My first day of gamescom ended with members of the Black Salt Games studio, who presented their adventure and fishing game, DREDGE, published by Team17.
This single-player adventure takes place in a 3D world, with a day/night cycle that sets the pace of the game.
During the day, everything is fine. Our character goes to sea, on fishing spots marked by an animation on the surface of the waves. It is then a basic QTE system, coupled with Tetris-style inventory management. A relatively simple economy is in place with a merchant buying back the fish. The money collected is used to repay a debt, contracted to obtain his boat. But also to improve the boat, equipment and inventory. It's all about strategy and priority, because a big engine certainly increases speed, but it takes up more space, which therefore means a hold capable of storing less fish.
Other fishing modes are unlocked later, including a net, to collect fish passively. An encyclopedia lists the 128 sea creatures to catch. Suffice to say that collectors will have a field day!
At night, the character is supposed to rest. If he decides otherwise, the darkness hides disturbing creatures that impact a kind of sanity gauge (represented in the form of an eye). To fight against madness, a small light brings temporary comfort... Nothing that lasts because it does not resist for long what lurks in the night.
Moreover, even during the day, aberrations can be brought up from the unfathomable depths of the ocean. It is one of these abnormal fish that starts the main quest. The merchant extracts a square of cloth from the beast's stomach, which he advises us to show to the Original who lives on Blackstone Island. There, the one who calls himself the collector, tells us that this handkerchief is a relic, coming from a boat that once sank. In all, there are five relics to bring back to him, across five biomes, all linked to more or less complicated puzzles. The key is unique skills that allow you to better resist the influence of the night.
We found the first relic, even though the developer shamefully cheated on its location. You have to know that this world is fixed, created to correspond to the story. There will therefore not be much replayability, even if a few choices in the dialogues allow you to unlock alternative endings. We also quickly visited some of these areas, to discover a tropical forest, a mangrove and volcanic islands with ancient ruins.
Magnificent thanks to its graphics and its disturbing atmosphere, DREDGE offers a unique combination of history and fishing. On the other hand, it is a little early to be sure that the rhythm will be sufficiently well balanced, that the fishing phases will not become too repetitive, without being useless to the story either. A difficult balance, which the developers still have time to find. The game will not be released until 2023 on all current platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch, PS5|4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S.
