DREDGE Review (Xbox One) - XboxAddict.com

STAFF REVIEW of DREDGE (Xbox One)

Wednesday, April 12, 2023.
by Peggy Doyle

I’ve never played a game quite like DREDGE before. Developed by Black Salt Games and published by Team17, the first trailer caught my eye as a cute fishing game similar to the likes of Moonglow Bay (that I simply adored). As the trailer progressed though, it was clear that DREDGE was not a simple, cute and happy fishing game. There was something dark and sinister and I couldn’t wait to explore that.

In DREDGE, you play an unseen protagonist on a small fishing boat. You never leave that boat during the game. You wash up in the town of Greater Marrow one day and the mayor offers you repairs and a safe haven if you agree to do some fishing and provide some money to the town in return. Seems their previous angler has disappeared. It doesn’t take you long to realize something is ‘off’ about the town and the islands that surround it. After a few quick runs, you’re told that larger fish will net you more money, so you venture further away from the town in search of them. Time moves quickly in game, and night happens before you know it. When night falls, you hear sounds and you see eyes following you. Paranoia sets in, the anxiety feels real. Where did those rocks come from? They weren’t there in the daylight. Is that a boat in the distance? Is that MY boat in the distance? As it gets closer to the boat it morphs into a sea creature, a giant anglerfish, and your vessel is destroyed. From that moment on I was hooked, no pun intended. The day/night cycle is at the heart of DREDGE. During the day it’s mostly calm and zen-like but the night is entirely different story. Thus begins the cycle of DREDGE. Wake up, go fishing, come back and sell your fish. Repair or upgrade as needed. Sleep and repeat.

I knew I was in for something special the first time I reeled in a monstrosity of a fish. It was a flounder, but it was bubbled and deformed. They are the abhorrent forms of species in the game and part of the mystery to unravel and also some missions require catching them. Suddenly my calm fishing trip felt less calm, less safe. Something sinister was going on around these parts. They are randomly found in the fishing spots marked by rings on the water surface. You can also catch trophy species worth more than average, but these abhorrent creatures set me on a path I wasn’t expecting. When you are sailing around ‘something sinister’ may randomly slide into your cargo. This will infect any fish on board should you not rid yourself of the infected carcass immediately. It was clear to me that DREDGE was about to become an inescapable siren song of a game for me.

These, of course, are the basics, and as with any great indie game, there is a main story and multiple side quests. Talk to everyone, complete their tasks, and try to uncover the story. Some missions are fetching quests where you need to find and collect an item or a particular type of fish. Of course, some of them are only available at night when it’s the most dangerous to be out in the ocean. Thankfully, you can upgrade your hull and motors and can therefore move between sections faster instead of constantly being stuck in the middle of the ocean when the dangers of night falls. That was a large part of my game. Planning and making sure I hit docks on islands to have save point should the inevitable death happened. I lost count of how many times I hard to start days over at the beginning when I was in my beginner boat.

You pay off your debt rather quickly but will continue fishing to buy upgrades and expansions for your fishing boat. Using money from your catches and materials you dredge up, the upgrade trees for equipment will require a lot of time in game should you want to upgrade everything. You also need to dredge up random research materials to open some of these upgrades. You can also obtain research parts as rewards for completing quests for some people or you may find them in random buildings you come across, so be sure to search everything. Mini games are required to haul in your catches. They aren’t difficult and take on a variety of forms, so I found they didn’t become too boring. If you struggle with them or need some assistance, you can toggle on an assist mode that means you won’t fail the mini games, even if sometimes they may take a bit longer to reel in your catch.

The inventory system took me some time to get used to. Everything you catch or dredge takes up a certain number of squares in your ship’s cargo hold. It’s akin to a game of TETRIS where you want to maximize what you can carry for maximum profit. Annoying in some ways, but satisfying when you get that perfect cargo placement and all blocks are filled. Your upgrades will ultimately increase the size of your hull and give you more slots for larger and more powerful motors, more fishing equipment and brighter lights that are all important for your safety and sanity in the game. You can also upgrade to get equipment that covers multiple biomes allowing you to carry more variety of useful gear in less space. You’ll be able to carry multi-biome use rods, reels, traps and trawling nets, leaving more room for trinkets, fish and resources in cargo. As you move around the islands you will find merchants and trades people who can help you sell fish and trinkets, or make repairs, or maybe even sell you explosives. This means you can avoid returning to the starting point of Greater Marrow as frequently. This is beneficial since it can take a full day in game to get between islands at times.

There is plenty of narrative to explore in DREDGE as well, even if it all starts off in a typical video game fashion where your character doesn’t remember his past and that situation gets taken advantage of by people around him. Your meetings with random strangers on islands, and creepy lighthouse keepers, all fill in small parts of the bigger mystery. I can’t really dive into the story too much without giving spoilers, but your main quest involves meeting a mysterious collector who asks you to find five items scattered around the world. In order to get these, you will have to do other missions as well. In the end, what you choose to do will change your story. The additional storylines throughout the larger tale are compelling and often heartbreaking. There are two endings in DREDGE. One is the most linear and the easiest, while the other you can get if you’ve talked to all the right people during the game. Which of them you consider to be the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ ending really depends on your personal feelings about the situation. Since there is a save point just before the final encounter, and it doesn’t save while in the final section, it is possible to get both endings relatively quickly if you’ve checked all the requirements off.

DREDGE will take you a long time to complete if you want to get all the achievements though, as you must catch every fish in the game, upgrade all gear, etc. The progression and upgrading takes a significant amount of time.

As with most games, as you progress, you (your boat) become stronger and harder to scare. Your boat is able to take on more damage and you don’t die as quickly. This takes away some of the creepiness and anxiety behind the game, but it never entirely disappears. Even near the end of the game I had moments where I was hesitant to go to a new area for the uncertainty of what might be there lingered in my mind. Each new location discovered provides clues to the story, new people to meet and puzzles to solve. Areas later in the game have puzzles that require logic and good timing, because there are also dangers stalking you as well. Each corner of the map brings something new and scary. Large underwater leviathans, mindflaying creatures, even some wild volcanic giant fish. It’s all there and the people in each section are need help with them. The haunting faces of people needing help and the slight relief they experienced when I am able to solve their problems helped maintain my focus and hope though moments of darkness in DREDGE. I completed my primary playthrough at around 15 hours. I will be going back in to play some more soon.

There is no voice acting, and other than an initial grunt when you ‘speak’ to a character, there is no spoken dialogue. The music does an excellent job of conveying mood throughout the entire game though. The animation feels like it’s a painting, and an older style that was so familiar but I can’t quite place. Between the animation and the sounds, you get a great feeling from the storms rolling in and waterspouts going by you, the lightning, and the mysteries lurking under the surface. DREDGE ultimately brings it all together in a beautiful and haunting world.

With impeccable Lovecraftian vibes and a sinister story underlying the simple fishing game I thought it was, DREDGE was a masterclass on worldbuilding, suspense and fear - without gore and violence. DREDGE never really strays from what makes it great. It’s a tight indie title that knows what it is and executes it to perfection. I’ve never played anything like it before and I am beyond thankful that I was able to review this gem. DREDGE It’s definitely one of the best games I’ve played this year, maybe even the best. I’d even hazard to say it’s quite the catch.

**DREDGE was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**

Overall: 9.0 / 10
Gameplay: 9.0 / 10
Visuals: 9.5 / 10
Sound: 8.5 / 10

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STAFF REVIEW of DREDGE (Xbox One)

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