Move over, cosy fishing simulators—there is something deeply unsettling lurking in the water, and we are absolutely here for it.
DREADMOOR, the highly anticipated dark, first-person fishing adventure from developer Dream Dock and publisher Digital Vortex Entertainment, has officially hit a massive milestone, sailing past 200,000 Steam wishlists. To celebrate, the team is throwing open the gates to the Submerged Lands by participating in Steam Ocean Fest.
What does that mean for you? The game’s first-ever public playtest is live right now on PC via Steam! If you want to experience the terrifying side of the tide, you’ll want to jump in quickly.
Reel for Your Life in a Drowned World
If your immediate thought upon hearing “horror fishing” is Dredge, you’re on the right track—but DREADMOOR steers the genre into much darker, more visceral territory. Rather than managing a boat from a distant overhead camera, you are dropped directly into a gritty, tactile first-person perspective.
Set in an early 20th-century bayou devastated by a catastrophic plague and nuclear ruin, you play as a lone survivor piloting a battered fishing trawler through a flooded, rotting world. Here, fishing isn’t a relaxing side-quest or a meditative pastime; it is a desperate, heart-pounding struggle for survival.
Check out the core gameplay loop you’ll be navigating:
- Fish What Lurks Below: Cast your line into murky, irradiated waters to catch rare, heavily mutated species. But keep an eye on your haul—these hyper-aggressive sea creatures won’t hesitate to devour each other right inside your boat’s hold.
- Scavenge & Craft: The waters are littered with more than just monsters. You’ll need to salvage scrap metal and forgotten blueprints from sunken ruins to craft reinforced harpoons, specialised bait, and vital medicines.
- Upgrade Your Vessel: Trade your terrifying catches to cryptic local merchants (including a duo running a bait shop perched on the back of a literal giant crab) to upgrade your hull, fuel up, and prepare for worse threats.
- Real-Time Combat: The nightmare doesn’t stop at the shoreline. Twisted aberrations will actively attack you both on the water and on foot, turning routine resource runs into frantic fights for your life.
What’s Included in the Steam Playtest?
The exclusive limited preview gives players a hearty taste of the atmospheric tension Dream Dock has been brewing. The playtest introduces several brand-new features never shown to the public before, including:
- Dynamic Day/Night Cycle: Exploring under the sun is tense enough, but when darkness falls, horrific tentacle attacks rise from the depths to hunt your boat.
- Tactile Environmental Puzzles: Tune radios to the correct frequencies, use lockpicks to breach restricted areas, refuel generators, and solve water-flow puzzles to survive.
- The Mastery System: Unlock new crafting recipes as you adapt to the harsh environment.
DREADMOOR PC System Requirements (Recommended)
--------------------------------------------------
OS: Windows 10 or higher
Processor: Intel i7 8700 or higher
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: Nvidia RTX 3070 or AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT
Storage: 60 GB available space
DirectX: Version 11
Cast Off Before It’s Too Late
DREADMOOR is currently slated for a full release in Q4 2026, which makes this surprise public playtest the perfect opportunity to see if you have the stomach for the mutated deep.
The Steam Ocean Fest playtest is live starting today, but it won’t stay afloat forever. Head over to the DREADMOOR Steam Page, hit “Request Access” for the playtest, and see if you can survive what’s waiting beneath the waves.
Are you brave enough to take the helm, or are you staying firmly on dry land? Let us know in the comments below!
Find out more here – https://s.team/a/3629430
#DREADMOOR #fishingadventure #postapocalypticworld #DreamDock #DigitalVortexEntertainment #SteamOceanFest #publicplaytest #Steam #PC #techmash #n5dave #gamingnews #videogames