I do not know what they fear.
It’s not exactly a secret that the reason why stories written by Lovecraft were so unnerving was because he was an unrepentant racist who was terrified of the changing world around him. He viewed mix raced people as abominations of humanity, disgusting subhuman creatures. As a mixed raced person myself, when I see his stories about disgusting and violent half animal people, I know that is how he saw people like me. That sucks, but at the same time, damn, does it make for some good horror. (I just want it to be clear, you do not have to in fact, hand it to H.P Lovecraft). His stories and creations were unnerving because they represented what unnerved him. What caused him to cower in fear.

I do not know what the developers of Dredge fear. The game has the the aesthetic of Lovecraftian horror, but it’s all very surface level, it doesn’t really make use of it to tell the story it’s trying to tell. The story itself also feels quite shallow and if you take out the time spent going on the quests to fetch a certain item and bring it back to a man, then the actual time the plot spends progressing, is really only about five to ten minutes, out of the seven hours you’ll spend with the game. It feels like a rough idea, a pre-first draft of a story someone had, and then, when they realised there wasn’t actually much there, slapped some fetch quests in. It’s not interesting to really think about. Which is maybe the most damming thing you can say about a Lovecraftian inspired game. I do not know what the developers fear, what the horrors of these virtual waters are meant to represent. It seems to be just an aesthetic they are fans of.

Mechanically, the gameplay loop is simple, engaging and is at it’s strongest early to mid game. I appreciate that there are several different fishing mini-games that can be played, depending on the fish you are trying to catch. There’s also a Sanity meter that will deteriorate the more time you spend out on the waters, after dark. If you start to panic too much, you will see more and more aberrations that are a very real threat. However due to the world being fairly small, there is almost always a port nearby you can dock and and wait for daylight again. Especially into the second half of the game once you have more upgrades, being out even in open waters at night isn’t really much of a problem. More often than not this game leans towards more of a cosy vibe than anything even close to horror. During my playthrough of this game, I died only once, in the early game, resulting in a loss of maybe two minutes of progress. There’s no real threat or consequence of failure here.

Almost everything about this game pushes against the Lovecraftian Horror aesthetics. Apart from your first moments encountering some of the horror inspired elements of the game, you likely won’t be feeling unnerved, you won’t be sailing a boat in fear of the unknown. You might spend that time wondering if that is what the developers actually intended at all.

There’s a scene in Planetarian where the cute little android gives a big speech on the wonders of the universe, the romance of discovery and the way space can draw our imagination. It’s a very beautiful speech and in that one scene this title evoked my admiration and respect for space exploration and the wonders it contains, than in any moment Starfield shat out during the 25 hours I spent with it.
It’s a short title and it shows it’s age, even with the HD version (it has a twitter button), but it’s still a beautiful and rewarding experience.