Video Game Review: Dredge

Release Year: 2023
Reading Year: SP2025
Developer/Publisher: Black Salt Games/Team 17
Time to Beat: 10 Hours

Thoughts: This game is fun. I know this isn’t a surprise two years and two DLC releases later, but wow it feels good to lose the clock when you pick up a new game. I struggle with indie games like Spirit Fairer because they seem pointless. Yes, cozy is good, but it doesn’t really feel like you are progressing. It’s a me thing, I acknowledge that. Dredge solves this perfectly – there are 5 locations, you will go there and collect the things. The in between provides more than enough fun and fear to make the whole experience fly by! The art style is a lovely nod to Disco Elysium and Dishonored, the gameplay loop is so tight making that “one more run” feeling constant, it is so mechanically rich that you are never bored, the music is EXCELLENT.

What is special about the gameplay is that it seems organic the way you are motivated to stay out just a little longer or go out just a little further only to fight for life moments later! But it’s so damn fun and exciting that you have to do it again! Dredge is a game that doesn’t try to be more than it is, but instead perfects each piece it puts in front of the player. I look forward to ruining my sleep schedule playing the DLC!