Developer Black Salt Games has confirmed that Dredge’s highly anticipated second DLC, The Iron Rig, will release on 15th August, 2024.
The indie fishing adventure will, ahem, “lure players back in” with new fish, new boat upgrades and gadgets, and a brand-new storyline.
Playable at any time in your Dredge adventure, The Iron Rig sees you join the Ironhaven Corporation to “collect resources to build a formidable base of operations, unlocking new tiers of equipment, abilities, gadgets, and consumables”. And as part of the adventure, you’ll get to “revisit every area from the base game with renewed purpose”.
“As the drilling operation on the rig intensifies, something stirs in the primordial depths,” Black Salt teases. “A dark liquid begins to seep into familiar and once-safe areas of the game, transforming them into perilous zones. Players must carefully assess the impact of this mysterious substance on local fish species, unveiling peculiar specimens from the abyssal depths as they go about adding more than 50 new fish to the game’s encyclopaedia.
“The Iron Rig expansion adds a new tier of fishing equipment, as well as new characters to interact with, new hazards to overcome, and new world events and lore to uncover.”
The DLC will sell for £11.99/€11.99/$11.99, but mega fans can pick up the new DLC as part of the upcoming Dredge Collector’s Edition, which is now available to pre-order.
As well as containing the base game and all DLCs, you’ll get “exclusive” artwork and reversible inlay, a Sign of Ruin talisman replica, poster, map, and “a complete compendium of all fish and their aberrant variants”.
You’ll also get a message in a bottle from the developer, and a doubloon of your own. The special edition will be available in the USA, Europe, and Australasia and priced at £99.99/€99.99/$99.99.
You can pre-order from the official website, although right now, it’s seemingly only available for players in France, Germany, and Spain.
Don’t forget that Dredge is now playable without the dread courtesy of a passive mode that lets you take to the high seas without fear of the denizens of the deep. Last May, the team confirmed that a free update now ensures “monsters that usually attack fishing boats will no longer be aggressive” for those who prefer a less strenuous day on the water, as well as a fancy new photo mode.
And did you know that a Dredge film adaptation is on the way? Developer Black Salt Games is partnering on a film adaptation with production company Story Kitchen, which was launched in 2020 by Sonic the Hedgehog film producer Dmitri M. Johnson and other film industry veterans.
