DREADMOOR gets new demo

I am, if nothing else, a creepy-horrorsexual. This is drastically different from the jump-scaresexuals that YouTube harbors, as creepy-horror enjoys suspense, the uncomfortable atmosphere, and not jumping out of cupboards wearing fake breasts and an Angela Merkel mask while clanging saucepans together. One of my and everyone’s favorite creepy-horror games recently was DREDGE, and a similar-ish game announced late last year that had a playtest earlier this year, DREADMOOR, has a demo out now.

Developed by Dream Dock and published by Digital Vortex Entertainment, DREADMOOR is described as a “dark first-person fishing adventure game set in a submerged world, rotting from a past catastrophe.” If you were to be slightly unfair but not too unrealistic, I think you could say it is DREDGE but in 3D, and less focused on the mental state of our lead. Though this is the studio’s first game in development, the experience of the team is rather wide and varied. We know the publisher, Digital Vortex, from the wonderfully wholesome Tiny Eden earlier this year too.

Announced and released yesterday, the demo for DREADMOOR came with a small post on Steam noting what has improved and, I guess, been worked on since the playtest earlier this year. This includes improved performance, better animations, voice acting in both English and Russian, as well as Steam Deck support. In terms of subtitles, though, there are 12 languages supported. Recommended system requirements are CPU: Intel Core i5-12400F/AMD Ryzen 5 5600; GPU: Nvidia RTX 4060/AMD Radeon RX 7600; RAM: 16 GB.

What I do find rather interesting, however, is that the Steam page notes a “Q4 2026” release window. The aforementioned post does note this demo release as the “next major milestone,” without even a hint of what the next one will be. Hopefully, it’s the release, given that there are fewer than 90 days left in the year, though I am not trying to rush anything. I think beyond the obvious and somewhat unfair comparison to DREDGE, the reason I am quite excited for more of DREADMOOR is the art style. Part of me wants to draw another comparison, this time to Compulsion Games’ South of Midnight.

Of course, you can wishlist and download the demo of DREADMOOR on Steam right now. Though, as I say, we don’t have much of a proper release date yet for the first-person creepy fishing game. Of course, alongside the announcement was the release of a demo trailer. Linked below, it is a vague story voice-over with a bit of oogy-boogy monsters crawling out of the water for an unconsensual hug. Don’t worry, Lovecraft will have them write an essay about their bad behavior.