The fishing controls, in order

Fishing in Dreadmoor happens entirely in first person, which means the controls do double duty: they aim the cast and they fight the fish.

Casting. Left mouse button casts toward the water in front of you. The interface displays the distance to your bobber in metres, which matters because a fishing spot is a place in the water, not a radius around the boat. If you cast short, you are fishing empty water.

Selecting bait. A tackle panel lets you choose what goes on the hook. Hands-on coverage of the demo build describes opening it with R and using the same key to hide the fishing-spot panel. Bait choice changes what is willing to bite, so this is not a cosmetic step — see the bait guide for which bait covers which species.

The fight. The demo presents three actions: reel in, pull against the fish, and drag. In practice the fight is a two-variable problem. The fish has a stamina meter; your line has a tension meter. Pulling reduces stamina and raises tension. Dragging steers the fish away from obstacles and snags. The demo's own voice-over states the principle plainly: pull in the opposite direction to tire the fish out.

Countering a run. When the fish darts, you counter with the mouse or with A and D. Countering correctly drains stamina faster; countering late strains the line. This is the skill the whole game is built on, and it is worth practising on Snappers before you hook something that fights back.

One detail from the official screenshots that is easy to miss: the HUD shows both an 8-metre cast distance and prompts for the two pull actions at the same time. You are meant to read distance and tension together, which is why a smaller screen makes fishing harder. The Steam Deck page covers that trade-off.

The boat controls

The trawler drives like a small workboat, not a speedboat. Steering is deliberate, acceleration is slow, and stopping takes planning. The demo's on-screen prompts name the keys directly.

Action Key Notes
Leave the helm F Shown as F LEAVE HELM while driving
Boat lighting L Spotlight and running lights
Nitro / afterburner Shift Only after the upgrade is installed
Interact with salvage Hook gun Used away from the helm
Select bait / tackle R Opens the tackle panel

Two of those are upgrades rather than starting abilities. The afterburner is a dry dock component, and the spotlight is a separate installation; before they exist, the prompt does not appear. If you see other players using nitro early, they are further along the upgrade tree, not using a different build.

The compass strip at the top of the screen shows waypoints and distance in metres. It is the only navigation aid you get — there is no minimap on the boat — so waypoint distance is how you judge whether a detour is affordable in fuel.

The hook gun and salvage

The hook gun is Dreadmoor's answer to looting a flooded world. You aim at floating crates, barrels, and submerged salvage and pull it in, and it works from the deck rather than requiring you to swim.

This is not optional equipment. Several demo objectives need materials that only come from salvage, and the walkthrough notes where the hook gun becomes mandatory. The practical habit is to sweep the water around every stop before you leave: the cost is a few seconds, and the alternative is sailing back for a metal plate.

The harpoon gun is a different tool with a different job. It is used for heavier pulls and for the gate mechanism at The Throat, and it is also a combat option against creatures in the water. Do not confuse the two: the hook gun retrieves loot, the harpoon gun moves heavy things and hurts things.

Crafting and workbench controls

Crafting is a physical action rather than a menu transaction. At a workbench you open the recipe list, choose a recipe, and place ingredients into the slots by hand.

From the official crafting screenshot, the interface uses N for the recipe list, F to craft, and Esc to exit. The recipe card shows the item name and a row of ingredient slots with quantities, which means you can see at a glance whether you are short one component or five.

That matters more than it sounds. Dreadmoor's recipes are not forgiving about partial stacks, and the most common crafting failure is assuming a recipe is available because you have some of each ingredient. Read the slot counts before you commit.

Settings worth changing before you play

Dreadmoor's default camera behaviour is the one setting almost everyone touches. Hands-on impressions of the demo describe cutting controller sensitivity roughly in half because the default camera moves faster than the game's pace suggests. That is consistent with a first-person game where you spend most of your time looking at water, not fighting a camera.

Three changes are worth making in the first five minutes:

  • Lower mouse or stick sensitivity. The fishing fight is a precision task, and a twitchy camera makes countering a running fish harder than it needs to be.
  • Check the UI scale. Fish weight, rarity stars and tension gauges are small. If your display is large or your eyesight is not, scale up before you start rather than after a lost fish.
  • Turn subtitles on. Dialogue is a primary source of quest information, and the voice acting is English and Russian only. If you play in another language, subtitles carry the instructions.

Dream Dock has not published a full list of rebindable actions, so treat any "best keybind" guide with suspicion. Check your own settings menu; the demo exposes the standard input options.

What the controls are trying to make you feel

It is worth understanding the design intent behind the awkwardness, because it explains why the boat does not handle like a car and why you cannot see behind you.

Dream Dock's stated goal is vulnerability. The first-person view gives you exactly what the pilot would see and nothing more: no camera showing what is under the water, no way to watch front and back at once. The studio says this "amplifies the importance of sound", because you have to listen for approaching danger rather than watch for it.

The boat controls serve the same end. It is heavy, it needs fuel, and it does not turn on a dime, so leaving a dangerous area is a decision you commit to early rather than a button you press. That is also why the night page treats darkness as a logistics problem rather than a combat one.

Once the controls stop feeling clumsy — usually after the first successful fishing contract — they start feeling like the point. If they never do, the demo is free and the Early Access scope summary will tell you how much more of the same is coming.

Sources

Sources checked November 3, 2026. Key bindings come from official screenshots and hands-on coverage of the demo build; Dream Dock has not published a formal control list.