Dredge: The Pale Reach Reviews
The Pale Reach adds few new features to the gameplay proposal, but it is still an excellent excuse to sail again through the turbulent waters of one of the best games of 2023. It's not a DLC that makes Dredge a much better experience than it is, although it is a slightly more interesting one thanks to its two hours of new content.
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DREDGE The Pale Reach DLC doesn’t add much new to an already solid formula. There are new fish to discover, new rods to collect and a cool new tool for your ship. It’s about an extra two hours of gameplay to add to the main content. If the main game hooked you, this DLC is well worth dredging up your copy of the game from your backlog to play.
The Pale Reach is as good a reason as any to dip back into one of the best indie games of the year, but it falters in a lack of content, interesting narrative, and scares.
The Pale Reach stands out as an impressive piece of DLC for Dredge, with all of its extras complementing the satisfying (and endlessly eerie) fishing action of the base game. It is worth noting that it doesn’t try to change things up too much and its two-hour runtime is on the short side, but with a £5.99 price point and the same rewarding sense of discovery players would’ve experienced in the base game, it’s hard to complain too much. It has certainly got me excited to see what else Black Salt Games have up their sleeves for Dredge, with its future a bright one if this is anything to go by.
For better or worse The Pale Reach is quintessentially more Dredge. It doesn’t improve upon or expand any given gameplay mechanic or feature. Nor does it address any of the problems I had with the base game. At the same time, the region it offers is as interesting and varied as the rest and fits in quite well. The Pale Reach simply adds a simple dessert plate to Dredge’s seafood dinner and extends the adventure just a tiny bit.
While The Pale Reach delivers more of what makes Dredge such a unique experience, there simply isn't enough here to justify the cost of admission for all but the series' most dedicated fans.