There’s Something Fishy About ‘Dreadmoor’ and Dream Dock Games

Yesterday, Lovecraftian post-apocalyptic fishing horror game “Dredge More” – er, sorry, Dreadmoor — surfaced from the murky depths. Seemingly appearing out of nowhere, the Warsaw-based developer has debuted with a trailer that isn’t afraid to wear its inspiration on its sleeve. After a second look and a bit of digging into Dream Dock, however, the line between inspiration and imitation is more blurry than ever, prompting some skeptics to question whether the game is even real or simply a fancy pitch for a product that doesn’t exist.

‘Dreadmoor’s trailer raises more than a few concerns

Dreadmoor‘s trailer, frankly, isn’t helping its case. Commenters quickly pointed out its apparent lack of genuine gameplay footage, even during scenes in which strangely familiar UI elements appear to be tacked onto pre-rendered animation. It certainly rings a few alarms.

The unnatural head movement during supposed gameplay footage is telling. But, hey, maybe whoever recorded the footage has an eye for cinematography. Then there’s the unconvincing vocalizations from the main character, with out-of-place “Ooohs” and “Hmmms” that sound like one of those cursed mobile game ads where a husband walks in on his crying wife and dumps a bucket of mud on her.

Okay, fair enough – Dreadmoor‘s trailer doesn’t specifically claim to feature any actual gameplay footage. Even if its Dredge-inspired UI and aesthetic elements certainly seem to masquerade as such. The real kicker, for me, isn’t so much with Dreadmoor and its trailer, but with Dream Dock itself.

Who, exactly, is Dream Dock?

Huh – that’s a pretty unique logo, right? Studio Dream Dock is mysterious as Dreadmoor‘s eerie world, with almost no information available about its team, past projects, or general presence in the industry. Its official website has limited information about the game, with links to various social media profiles created just one month ago. Its Discord invitation link no longer works. And its Reddit button leads not to a subreddit for Dreadmoor, but instead, a non-existent user profile for u/bigbuoy234.

Reddit user u/Distance_Bland287, presumably someone from the Dream Dock team, is currently hosting an AMA thread for Dreadmoor. Now six hours old at the time of this writing, only three questions have replies, all relating to features the team intends to implement into the game. Any technical questions, such as the game engine Dreadmoor uses, or how much of the trailer contains actual, real-time gameplay, have yet to merit a response.

The Reddit Rabbit Hole

I took a look through u/Distance_Bland287’s post history, discovering an account that has existed for at least two years. However, it has only begun posting in game dev-related subreddits for 16 days. Five days ago, a thread titled “Made first-person character movement functionality in our survival game” was created by the same account. Evidently, a video was attached to a post, but has since been removed. The full comment thread, however, still exists. Curiously, not a single comment mentions the game’s likeness to Dredge, but instead, games like Raft.

UPDATE: Since publishing this, I’ve discovered two more Reddit accounts that claim to have ties to Dreadmoor. Like u/Distance_Bland287, both accounts appear to be at least two years old and have Reddit’s auto-generated names. u/Maleficent-Shine-154 has two recent posts, promoting Dreadmoor‘s trailer and a screenshot. u/Ease_Punctual410, however, has a post in r/GameDevelopment, stating they’ve been working on Dreadmoor for a mere six months. Though the user claims they’re “almost at the final build,” the majority of the post reads as a way to gauge commenters’ interest in the game and its concept. In the AMA thread mentioned above, the poster states Dream Dock’s intention to “try to produce a release in 2026.”

new fish on the block

The other social accounts that exist all seem to have only made their first posts following the trailer’s debut. Hey, it’s not impossible for a studio to pop up out of nowhere with a new, seemingly functional game. Maybe Dreadmoor‘s website can give some insight into the team behind it?

Huh, okay. Based on Dreadmoor‘s trailer, you’d think to see a team full of artists, coders, sound designers, etc. Strangely, Dream Dock’s “About” section only consists of two lads – CEO Rostislav Fedorov and CFO Alexander Dobrov. No one else. Which means either the team behind Dreadmoor isn’t important enough to mention for Dream Dock, or maybe, they simply don’t exist. A Google search for the Dream Dock duo leads to nothing noteworthy.

Immediately following the “About” section is an offer for partnership. Those interested can place an outsourcing order from Dream Dock’s full-cycle production team.

I certainly didn’t anticipate diving this deeply into Dreadmoor and the conversation surrounding its recent debut. And, hey, I hope I’m wrong and Dream Dock cooks up the same experience as shown in the trailer! For now, though, it’s hard to tell whether we’re seeing an ambitious project come to fruition or a couple of anglers eagerly awaiting their next catch.