The threat of this new area doesn’t just attack at night like other enemies in Dredge, and instead attacks anything that moves when it’s feeling peckish.

I was concerned that with my fully upgraded boat and a pile of cash that there’d be no real need to fish or dredge as I explored The Pale Reach, but thankfully that isn’t the case.

Now being DLC, there’s a good chance that you’ll be playing this new content after beating the game. The new upgrade will let you explore areas you couldn’t previously, and help you save the souls of those who came before. If you can find the parts needed to craft an ice plow he tells you he’d be happy to make one for your boat, so you begin a quest to find some spare parts from the boats that crashed here before you. Upon arrival at this new icy locale you’ll find the sea merchant scoping out the new unidentified islands. The frozen environment of The Pale Reach is a breath of fresh air from the other biomes of Dredge, and is packed full of plenty of secrets to uncover.

The distance you’ll have to travel to get there is pretty sizable though, so it’s certainly intended to be a late game area to access once you’ve upgraded your little vessel with some better engines. The Pale Reach adds a whole new icy area to explore to the south of the map, which you can go to at any time in your playthrough of the game. It’s one of the most unique and interesting games of 2023, and if you haven’t played it yet then now is your chance. To upgrade your ship to explore further you’ll need to make money by fishing, which involves fun timing based minigames and a whole lot of sweet sweet inventory management. If you missed out on Dredge when it released back in March, here’s the elevator pitch: your boat crashes at a strange island in the middle of the ocean, and you soon discover a whole host of Lovecraftian nightmares lurking in the water. DREDGE in particular has done a great job of reminding me why I loved that genius combination of fishing and horror, with the new The Pale Reach DLC. It’s nice to be reminded of the games that could have been forgotten, especially in the run up to our Game of the Year awards. Well right on cue there has been a glut of DLC releasing for those games you once loved, from Resident Evil 4 to Cassette Beasts. It’s been a long year full of incredible video games, and it’s easy to forget some of the bangers that came in those earlier months.

Big fish games time management