Dredge & The Pale Reach

Lovecraftian Horror with a Capital Sea. 

If you’ve caught a glimpse at Dredge this past year, you’ve likely seen it to be largely around commanding a boat as you head out into outstretched waters in hopes of a big haul. And while Dredge is very much that at its core, as you also look to upgrade your boat to take on those daily chores, it’s also an experience that becomes almost supernatural once the sun goes down, coloring its horror elements in Lovecraftian fashion, complete with an unsettling mystery that lurks deep below the blue.  

In the game’s first few minutes, you are rescued from an apparent shipwreck and then tended to by the village of Great Marrow and given a boat to continue your duties as their local fisherman. What happened to the previous one? Well, he apparently wasn’t that good at his job and simply vanished. This new boat may lack the upgrades to fully tend to your role, but that will certainly change as you have a shipyard to apply those upgrades and a wealth of opportunities to track down the materials needed to get you pulling enough of a haul to put enough coin in your pocket. 

However, Dredge may begin its tale instructing you to simply head to splashing points of water to retrieve a day’s worth of fish, but it is once the sun goes down that truly can make this experience a thing of terror. While it rarely dives fully into those elements, it certainly does enough to make you want to return home before the unsettling fog surrounds your vessel, creating physical hallucinations of rocks forming around your ship, the beady eyes of what may lurk around you, and more as you rely on light to keep those threats at bay, even if that sometimes isn’t enough. 

Dredge also allows you to tailor that experience to your own needs as you can activate a passive mode that removes the spooky elements and allows you to simply take in the story, its characters, and the tasks set before you. However, this does remove a large component of the game in regards to its atmosphere, and while the ability to prevent your ship from being a target, I feel it removes a key part of what makes this game so special. It would be like removing the zombies from Resident Evil. Sure, it would allow you to navigate the Spencer Estate more freely, but you really do lose something in the process. 

What allows Dredge to be something worth experiencing is how it navigates its gameplay loop. Nearly everything the game asks of you comes down to fishing, but as you equip different rods, you’ll catch a different prize. Each type of rod works for a different type of fish. From shallow to oceanic to mangrove and abyssal, this variety of rods will factor in at different points as you’ll be requested to find specific fish that live at different depths. This also factors into your spoils as you harvest wood and metal to upgrade your boat, increasing your carry space, your navigational lights, as well as the integrity of your hull. 

Catching your haul always comes down to some sort of mini-game. From timing the button just right or navigating a spinning gear, these little moments never last long and rarely are difficult. Where the challenge truly lies is in targeting yellow marks that will result in your catch being worth a lot more. However, not all of your catches are what you’ll expect as mutated aberrations can be discovered as well, with the local fishmonger being rather taken in by them. You’ll find these occasionally, and their artwork is just as gruesome as you’d expect. 

While the start of your journey takes place in Great Marrow, the bulk of the story will take you to the vast corners of its open water. This adventure to explore is set upon you by a mysterious man on a nearby island, one who requests you to track down a series of relics. And as you do this, each return of a relic will have him cast a spell on you from a crimson book with silver ribbons. These spells act as perks such as the ability to boost your speed or teleport back to the waters around his home. Do these gifts come with a price? Well, that is for you to discover. 

Each of these relics are found on the separate corners of the map, each found as you tend to the situation surrounding each location. From helping a researcher with her data to providing chum for traps to tend to some dangerous monsters nearby, these tasks revolve around tracking down key fish to progress the story. While the gameplay systems remain the same, how you proceed to do the tasks is where they vary enough to be these enjoyable little experiences, complete with their own task and narrative. This involves needing to see what the night can bring for its own share of fish as many species are not available to catch during the day. 

While you’ll find side quests throughout this open world, they tend to be more in the way of fetch quests, such as finding a belt buckle of a man’s long-lost son, rescuing a stranded man on one of the game’s many islands, to a photographer missing their equipment. However, with that last one, you do get a camera that you can use to your heart’s content. These little stories usually have you delivering them or a parcel to a Little Marrow and Great Marrow, two of the game’s most used locations. 

While these experiences are easily found, Dredge rewards you for exploring off the beaten path as its open world has more than enough mysteries to be found, especially as you can unlock the game’s “good” ending, even if it may not exactly satisfy you in the way you’d expect. Still, from a series of hooded figures to those who worship a twisted prophecy, there are these little moments out there in the blue that really give you a lot to look out for. 

Now, despite all that story and the discoveries you can make, Dredge still offers you the ability to simply take in your daily chores of fishing and upgrading your boat with next to no penalty for ignoring the plot around you. You can lose hours just sailing around, collecting fish, tending to the visible spots of your needed resources to laying down a series of crab pots, and checking your haul each day. You can outfit your vessel with a net that will remain with you as you sail, collecting its own share of fish, and keeping your cargo hold free for other things. You’ll also receive a series of books that will grant you a variety of perks and these, once activated, are consumed by simply sailing. While Dredge does have a layer of Lovecraftian horror about it, it can nonetheless be a very chill experience, should you let it. 

Dredge hides more in the deep than just what you can fish out of the water. From incredible artwork within its bestiary to numerous secrets that fill its map, many of which I am still unraveling, there is a lot to take in here should you invest the time. Dredge’s main story is not long at around 5-8 hours depending on how high up the upgrade system you go, but those who take the time to discover what is here can certainly find good value in what the game offers. With gorgeous visuals that match both the beauty and horror that can await you, Dredge is one adventure that is worth discovering, taking in its mystery, and always on the hunt for that one big catch, as long as you tend to it before it gets dark. 

Ice to Sea you.

After finally checking out Dredge’s main campaign, I also had the chance to check out The Pale Reach, which is the first paid DLC expansion for the game. Priced very cheaply at around $ 5.99 USD, The Pale Reach invites you to explore a frozen new location found at the south of the main map. You can travel here at pretty much any time, making it a great place to explore at really any moment during the story. 

As you travel south, you’ll start to see a maze of ice take form in what is essentially a massive frozen fortress, hiding its own mystery away from the main story. You’ll learn about what has affected those you’ll find around you, as well as upgrading your boat to see the job done, allowing you to crush small ice rocks in your way. The overall expansion took me just shy of two hours as I would navigate its maze, interact with a few returning characters, as well as collect enough fish to feed a nearby threat, thus allowing me to explore freely around their territory without the fear of being attacked. 

I don’t feel that The Pale Reach really adds much to the core game apart from those new upgrades which really only serve you here. The story itself is fine but isn’t as mysterious as the game’s central narrative. Still, exploring a whole new area that is visually distinct from the main campaign did have its charm and for how cheap it is, I still do recommend it as part of the game’s overall package as it gave me more to do in a game that I already enjoyed. 

Developer - Black Salt Games. Publisher - Team17. Released - March 20th, 2023 / Pale Reach: November 16th, 2023. Available On - Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, PC. Rated - (E 10+) Animated Blood, Fantasy Violence, Mild Language, Use of Tobacco.
Platform Reviewed - PlayStation 5. Review Access - A review code for the game as well as its DLC was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.