Dredge \ Xbox Series X Gameplay
0On Xbox Series X, Dredge offers smooth 4K visuals and optimized performance, immersing players in its eerie, foggy world. The gameplay loop of fishing, upgrading, exploring, and surviving the night’s terrors creates a unique blend of relaxing and tense moments. The game features a rich narrative, side quests, and a variety of fish and curios to discover, making it a standout indie title for fans of atmospheric horror and fishing adventures.
Dredge is a 2023 fishing horror role-playing
adventure game developed by Black Salt Games and published by Team17. The game follows a fisherman who encounters increasingly Lovecraftian creatures as he ventures out further into an open world archipelago. It was released on March 30, 2023, for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S, and has officially released for Android, iOS, iPadOS, and macOS in February 2025.
Gameplay
Dredge sees the player control a small motorised fishing boat. The game takes place on a day–night cycle, where specific actions the player takes, such as sailing or fishing, push the clock forward. The player can look for fish to catch or underwater items to salvage at certain spots, where they play a short minigame to bring their catch on board. If the player stays out into the night, a panic meter starts to rise, with higher levels leading to hallucinations that change reality around the boat, creating hazards that may damage the player's vessel. However, some fish only become available during the night hours, forcing the player to stay out during these times. The waters around the archipelago also contain sea monsters which can attack the player.
After docking at the main settlement or with a traveling merchant, players can sell their catch and buy new equipment for their boat such as brighter lights, faster engines, or equipment that expands the types of fish that can be caught. The boat has a limited amount of space on board, and the player has to choose which gear to fit inside along with space for their catch. Players can upgrade their boat to improve its capacity and resilience to damage. At other docks around the archipelago, the player can also accept side quests, completing tasks for people to earn rewards, as well as stop and rest which decreases panic and quickly advances time for the player.
Plot
A Fisherman sails to the coastal town of Greater Marrow, situated in a distant archipelago, to take up a job offer to be the town's local angler. While the job starts normal enough, the Fisherman soon begins to notice strange phenomena, especially at night, when he encounters strange mist, rocks that suddenly appear out of nowhere, ghost ships, hostile wildlife, sea monsters, and the feeling of being watched. In addition, as he sails around the archipelago, he begins to find messages in bottles, which are diary entries written by a newlywed wife known only as J.J. as she recounts how she first arrived in the archipelago with her husband, whom she witnessed dredging up a mysterious casket from the sea floor, which he subsequently opened and released a supernatural fog that plagues the archipelago to this day. A gargantuan sea monster called the Leviathan then awoke and destroyed their boat, killing J.J. and stranding the husband and the old mayor on a small island. In fact, the Fisherman finds himself stalked by the Leviathan itself, which is apparently the archipelago's guardian and is set on preventing the Fisherman from leaving the area.
The Fisherman meets the Collector, a man living alone in an island mansion. The Collector tasks the Fisherman with exploring the other archipelago islands and the ancient ruins they hide to recover several relics. The Collector uses the Book of the Deep to grant the Fisherman supernatural powers. Once the Fisherman collects the relics, he can either hand them over to the Collector or withhold them.
If the Fisherman hands over the relics, the Collector reveals that he is J.J.'s husband, who recovered the Book of the Deep from the casket and discovered a ritual that could resurrect J.J. He had the Fisherman gather the relics, all personal items of J.J.'s, because they are required for the ritual. The Fisherman takes the Collector to the part of the ocean where J.J. had drowned and performs the ritual by throwing the collected relics overboard. The ritual successfully resurrects J.J. but also awakens a massive Cthulhu-like eldritch beast, destroying Greater Marrow and presumably the rest of the world.