The dark, post-apocalyptic world of DREADMOOR is full of fish to catch and horrors to avoid. But that doesn’t stop GamingBible from going hands-on with the first-person fishing horror title.
The waters are rife with mutated monstrosities, and there’s a freaky fishman who’ll pay top dollar for them, so off you go out into the swamp to sling your hook. It’s a simple premise, and one we’ve seen before, but Dreadmoor is so much more than a simple Dredge clone. Fishing is more intensive for a start. You’ve got to really fight the fish you’re trying to catch until it pulls itself out, and while most of my catches during my hands-on demo at Summer Game Fest were groupers and snappers, I spotted plenty of larger river monsters lurking beneath the water. They didn’t seem like the type of aquatic life that’d yield to a simple rod and hook.
DREADMOOR takes place in a flooded world, reeling from what’s termed as a “catastrophic human mistake”. But money still needs to be made. So, hop in the fishing boat and get to work. Catching the fish is going to take some work as some of them do more than just swim around.
If you’ve ever wondered what Yharnam from Bloodborne would look like if it were flooded for a hundred years, this would probably be it. My demo only took me through a small section of the swamp, but there’s a vast world to explore, with each area bringing its own nautical challenges and dangers. It’s said that your exploration could be halted at a moment’s notice by an underwater threat, which you’ll have to fend off before you can get back to your precious fishing game.
DREADMOOR is set for a Q4 2026 release on PC via Steam.
