Xbox Series X

DREDGE

Role-playing (RPG)SimulatorAdventureIndie

Time to beat: about 12 hours
Plays offline: Yes

Overview

Dredge is a 2023 video game developed by Black Salt Games and published by Team17 that combines genres of fishing, survival, and horror. It follows a fisherman who faces Lovecraftian creatures as he fishes and explores an open world consisting of five archipelagos. As the game progresses, the player can upgrade the character's fishing equipment and abilities. It follows a day, night cycle; the day is serene, while the night contains the game's horror elements, such as supernatural events and sea monsters.

Black Salt Games conceived Dredge as a top-down turn-based game; that notion was scrapped during the prototype phase. Not wanting Dredge to be a jump scare horror game, they worked to create a psychological thriller atmosphere. Four of the five archipelagos are based on geological formations. After development was completed, they approached various publishers before settling on Team17. Dredge was released for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on March 30, 2023, with versions for Android and iOS following on February 27, 2025. Two downloadable content packs (DLCs), The Pale Reach and The Iron Rig, were released in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

Critics positively received Dredge, praising its gameplay, presentation, and exploration, while some complained that the fishing portions are repetitive. The game's story, horror elements, thriller undertones, and art style were also commended. Its DLCs were well received by critics. It was deemed one of the top video games of 2023 by several news outlets and was nominated for numerous awards.