Captured on Nintendo Switch (Connected)
New Zealand indie studio Black Salt’s Dredge appeared in a very mysterious trailer in 2022. All we saw was a small boat chugging through scorching seas, terrified of the looming Lovecraftian sky and giant tentacle monsters. A later trailer showed a fisherman catching bigger and bigger fish, selling them for increasing sums and upgrading his boat as he went. These ideas together encapsulate Dredge: a fish-selling update loop in an eerie setting of horror and mystery. It’s the latest to wash up on the shores of iconic indie publisher Team17, but is it just a tragic shipwreck or is it some kind of cool mutant merman?
We’re happy to report that it’s very much the latter. While the middle loop isn’t the most original, the setting of cosmic fear, ferocious monsters, and terrifying sinking depths make all the difference. The story begins with a fisherman tripping over jagged rocks. Although they are at the foot of a lighthouse, the rocks seem to appear out of nowhere. The mayor of the nearby town lends the fisherman a boat and shows him around the local fish market and shipyard. And here you take the helm. Controlling your little boat with the tank controls on the left joystick, you search for bubble spots on the surface of the water. A brief moment of action sub-minigame catching fish, then you can return to the pier to sell your loot to the tiddlers. Upgrading the shipyard allows for new rods to catch more varied fish from farther away, and overall it’s a joyous time under the salty sun on the ocean wave. Until the night.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Offline)
Sunset comes suddenly and the night lasts from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., and that’s when things are very different. As exhaustion sets in, a frantic eyeball appears at the top of the screen, representing his growing panic. Meanwhile, supernatural dangers begin to arrive more aggressively. The urge to run for shore is powerful and the rushing race is exhilarating as you push your boat forward wishing it would go faster as the moon rises and darkness gathers.
This is where Dredge’s strongest card is played: there are species of fish that must be caught and that only come out at night. Horrifying as the dark skies and seas are, you must venture during this time. So ship upgrades are all about having an extra notch of toughness against collisions or attacks, not just having enough space for a fun octopus. The story relentlessly pushes you out of your comfort zone, between treacherous cliffs or floating vulnerable over dark, sickeningly deep waters.
The story does just enough to keep you on the journey: hints of a mysterious ritual, sunken relics with otherworldly auras, a shadowy figure whose obsession with them is unexplained…it’s dark and scary stuff, and all that on top of the fact that sea creatures are all weird when you think about it. But as surely as history and the night are full of horror, the morning glow always comes, with the joy of catching more exotic fish with your slippery, spacious trawler as the sometimes relaxing or triumphant orchestral score echoes over the murmuring foam and the crashing waves. . At times, it conjured up vague memories of Wind Waker, intersecting with the sleazy, goofy characters and location of something like last year’s Strange Horticulture.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Offline)
Compared to the terror-fueled gameplay, there’s a bit of a barrier to getting into the game. Tough challenges are thrown at you from the start, and it wasn’t clear to us if we should focus on improving of our profession, which required a fairly arduous round trip between fishing trips and the recovery of materials, or on the progression of the story. , which was quite opaque and blocked by a difficulty spike. More than once we knew what we had to do, but we had no idea as to do it. A more generous helping hand from an NPC dropping hints wouldn’t have gone wrong.
Ultimately, there’s a sense of tension in what Dredge is asking you to do. On the one hand, a mysterious story unfolds, on the other hand, side quests, then on yet another hand, the central catch-fish-better-boat loop. This tension is sometimes motivating but sometimes frustrating, as the different moving parts of the game seem to have their own distinct agendas rather than tying and reinforcing each other. For at least a few hours, it alternately felt like a story added to a number-based action RPG mechanic, or the RPG mechanic added to the story. However, once things fell into place, he really clickedand we gladly let ourselves be carried away by the strong currents of mystery and exploration.
conclusion
With its encyclopedia of over 125 fish, Dredge’s bounty is limitless like the sea, its Action RPG upgrade constraint loop running just as deep. That being said, you get what you put in, for the first few hours anyway. Once you hit the sweet spot of an upgraded ship, manageable difficulty, and a fully-fledged story, it’s magic. The excellent presentation of a spooky ocean really hits home. The need to push the limits of safety to reach your next take leads to jittery moments, while the rain and eerie crackling sound design barely helps you relax. Interspersed with confidence-building sunshine angling and the fun of fitting oddly shaped creatures into your cramped inventory, there’s just enough encouragement to keep enjoying the horrors. A wonderful debut effort from Black Salt, Dredge is absolutely the kind of game that you get on the coat instead of throwing it in the water.