Dave the Diver is teaming up with our other favorite nautical adventure of 2023, Dredge, for a spooky free DLC

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A Red Mist descends on the Blue Hole.

One of the smaller pleasant surprises at this year's Game Awards was the announcement of a free, Dredge-themed crossover DLC for Dave the Diver. The two fishing games will collide when the update launches on December 15.

Things actually seem pretty friendly between the duelling fishing games of 2023⁠—in a Mintrocked dev update, Dave the Diver director Jaeho Hwang and designer Nolan King cited a huge fan demand as the reason for the update, and explained that each team loved the other's game.

The brief trailer shows a spooky red mist descending on the Blue Hole, as well as brief shots of Dave's fishing boat exploring the lagoon in full 3D. Hwang and King describe this as a new minigame coming with the update, a fun nod to Dredge's signature gameplay. The now-haunted Blue Hole has been infested with "aberrant" fish from Dredge, and these nasty boys serve as extra-challenging enemies with their unique sushi in demand among a special new clientele.

The DLC will see grim hooded horrors showing up to Bancho Sushi alongside your usual customers, with the gaggle of ghouls only eating aberrant sushi while normal customers refuse to touch the stuff, adding another layer to the restaurant management side of things. You can still sell leftover aberrant fishies to the Traveling Merchant, a character from Dredge who's come along for the crossover.

It's an extremely fun addition that combines two of our surprise favorites of this year⁠—I'm especially tickled by the Dredge send-up 3D exploration mode that's going to be added to Dave the Diver. We've got less than a week to go until Dave the Diver gets this free addition, and this just might tempt me to hop back into the Blue Hole after a long Baldur's Gate 3-related absence.

Ted Litchfield
Associate Editor

Ted has been thinking about PC games and bothering anyone who would listen with his thoughts on them ever since he booted up his sister's copy of Neverwinter Nights on the family computer. He is obsessed with all things CRPG and CRPG-adjacent, but has also covered esports, modding, and rare game collecting. When he's not playing or writing about games, you can find Ted lifting weights on his back porch. You can follow Ted on Bluesky.