Best Setting 2023: Dredge
Black Salt's fishing adventure gets our Best Setting award this year—a sign that there's surprising depth to be found here. For more awards, head to our Game of the Year 2023 page.
Mollie Taylor, Features Producer: Dredge has the most immaculate vibes of any game I've played this year. By day it's a relaxing and serene fishing game, but once the sun sets it turns into an unsettling realisation of how isolated your tiny boat is on those big dark waters. Dredge plays to that polarity wonderfully, crafting a delightfully spooky world that has my usual horror-averse self desperate to dig deeper into its mysteries.
That doesn't just come from the seas you sail, the mysterious cults you encounter, the cryptic story, or the hallucinations that descend if you dare stay in the darkness too long. It also comes from the twisted aberrations of fish you can reel up at random, mutated versions of their ordinary brethren. I've never been so psyched to fill an encyclopaedia with catches that have a thousand eyes, rotting flesh and bulging boils.
Even if you're not too psyched about the nyctophobia horrors, Dredge offers a peaceful mode that gives you all of the unsettling spook without any of the heart-pounding moments. It's a great way to soak in all that atmosphere without giving yourself a bit of a fright, because Dredge's little surreal world is definitely one you shouldn't miss out on.
Sarah James, Guides Writer: This isn't the sort of game I'd have thought would hold my interest for long but, as Mollie points out, the contrast between day and night almost makes Dredge two games in one. You have the relaxing fishing game while the light holds, but you'd better watch the time—if you get stuck far away from somewhere to dock when darkness falls, you're going to have a lot more than a fishing quota to worry about.
Dredge tasks you with taking to the ocean and living your best fishing life by exploring a cluster of islands and getting to know the locals. You'll be given tasks and sent out on quests to retrieve old artifacts or mutant fish, or even just settle disputes between estranged friends.
Your boat will take damage too, which can be a real problem if you misjudge a turn while returning to a dock—not that I've done that myself, obviously. But If you do manage to attract the attention of some less-than-friendly sea creatures before you've had a chance to repair, both you and your boat might not survive the trip. Dredge might look cosy, but it definitely has teeth.
Tyler Colp, Associate Editor: The way Dredge’s in-game clock only moves forward when you drive your boat or take actions is, frankly, brilliant. I’m not a horror game player because I refuse to go down the dark hallway that surely has a monster in it. In Dredge, you can avoid the dark all you want, but eventually, curiosity is going to get the better of you. The fishing is so simple and satisfying that you get greedy, stay out a little too long, and face the consequences. The sea turns against you, eyes appear in the distance and rocks jut out of the water where they didn’t before. At any point, you could’ve turned back before it got too late, but you didn’t. Dredge is a fishing game, but you’re the unsuspecting fish, slowly lured into its ugly nightmare.
Sean Martin, Guides Writer: Dredge is a brilliantly unnerving game. Even when there isn't a sea monster trying to chomp you, there's this deep sense the world is wrong somehow—twisted out of shape like the mutant fish you haul aboard. In fact, it reminded me a lot of both Outer Wilds and Windwaker for how it creates these islands that each have their own unique aesthetic and mystery to uncover. The entire questline with the scientist and the creature living in the depths of Stellar Basin is fantastic—the first time you sail over that area and pan the camera down to see its colossal tentacles trying to grab you is a real horror moment.