Eldritch fishing game Dredge is being made into a movie by the people behind the Sonic the Hedgehog films

Among your obvious blockbuster video games ripe for similarly blockbuster film and TV adaptations like Fallout, Borderlands and The Last of Us, it seems there’s room for some of the smaller gems to be fished out and brought to the big screen, too.

Even so, it might surprise you - as it did me - to learn that the latest hot property to be scooped for a movie adaptation is Dredge. The indie cosmic-horror fishing game emerged from the depths just over a year ago, sinking its hooks in deep thanks to a mixture of its uneasy eldritch atmosphere and compelling management of your small boat as you travel the waves in search of your next - potentially cursed - catch.

Still, Dredge has plenty of potential for an interesting movie in its undercurrent of sinister, supernatural happenings beneath the placid surface of its fishing. That sentiment was apparently shared by production company Story Kitchen, who have partnered with Kiwi developers Black Salt Games to turn Dredge into a live-action feature film.

Story Kitchen might be a familiar name, as they’re the folks who previously brought Sonic the Hedgehog to cinema screens and have since scooped up a host of video games to make into movies and TV, from Vampire Survivors and It Takes Two to Disco Elysium and the similarly Lovecraftian Call of the Sea.

According to the film’s official description (via Variety), Black Salt and Story Kitchen plan to make Dredge into something akin to “The Sixth Sense on the water”, calling the prospective movie “a grounded atmospheric cosmic horror blend of HP Lovecraft and Ernest Hemingway”.

It’s all fairly lofty and ambitious, as these kinds of Hollywood announcements tend to be, but Dredge has more promise than most. It’s already netted over a million sales, with one piece of excellent DLC already out - last year’s The Pale Reach, which Hirun fortuitously said was as good as prestige TV - and another, this year’s chunky The Iron Rig, on the way.

No word on when we might see or hear more of the Dredge movie yet, but perhaps it’ll delve into the lore behind the stray dog you rescue, who happens to be an invincible superbeing.