Dredge - Explained

Hello everyone, and welcome a video where we look at the story behind Black Salt Games' indie horror game 'Dredge'.

CHAPTERS

Intro - 0:00
Story - 0:35
What Happened? - 12:40
The Affected Area - 14:56
Mythology - 16:32
Split Personality - 17:41
Endings Explained - 19:33

ALL MUSIC IN THIS VIDEO FROM @epidemicsound
ALL GAME FOOTAGE CAPTURED BY MYSELF ON PC (specs below)

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Equipment;

PC Specs (for those that are interested):
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3800X (8 Core)
- GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6700XT (12GB)
- RAM: Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro (32GB - 2x16GB)
- Elgato 4k60 Pro Mk. 2
- Built by PC Specialist in the UK

#DREDGE #DredgeGame #GamingHarry

[shika]

I don't know if anyone else experienced it this way, but when I first saw the collector on Blackstone Isle and almost up to the reveal, I assumed he was just standing in the doorway of the house. Now, I see that it was always clear that he was a reflection, and the "doorframe" was always a mirror. Wild. I wonder if it was at all intended for players to make the inaccurate assumption that I did

[X-SPONGED]

Poor fisherman... got himself caught up in Eldritch shenanigans like those other unlucky few of Lovecraft's writing. I guess the moral of this story is respect your superstitions, don't dredge ancient relics, and never wake up Cthulhu to revive your wife.

[TheRoseLegion]

I love that if you dont confront the collector, the collector does the ritual but if you have, you do the ritual.

[giacomoromano]

Bad ending: the world fucking die.
Good ending: you fucking die.
Me: "As it happens, i am a very generous person..."

[emeraldviqueen]

I never noticed the crimson book and the collectors glasses in that very very first cutscene!
Love the thought of the Leviathan not being another otherworldly hazard, but an entity trying to stop you! It’s not killing you for funsies or cuz its evil like the phantom shark or night angler. It is a hazard but its not from the rift or whatever brought up with the casket.
Never made the connection that it was of our world and trying to protect the oceans/planet but that makes so much sense!

[IronDino]

A marvellous synopsis, if I could make a couple of corrections.
At 15:55, Rot is just natural decay. The Creature at Stellar Basin is apparently from outer space. It was a spore that arrived in a meteorite, settled on the ocean floor, began to grow down, and (allegedly) made a connection with the Eldritch Abomination in the Bad Ending and began infecting other things.
16:55 the Leviathan is a protector of 'our' seas against forces which would unleash the Eldritch Abomination (aka Cthulhu). We can see this in some of the lore on Devil's Spine in that it enjoyed the light of the grand lighthouse whereas monsters attacked and brought the civilisation to ruin when the lighthouse was destroyed by a volcanic eruption (a natural disaster or caused by the Abomination or the Creature?)
18:55 the Fisherman wasn't so much corrupted by the book, but rather, the grief over losing his wife and the paranoia/superstition that it was him that caused her to die (performing the renaming ceremony wrong, having a woman on board) had him research/ask the book to help him forget, resulting in the split personality.

[Onigiriz]

Great video. I was confused by the ending during my first playthrough. My take on the Leviathan eating the MC is to protect the knowledge of summoning Cthulu. Since the MC knows how to do it, he can’t be allowed to live with that knowledge.

[TayTay-fkoe]

My god, the collector... if you look at his image closer, you can see it is, in fact, a mirror the whole time... fucking wild.

[IceFireofVoid]

What I really liked about the plot was the underlying sense of grief and loss that clings to everything, from the main story to the sidequests. A lot of what you do in this game is help NPCs move on, find peace or have new beginnings. And the two endings then becomes the split between the main character also moving on, or paradoxically falling to his grief after a journey of helping others let theirs go.

[Listening_Books]

I love Cthulhu inspired stories. This one even had Cthulu himself appear in the bad ending, which is amazing because the sheer size of him is half of what breaks your brain

[cartooncritique]

20:20 Interesting...so Leviathan in this story is basically the good guy trying to stop Cthulhu from awakening. I honestly kind of like that idea. You know something's bad when even the thing God supposedly thought was too dangerous to exist is scared!

[HollowedPrince]

Love that you covered this! One thing I’m surprised you didn’t bring up was the various black stones around the islands.

When you’re sane, they’re harmless and do nothing. But if you’re sanity is gone/if you’re paranoid, the stones actually light up and describe the island’s history and the monster on said island.

For example, I was out fishing at night and I just got away from the monster at the Gale Cliffs, but I was paranoid and came upon the stone and it was glowing. It actually gave me some text on how the island’s monster came to be. Pretty neat stuff!

[HeisenbergFam]

Appreciate you covering indie games, the commentary is on point

[samuraicupcake]

Oh, that's fun : the first time I got the bad ending I wasn't aware of the split personality thing. I thought it was very weird that though it said that the collector got onto my boat, he wasn't an inventory item like other passengers previously. I thought it was an oversight, but now it makes perfect sense!

[Gortall]

I'm a bit sad I never encountered the Leviathan in my entire playthrough, only heard of it. I suspected "something" to stop me from going too far at sea but never tried. Though, even whales scared me so that thing would've killed me if I did see him. It's really cool that he's actually part of the overarching story and not just another spooky entity that is never spoken of again.

[mackers]

there's actually a little secret at the end where if you first take the book from the collector and then decide to help him (yourself) it will have different text saying that his reflection dissapeared and you feel cold wind, if you don't take the book it will simply say that the collector just climbed onto your boat

[KodasGarden]

Okay so the fact that letters written by people already deceased can be found did clear something up for me. I wondered how we found the journal entry from our wife about the night she died if she was... You know... Dead. But if we can find writing from people after they died, that makes more sense now

[realmjumper]

Dredge is quite possibly one of the coolest games I’ve had the pleasure of playing in recent times. Absolutely fantastic atmosphere and story.

[zod]

I was really excited when the demo for this game was released. The studio did an awesome job making this little world feel lived in, old, and mysterious. I look forward to whatever they do next.

[jameboston]

Incredibly well-written story that got explained so well by you 👍 I'm glad this endings explained got aired.