Dredge hooked me with its uncanny blend of fishing and eldritch horror

polygon.com:

The sky adopts an orangish hue as the world’s favorite fire giant awakens from its slumber, arcing towards the heavens until it looms over you, large and lustrous. A brisk breeze carries the refreshing waft of sea air directly toward and through your nostrils, as the wind ruffles your hair and the cold clings to your cheeks. On every side, the waves shimmer, textured by silvery tides of salt and foam.

With the above description in mind, it’s no wonder that people often associate fishing with peace and quiet — which is precisely why fishing towns are, somewhat ironically, a perfect locus for eldritch horror.

Dredge is described to me by three of the four team members from Black Salt Games as a “Lovecraftian fishing RPG,” which is a concept that, when you stop to think about it, feels like it should have been done by now. Much of Lovecraft’s work is concerned with the abyssal depths of the ocean, as opposed to the endless expanses of the universe that are more often considered by modern science fiction authors — one of his most famous stories, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, is a testament to this.

While there have been games like Call of Cthulhu and The Sinking City — hell, even Bloodborne’sThe Old HuntersDLC incorporates a location called the Fishing Hamlet — Dredge is different. It specifically opts to acknowledge Lovecraftian tropes and ideas, but implements them in its own unique way. Of the dozen or so games I saw at Gamescom 2022, this was by far my favorite.

Dredge begins as you, a lone fisherman lost at sea, stumble across a small maritime village. You’re greeted by the local mayor and the pair of you strike a deal: You are allowed to stay here on the condition that you provide for the town, and you can take out a