In such a saturated and complex gaming market, creating an indie game is more than just an adventure; it’s a life or death gamble. Staying afloat and being able to create your next game is already challenging. Achieving success to the extent that you don’t have to worry about money for a long time, it’s like winning the lottery. But occasionally, it happens that a game, aside from being excellent, manages to reach an audience capable of appreciating it. And that’s exactly what happened with Dredge.
Dredge is a horror and fishing game that puts players in the shoes of a sailor who travels to a remote and godforsaken island in search of work. His duties are simple: during the day, he has to go fishing and return before nightfall, as strange things happen in the sea once the sun sets. Soon, the game evolves into a combination of fishing, puzzles, and survival horror, where the peacefulness of the days contrasts with the reality that they are never enough to uncover what is happening on the series of islands where we are working. Players find themselves venturing into an increasingly cruel and merciless night.
Today, the game developers, Black Salt Games, have announced a significant sales milestone. According to producer Nadia Thorne and 3D artist Mike Bastiaens in a conversation with GameDeveloper, the game has sold over a million copies in less than six months. These numbers are staggering for any indie game, but especially for a game that was hoping to sell 100,000 copies in its first year of release. A figure that, according to Thorne, they achieved on the very day of its launch.
Thanks to these spectacular figures, which even big studios would envy, Black Salt can continue supporting Dredge, which will have its first official expansion on November 16th. Called ‘The Pale Reach,’ it will invite us to explore a new, icy sea, where new horrors, secrets, and many friendly fishes to catch will await us with open arms. It seems like a perfect plan for Halloween, allowing us to seamlessly transition from the absolute success that is Dredge to its first and quite chilly expansion.
