Dredge, the horror fishing game with immaculate vibes, is free on the Epic Game Store

On December 25, 2024By Littum

Dredge is awesome. We called it “a great fishing game with a sinister mystery lurking in its depths” in our 89% review, and we also named it Best Frame in our 2023 Game of the Year Awards. And now, for the first time ever, you can download it for free from Epic Games Store.

Besides being awesome, Dredge is also a little bit deceptive, at least at first glance. A cute little fishing boat, a lovely sunset, a quaint seaside town – the squid is a bit odd, yes, but fish, right? They are strange by nature. But things take a strange turn in a hurry, and I’m not talking about wind in the wire making chattering noises here: something that is definitely not good is happening deep down.

DREDGE | Start trailer – YouTube
DREDGE | Start trailer - YouTube

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“Dredge has the most immaculate vibes of any game I’ve played this year,” PC Gamer’s Mollie Taylor wrote of Dredge in 2023. “During the day it’s a relaxing and calm fishing game, but when the sun goes down it turns into an unsettling realization of how isolated your little boat is on the big dark water Dredge plays wonderfully to that polarity and creates a delightfully creepy world that has my usual horror-averse self. to delve deeper into its mysteries.”

And if “nyctophobia horrors” aren’t your thing, Dredge also offers a “passive mode” that maintains the eerie atmosphere but tones down the outright horror. (“Awfulness” is used here purely in a complimentary way, to be clear.)

So Dredge is really good, and it’s now really free – but only for the day. The Epic Games Store is in the midst of its not-quite-daily holiday giveaways (15 games over a three-week stretch), so you only have until 11 a.m. ET on Dec. 25 to grab it.