The ocean is a common setting for a lot of cosmic and Eldritch horror. Lovecraft himself set many of his stories in fishing villages or on boats or ships. There's no shortage of video games that feature Lovecraftian fishing villages, from Bloodborne to The Sinking City, but I'm not aware of too many video games that focus on the fishermen who go out into those Eldritch oceans to catch the abominable fish. Well, now we have such a game in Dredge!
Dredge was on my radar since its release. It was one of those games that I put on my wishlist, but often skipped over it. Eventually, it went on sale on the PSN, and I had some extra gift card balance in my account, so I finally snatched it up and played it on-and-off for a few weeks. Unfortunately, my experience with the game was less-than-ideal, but that was entirely my fault, and talk about why later in this review.
Survival horror on the open ocean
Much to my surprise, Dredge is not really overtly horrific, except for like one (or maybe 2) area(s) of the map, and also the final cutscene. Despite the Eldritch inspirations, Dredge can be a surprisingly chill and relaxing game for the vast majority of its play time. How dangerous or scary the game will be will largely depend on how you choose to play the game (and how closely you adhere to the main quest). If you're constantly going out at night into the middle of the ocean, far away from the safety of a harbor, and actively fishing with dangerous threats nearby, then yeah, it might get a little challenging and maybe even creepy. But if you play it safe whenever you can, navigating paths that keep you within a short sprint from a harbor, and frequently resting to restore your sanity, then the game is pretty easy.
Though, under normal circumstances, the game will occasionally force you to have to go out at night to catch nocturnal fish. But even then, careful planning can still allow the player to avoid most of the more dangerous hazards. The day-night cycle goes very fast, but the clock only runs when the boat is moving or the player is fishing. So you can sit and idle for as long as you wish in order to check your map or your quest log and plan out the day's activities. Safe harbors are usually placed within a day's journey from each other, so again, careful planning and deliberate play can be very effective at mitigating risk.
Light is necessary to avoid hazards, but can also attract other panic-inducing dangers.
Surprisingly, there are no survival elements. Heck, there's not even any crafting! You just invest research tokens into new equipment, and collect various materials to upgrade your boat, and then just buy the upgrades and equipment with the cash earned from selling fish. You don't have to buy provisions or cook the fish you catch in order to fill a hunger bar. There really isn't a sleep or stamina meter either. Nor do you have to buy things like fuel for your boat or batteries to keep the lights running. The only things for you to manage are inventory space on your boat and a simple sanity meter (which effectively operates as a proxy for a sleep meter). I'm personally torn on whether including a hunger meter would have hurt or improved the game.
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