Your boat’s stock is organised like Resident Evil’s inventory Tetris. There are less expected mechanics too, like selecting a book to read, which sets off a timer whenever you’re on the water, eventually offering you permanent stat buffs. Trade in enough fish to the local fishmonger, and you can use your payments to buy upgrades from the shipwright - extra outboard engines, stronger rods for larger species (there are 128 entries in the game’s catalog), crab pots to drop off and come back to later. If you’re looking for more upcoming indie gems on the briny horizon, check out our comprehensive list of the biggest indie games of 2023.The bones of Dredge are those of a gentle fishing sim - you pilot a pretty, almost cel-shaded boat around calm waters, playing an almost rhythm-action minigame to reel in catches, found in burbling schools around the initial island. Terrible knowledge awaits for any Lovecraftian protagonist, and by the end of Dredge, you might realize that the phrase “leave no stone unturned” was a cautionary tale rather than a suggestion.ĭredge is available now on Steam, PlayStation 4 and 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S. “Dredge,” then, is a fitting verb for a Lovecraftian, oceanic story.

You may even encounter cultists, performing rituals that feel like they’ve come from between the pages of H.P.

Similarly, Dredge is filled with horrors from the deep, and its locals are just as cagey about the source of these aberrations. Eventually, he discovers that the town has been in contact with the “Deep Ones,” a group of deep-sea humanoid creatures who have taken control over the town in its entirety. The town is unwelcoming, hostile, and defensive about the strange occurrences that the narrator notices. In this story, a young narrator visits an abandoned town, Innsmouth, during his journeys through New England.

What is dredge fishing