Dreadmoor Early Access opened on Steam on Monday, November 9, at 5:00am PT (8:00am ET), and some of your catch will eat the rest of it in the hold.
The first-person fishing horror game costs $19.99 while it’s in progress. Developer Dream Dock and publisher Digital Vortex Entertainment say the Early Access build already has the complete storyline, one major region, and a wide spread of fish species and mutations to catch.
That’s a lot of hype riding on a debut. Digital Vortex’s launch announcement on Games Press says Dreadmoor ranks in Steam’s top 100 most wishlisted games, and Dream Dock celebrated 400,000 wishlists back in September.
5:00am PT Unlock and a $19.99 Early Access Price
Dream Dock posted a release-time map on Steam: 5:00am PST in Los Angeles, 8:00am EST in New York, and midnight on November 10 in Sydney. The Steam store page uses the same 13:00 UTC unlock.
The base price is $19.99 in the US, £17.75 in the UK, C$23.99 in Canada, €20.49 in Germany and A$28.50 in Australia. An optional Early Access Supporter Pack is $4.99. Dream Dock says it plans to raise the price at full release, so Early Access is the cheaper way in.
Dreadmoor isn’t on GOG, our first stop for owned PC copies, so Steam is the only place to buy it at launch.
Carnivorous Fish Eat Your Profits in the Hold
You’re marooned in the Submerged Lands, a world swallowed by water after some past catastrophe. You patch up a rickety trawler from salvage, find the closest thing to civilization (a bait shop perched on monstrous crab legs), and head back out with a rod, a reel and whatever lures you can afford.
The fishing is meant to be tactile: pick the right lure, let the line play out, and time the reel. Then the catch goes into the hold, and that’s where Dreadmoor gets mean. Each catch has to be arranged in compartments, some fish share space fine, and carnivorous ones will eat the rest of your haul if you let them. You also watch hull damage and fuel, haul in wreckage with a grappling gun, and spend it all on stronger rods, a sturdier hull and better lures.
Night is the risk dial. Dream Dock says familiar waters get far less predictable after dark, with better opportunities and bigger danger, and the Steam page promises creatures to fight on the water and on land.
One Region Now, More Fish and Areas by 1.0
Dream Dock expects six to 12 months in Early Access. The current build covers the full core loop, one major region and the original story, and after you finish the story you can keep fishing, hunting rare specimens and upgrading. The full release adds new areas, more fish species, new fishing mechanics and more boat upgrades, with smaller content updates along the way.
“Your feedback on Steam, Discord, Reddit, our in-game surveys, we’re reading everything and you’re helping us make the game better,” Dream Dock CEO Rostislav Fedorov said in the Games Press release. It’s a three-founder studio in Kyrgyzstan whose people came from Playrix, MY.GAMES, Saber Interactive and Owlcat Games, and this is its first original game.
Text is localized in 12 languages, with full voice acting in English and Russian. The free Dreadmoor demo is playable on Steam Deck, but the game has no official Deck Verified rating yet.
GTX 1060 Minimum, RTX 4060 Recommended, 60 GB
Dreadmoor is Windows only and DirectX 12, and it wants 60 GB of space at both tiers. These are Dream Dock’s published Steam requirements:
| Field | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| OS | Windows 10 or higher (64-bit) | Windows 10 or higher (64-bit) |
| Processor | Intel Core i5-8400 / AMD Ryzen 5 2600 | Intel Core i5-12400F / AMD Ryzen 5 5600 |
| Memory | 8 GB RAM | 16 GB RAM |
| Graphics | Nvidia GTX 1060 (6 GB) / AMD Radeon RX 580 (8 GB) | Nvidia RTX 4060 / AMD Radeon RX 7600 |
| DirectX | Version 12 | Version 12 |
| Storage | 60 GB | 60 GB |
If you want the same boat-and-monsters itch in a finished game you can own DRM-free today, Dredge is on GOG. If Dreadmoor’s carnivorous cargo hold sounds like the better twist, the demo is the cheap test before you buy. Early Access games that keep their promises tend to get a big 1.0 moment, the way Lightyear Frontier 1.0 just did, and Dream Dock has set itself up for a busy year.