Steam Deck Verified!Welcome to my review of the latest game from publisher Team17 (Worms, Before We Leave). DREDGE is developed by Black Salt Games who are a small indie studio from New Zealand. This is their debut game and wow, what an entry into the world of video games they’ve brought us.
DREDGE is out now on PC via Steam and GOG, Xbox One and Series X|S, PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch.
There’s Something Sinister in DREDGE
Continue reading to find out why I enjoyed DREDGE so much.
You can also check out our previous reviews when you’ve read this one.
The Game
The game starts with a cut scene of a fishing trawler which results in it becoming an absolute wreck. Someone from a nearby town saves the sailor aboard the trawler and we are then taken into the gameplay.
So, straight off the bat… Well, dock, the below image is one of the first things you see when the actual gameplay starts. As you can tell it’s an absolutely beautiful sunrise as a new day dawns over the town of Greater Marrow. Greater Marrow is the starting town in the game with many more areas to explore and find new items and progress further in the story.
The main thing you will be doing in this game is, of course, fishing. It’s actually quite fun to do even though it’s fairly easy. Basically, you have to press a button on cue to reel the fish in faster. You’ll also be able to dredge a bit further into the game which will allow you to pull resources out of the water such as wood and cloth. These items will allow you to upgrade your trawler with more room, better engines, and more. Dredging changes it up a bit as instead of pressing a button to hit inside of a coloured box, you have to move your icon to avoid hitting black spots on the wheel.
That’s not all… There’s also a chance to catch a trophy fish which is worth more money when you sell it at a dock to a fishmonger. Oh yeah, you sell fish to the fishmonger to help pay for things such as the aforementioned upgrades for your boat.
When you return to a dock you also have a chance to be tasked with some “pursuits”. Pursuits are essentially our side quests in DREDGE. Keep an eye out for them as you will be able to earn extras for your trawler as well as the ability to upgrade certain parts of your trawler.
There’s more to the game than fishing during the daytime. When night falls and the thick fog rolls in, you’ll have to switch on your lights and try to stay near the lights on buoys. Why? Because the light during nighttime helps your fisherman keep his sanity, when the fisherman starts to go a bit more insane you start to see stuff… my lips are sealed on that one though.
As it says at the top, this game is verified on the Steam Deck. You can watch a video below that I recorded whilst playing on the Steam Deck recently. This video doesn’t do the graphics of the game true justice, however, it does show how fun it is.
All in all, DREDGE is a fantastic game that has some hidden and sinister secrets. But naturally, I won’t say anything more about that as I don’t like to spoil stuff for people.
Look & Sound
As I’ve already mentioned, the graphics are truly astounding. Considering it’s going for such a basic look with its polygonal models, it looks incredible. It even runs really well on PC and Steam Deck. The Steam Deck can easily play the game at 60fps with a TDP setting of 7 watts.
I can also run the game with ease at 4K on my RTX 3070.
The sound in DREDGE is beautiful from the simple sound effects to the more complex sounds. The music in the game also matches this level of beauty. All of it is a pure pleasure to your ears. You’d be a fool not to play this game with headphones or a headset on.
Length & Replayability
DREDGE will take anything up to 30 hours for completionists. A single playthrough will last around 18 hours.
The game also has 40 achievements for you to unlock if that’s your jam.
Conclusions
DREDGE is a fantastic game and I highly recommend you play it. Not only is it quite chilled out it also has a very sinister secret about it which I have not mentioned on purpose.
I score DREDGE a very well-deserved 10/10. What a good catch. Finally, before I leave the dock, you can also check out the official site for the game.
A code was kindly provided for us to review this.
