing simulator to Lovecraftian horror when your outboard is irreparably damaged.
In search of a solution (or just more people to sell salmon to), you’ll uncover more than you bargained for as you explore the map’s charmingly rendered archipelagos. Unlike its name, Dredge is beautiful: in its aesthetic, which makes it a joy just to head out on the waves every morning; in its affecting (if slightly undersold) story; even in its interface. Managing your inventory and upgrades is a delightfully intuitive experience, and the game is full of tiny design decisions that show off its attention to detail. The clock, for example, only moves when you travel or fish, so time literally stands still out on the waves and you can enjoy your surroundings without fear of getting caught out by the darkness.
It’s a fairly short game — I finished it in around 10 hours — but also only a £20 one, and sharper for not letting its largely fetch-based quests turn into a grind. Dredge is easy to dip into over a weekend.
★★★★☆
Available from March 30 on PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X|S and Nintendo Switch
