Dreadmoor Preview: If You Enjoyed Dredge, This Is a Similarly Lovecraftian Horror-Fishing Game

I'm not sure if we're about to enter a Renaissance of horror-themed fishing games on accident, or if there has always been something about fishing that inherently evokes suspense and even terror. Given the unknowable nature of the sea, it's probably the latter. But between Dredge, About Fishing, GONE Fishing, and now Dreadmoor, we're spoiled for solid fishing games with an excess of tentacles, teeth, and heads. And I'm here for the fishing trip.

Dreadmoor's premise immediately invokes thoughts of Dredge, a similarly Lovecraftian fishing adventure that I really enjoyed back in 2023. That's what got me through the hatch for a Dreadmoor preview at the Game Developers Conference last month. But Dreadmoor is instantly distinct. In Dredge, while you technically played the person who sailed your boat, you only ever controlled the boat. In Dreadmoor, you're very explicitly embodying a guy with hands, feet, and a first-person perspective. Specifically, you're some creaky, cranky guy who seems to have washed up in hell with nothing but a crummy fishing boat and a will to escape. Perfect for a big fish story.

Because I am controlling a fella, with hands that can do work, there is significantly more mechanical density to Dreadmoor than I expected. It's very tactile. I wake up in the swamp, my boat's broken. So I step out of the cabin, bust out a grappling hook, fire at a nearby crate, and reel it in to acquire metal scrap for the repair. The repair itself is accomplished via timed button presses. Actual fishing is similar - I cast out at a distance, and I can wiggle the hook around in the water by gently clicking it in to entice a catch. Crafting takes place on a big table with all my ingredients spread out and a worn recipe book telling me what to click and drag where to make the thing I'm making. I physically pick up and drag a gas nozzle from a pump to my boat to fill it with fuel. Everything about Dreadmoor is crunchy, clanky, clunky, crispy, or some combination of those, really selling the old sea shantiness of it all.

My demo took place very early in the game, which means my boat was appropriately slow and scrappy. I've been promised aid escaping this watery hellhole if I sufficiently contribute to the local economy by selling my catch to a crusty fish mutant merchant pair named Gill and (his…pet? second head?) Betsy. Gill is evasive about what's really going on here, and Betsy entirely unhelpful, so off I chug in my clunker. I start with the small fry, worth barely anything, which I am instructed to grind up into bait and then use to catch bigger, more Lovecraftian horrors. Lures, too, can be crafted with scrap bits I find in crates out on the waters and used to target specific fish, with factors such as what lure and bait I use and how I jerk my rod around contributing to who comes to supper in each school.

All this prep work leads to the actual fishing minigame, which is similarly tactile. When I get a bite, I hold down the mouse to reel in, while moving the rod left or right opposite where the fish is swimming and watching both the fish's stamina and line tension so I know when to give it some slack. The fish quickly becomes meaningfully more challenging to wrangle, as demonstrated by my steely-eyed focus in trying to reel one in while the people running the demo tried to ask me a question at a critical moment (sorry!). If there's one thing fishing games and minigames alike struggle with, it's difficulty balance and pacing. So many fishing games are way too easy or way too hard at points where you don't expect them to be either. If Dreadmoor can manage a nice, smooth ramp up from walleye to whale shark, it might be a miracle of Cthuhlu.

Everything about Dreadmoor is crunchy, clanky, clunky, crispy, or some combination of those, really selling the old sea shantiness of it all. Where Dreadmoor loses me juuuust a bit is in its relatively flat tone thus far. Look, I only played the first half hour or so. For all I know, it goes places. But to (sorry) compare it with Dredge again, Dredge begins relatively normal: daylight, regular boat, no Lovecraftian horrors. That makes it especially unnerving when you pull in something freaky, or when darkness descends and nightmares begin playing at the edges of your vision. Dreadmoor, from what I saw, was all creepy all the time. There was no hint of a day-night cycle, and no suggestion of biomes that were significantly distinct beyond the swampy bog I started in. As a result, I didn't really jump when giant tentacles flew out of the water to rock my boat; I just assumed they were there the entire time. When everything wants to scare you, nothing does.

Still, the trailers for Dreadmoor do suggest some significant lighting and location variety, with gently haunting sunsets, nights lit only by the glow of mushrooms that should not rightfully be that large, and some unsettling red eyes looming on all sides. I also like the look of some of the even more complex fishing mechanics I see in those teasers – even as the fishing in my demo became more difficult, I remain unconcerned that I've seen anywhere near the end of the mechanical depth here. It looks like the fish might try to fight you? Sure! Why not! I'll fist fight a tuna. We can and will make this boat weirder.

Most important to me, a lover of fishing games and minigames, is how much I like the feel of Dreadmoor. I like the flow of catching new types of fish, which feeds directly into being able to find and craft new upgrades, which in turn leads back to more interesting new fish, and onward. I think the visual details are very cool, such as the aforementioned crafting table with all its little drawers and boxes, Gill's weird walking Baba Yaga house, or the way the player character briefly holds up the monstrosity he's just caught to the camera, as if giving it a once-over himself, when it's first brought in. The environments contain loads of detail, whether that's crusty barnacle overgrowth out on the pier or the barrels overflowing with indescribable sea horrors behind Gill's counter. I've not yet decided if Dreadmoor is explicitly trying to scare me or if all the tentacles are just set dressing for what seems to be a highly competent fishing game, but my demo has led me to think I'll be pretty happy with Dreadmoor regardless.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.