Indie gem Dredge, the single-player Lovecraftian horror “cozy” fishing game, has hooked a live-action film adaptation.
Developer Black Salt Games is partnering with production company Story Kitchen to bring the world of Dredge to life in what’s being described as “The Sixth Sense on the water.” The game itself sees players explore a mysterious archipelago in a trawler as they catch fish, find treasure, sell their catch and learn what lurks deep beneath the waters – but it’s not all smooth sailing, with cosmic horrors beyond comprehension waiting in the dark.
Story Kitchen was co-founded by Sonic The Hedgehog movie producer Dmitri M. Johnson, a name which might be familiar given he’s also behind Netflix’s animated series Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft, and other projects in the pipeline including adaptations of It Takes Two and Sega’s Streets of Rage. The Story Kitchen team released a statement, calling Dredge a “captivatingly eerie and profoundly rich story that had us completely hooked from the very beginning!”
As per the Variety report, the official summary of the Dredge adaptation describes the movie as “a grounded atmospheric cosmic horror blend of HP Lovecraft and Ernest Hemingway.”
“We are excited to partner with such an experienced studio team to bring the world we created to live action and ignite the imagination of audiences across the globe,” Black Salt Games’ Nadia Thorne, Alex Ritchie, Joel Mason, and Michael Bastiaens said in a statement. In a post to X (formerly Twitter), the developers said they were “blown away by how much our new partners…understood about Dredge and [are] excited about how they’ll weave that understanding into a live action adaptation.”
Dredge was released in March 2023 by Black Salt Games (an NZ-based studio) to resounding success critically, and went on to sell 1 million copies worldwide. Since then, the team has released The Pale Reach DLC, with a second DLC titled The Iron Rig set to launch this year. The game has featured a number of collaborations with other iconic games and IPs like Dave the Diver and Godzilla (set to release in May).
Are you excited for the Dredge movie? What do you hope to see from it? Let us know in the comments.
Image: Black Salt Games
Leave a Reply