As if there weren’t enough problems DredgingThe world—like, say, the aberration of a fish that has a spiraling black void in place of an eye—now towers a mysterious, towering iron platform above the watery abyss.
The Iron Rig is the second piece of downloadable content for developer Black Salt Games Dredgingthursday out on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation5, Windows PCAnd Xbox Series Xand it’s a good reason to jump back into one of the best games of 2023. Regardless of where you are in your playthrough, you can load up the DLC and steer a course straight to the northeast side of the map, where the rig is planted. The new content acts as if you were arriving on any other island in Dredgingexcept that not everything is unlocked right away. Instead, to open up new areas of the platform for repairs and upgrades, you’ll need to do things like help out the Ironhaven Corp. by providing research materials, largely in the form of the wood, cloth, and other items you’ve been fishing for all this time, or by catching fish in the cursed archipelago.
Black Salt Games reports on its Steam page that there are over 50 new fish to catch, most of which can be found in a nasty, slimy oil that covers various parts of DredgingThe map of ‘s was created from the cracks created by the aforementioned drilling platform. The Iron Rig is the kind of DLC that you could technically play right alongside the original game, as if it came with it. It takes you back across the entire map, revisiting every location and its creatures, new and old. But if you play it after you’ve completed almost everything there is to do in DredgingAs I’ve done, it’s a nice excursion back into a world I spent so much time in last year.
It’s been a while since I played Dredgingso it took me a while to get used to the gameplay again: Where can I sell fish again? What do I need to catch fish here? Oh yeah, and don’t stay on the ship all nightBut once I got used to the rhythm of Dredging again, The Iron Rig felt like a clever little addition to the game, one that not only improved the quality of the gameplay by improving old mechanics (like tea helping you feel less anxious if you’ve been diving too deep into the abyss too late at night), but also added new ship improvements to work towards, like a new hull and additional gear with a short mystery that unfolds over about four hours.
If you liked it Dredgingyou will like it The Iron Rig. I have not played Dredging‘s first DLC, The Pale ReachBut The Iron Rig is double the price, and if we go by the numbers The Pale Reach‘s Steam page, almost double the content. But if you’re looking for more Dredging after you are done The Iron Rigthen you’re in luck: documentary maker NoClip has released a free documentary about the design of Dredging this week, which you can watch on YouTube. After that you will just have to wait until the Dredging film adaptation, which was announced in April by the production company founded by Sonic the hedgehog producer and founder of dj2 Entertainment Dmitri M. Johnson.