As if there aren’t sufficient issues in Dredge’s world — like, say, the aberration of a fish that has a spiraling black void as a substitute of an eye fixed — a mysterious, towering iron rig now looms over the watery abyss.
The Iron Rig is the second piece of downloadable content material for developer Black Salt Games’ Dredge, out Thursday on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X, and it’s a good reason to hop back into one of 2023’s best games. Regardless of the place you might be in your playthrough, you’ll find a way to load up the DLC and steer a course straight to the northeast aspect of the map, the place the rig is planted. The brand new content material works as if you happen to have been arriving at some other island in Dredge, besides that every thing isn’t instantly unlocked. As a substitute, to open up new areas of the rig for repairs and upgrades, as an example, you need to assist the Ironhaven Corp. by supplying analysis supplies, largely within the type of the wooden, material, and different gadgets you’ve been dredging up this entire time, or by catching fish throughout the accursed archipelago.
Black Salt Games says on its Steam web page that there are greater than 50 new fish to catch, most of which may be present in a wretched, oozy oil that’s taken over a number of elements of Dredge’s map, emerged from the rifts created by the aforementioned oil rig. The Iron Rig is the kind of DLC that you just’d technically find a way to play proper alongside the unique recreation, as if it have been shipped with it. It takes you back round the entire map, revisiting every location and its creatures, new and previous. However if you happen to’re taking part in it after finishing almost every thing there is to do in Dredge, like I’ve, it’s a good little jaunt back into a world I spent a lot time in final yr.
It’d been a whereas since I performed Dredge, so it took a second or two to get used to the gameplay once more: The place do I promote fish once more? What do I want to catch fish right here? Oh sure, and don’t keep out all night time on the ship. However as soon as I received used to the rhythm of Dredge once more, The Iron Rig felt like a sensible little addition to the sport, not solely including quality-of-life updates to previous mechanics (like tea that staves off nervousness once you’ve ventured too far into the abyss too late at night time) but additionally piecing on new ship upgrades to work in direction of, like a new hull and additional gear with a brief little thriller that unfolds over round 4 hours.
For those who appreciated Dredge, you’ll like The Iron Rig. I haven’t performed Dredge’s first DLC, The Pale Reach, however The Iron Rig is double the value, and, going off the numbers on The Pale Attain’s Steam web page, almost double the content material. However if you happen to’re searching for extra Dredge after you end The Iron Rig, you’re in luck: Documentarians NoClip launched a free documentary on the design of Dredge this week, which you can watch on YouTube. Past that, you’ll merely have to anticipate the Dredge film adaptation, which was introduced in April from the manufacturing firm based by Sonic the Hedgehog producer and dj2 Leisure founder Dmitri M. Johnson.
