How to Fish is a 1-4 player physics-based fishing simulator and the latest viral sensation in online co-op gaming. Learn more about the game’s plot, gameplay, release date, our first impressions of the game, and more.
Overview
What is How to Fish?
How to Fish is a 1–8 player online co-op adventure where you and your friends are stranded in an uncharted ocean, fishing for profit while searching for a way home.
The game combines physics-based fishing with first-person shooting, creating a simple gameplay loop of catching and killing fish, selling them, and upgrading your gear. Boss fights add a tougher challenge that requires coordinated teamwork.
How to Fish features:
⚫︎ Fishing Made Easier With Guns
⚫︎ Support For Up to 8 Player Lobbies (As of Patch 1.0.4)
⚫︎ Raid-like Boss Fights
⚫︎ Easy to Understand Progression
⚫︎ Endless Mode
⚫︎ $8 Price Point
| Digital Storefronts | ||
|---|---|---|
 Steam |
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| $7.99 | ||
How to Fish Review | This Co-Op Fishing Game Knows How to Reel You In
Catching the New Viral Sensation
When MECCHA CHAMELEON dominated the "friendslop" wave during the first half of 2026, selling 20 million copies since its launch, it became clear that the gold rush surrounding the online co-op genre is still going strong. Developers continue to stake their claim with inventive co-op titles built around increasingly wild and absurd premises.
Then there’s How to Fish, the new multiplayer game from the developers of Out of Hand. While games like Big Walk deconstructed the genre by experimenting with the mechanics that make the social side of co-op games so enjoyable, How to Fish combines the hectic hilarity of party games with the absurd twist of first-person shooter mechanics, all against the mundanity of a simple fishing trip.
There is no world where this mishmash of popular genres should work as well as it does, but somehow, Dazed Games clearly understands what makes party games so addictive. The sheer chaos of its gameplay creates plenty of unpredictable and hilarious moments, from its surprise boss encounters to its wild first-person shooting, and, of course, a whole lot of screaming after every failed attempt.
After finishing the game in around eight hours, with the help of a few friends and spending the rest of my time playing solo, it’s clear how How to Fish’s gameplay loop hooks players, pun intended. While it has a couple of rough edges that make it feel like a work in progress such as unbalanced weapons and meaningful progression, the loop works because of how it successfully blends two unlikely genres together into one addicting co-op game.
An Odyssey of Some Sorts
Like Odysseus’ tale from Homer’s classic works, How to Fish is somewhat of an epic adventure about finding your way home while facing unspeakable terrors along the way. You and your friends are essentially trapped in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by islands populated by an eccentric cast of characters. With no one coming to save you, there are plenty of things to do to survive in the wild, and naturally, that starts with fishing.
How to Fish’s story doesn’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things. It follows the same blueprint as most online co-op games, where a scripted narrative takes a backseat, and the emergent storytelling remains firmly at the center of the experience.
There’s certainly a victory waiting at the end, much like how the great Odysseus returned to his beloved Ithaca after years lost at sea and battling ferocious beasts along the way. But there will be no grand fanfare. The real moment of triumph comes from how well you and your squad work in sync as you slay oceanic horrors and, hopefully, make it out alive.
And to deal with these underwater threats, fishing is the game’s most important activity.
Fish and Friends; Plus Food
Teamwork makes the dream work in How to Fish’s gameplay loop. While the game is perfectly playable solo, there’s little reason to tackle it alone when you can invite friends and work together to find the most efficient way to make it back home. That is, of course, assuming everyone is on the same page.
The core gameplay loop is simple: catch fish, kill them with your bare fists or shoot them with a shotgun, and sell their remains for profit. It’s straightforward enough that a ten-year-old could probably figure it out within minutes. That simplicity is likely one reason the game has sold a million copies since launch. Despite that, the game doesn’t hand you all the answers right away. Its progression system gradually introduces new mechanics, from cooking fish from a nearby grill to increase its value to eventually 360-no-scoping a massive Albatross from a distance.
As more of the game opens up, encounters become tougher, and earning enough money can no longer fall on that one friend who always insists on playing the objective while everyone else slacks off somewhere. How to Fish requires everyone to pull their weight, as its systems become more complex later on. Without a proper strategy to take on its bosses, progress can quickly come to a halt, leaving your entire squad stuck on the same island until you’re properly prepared.
It’s also worth noting that the game’s difficulty scales depending on how many players you have. Solo players have it easier since there’s less competition for resources and fewer mouths to feed, while having more players reduces the value of each catch. Still, more hands are always better than one, making it a fair trade-off rather than a frustrating one. The friendly banter and chaos of playing with others keep things entertaining in a way that isn’t possible when playing alone. More importantly, you’ll need those extra hands to survive the game’s raid-like encounters, which is something I never expected to find in a game about fishing.
Not Your Typical Fishing Game
Unique to How to Fish’s gameplay are its bizarre, raid-like encounters, where you’ll face off against a variety of bosses. These creatures range from giant crabs to massive Piranhas surrounded by their own swarms, and taking them down requires some serious firepower. Thankfully, the game gives you plenty of weapons to choose from, ranging from simple brass knuckles to fully modded Assault Rifles that can turn you into one big Call of Duty character.
This is the true test to How to Fish’s gameplay as progressing through the game requires a fair amount of preparation. It’s reminiscent of what you’d expect before jumping into a Destiny 2 raid, where you spend time getting your Exotics and loadout ready.
The reason I bring this up is that this game actively encourages you to grind; otherwise you’re often left at the mercy of its physics system. Unlike games where enemies clearly telegraph their attacks with wide swings or delayed strikes, How to Fish relies heavily on contact damage, similar to how Hollow Knight hurts you the moment you touch an enemy by simply standing beside it.
It’s a physics game first and foremost, and part of the excitement comes from how unpredictably its ragdoll mechanics behave. The problem is that when these monsters do hit you, the resulting damage can feel inconsistent, and there’s often little time to react before you’re sent flying or lose a chunk of health. I wish there were a way to properly dodge enemy attacks instead of having to run away or kite them around until an opening appears.
Being underpowered means you won’t be able to kill bosses within the allotted time simply because your squad doesn’t meet the damage check. Preparing for each encounter also takes a lot of work. Before you can even challenge a boss, you’ll need to collect specific bait from NPCs, many of whom have their own checklists, such as catching five fish or defeating a mini-boss. Even worse, every failed boss attempt sends you back to square one, forcing you to repeat the entire preparation process.
This makes the routine increasingly tedious as you progress, as you’re constantly catching fish, selling them for profit, and grinding for better gear until you finally have enough firepower to take down the next big boss.
One other problem we ran into was the game’s unintuitive looting system, made worse by its lack of visibility. Dying from bosses causes you to drop your currently equipped item, and more often than not, we failed boss encounters not because it was too difficult, but because we spent half the fight searching for a missing pistol that had fallen somewhere on the ground and seemingly vanished into the ether.
It also didn’t help that we had one friend who would constantly scream for a revive, only for us to discover him tucked away in some random corner with no indicator showing where he was. A proper ping system or even a mini compass showing where the heck our friends were getting knocked out would have made these moments much less frustrating.
Because of these odd issues, stocking up on items like fish to restore your health and upgrading your weapons are essential if you want to survive these boss fights and make the most of their limited damage phases. That said, I have to admit the game becomes easier later on as its progression system becomes more apparent, with more expensive bait and valuable catches giving you more money to work with. More powerful guns also gradually become available, including the Submachine Gun, which is a personal favorite of mine and arguably the most broken weapon in the entire arsenal.
Not Everything is a Great Catch
There’s something undeniably satisfying about watching those numbers go up in How to Fish; like a dopamine rush with every upgrade. As a result, it is an incredibly addictive game, with a sense of progression that gradually makes you feel more powerful. However, that same sense of progression can become a trap, feeding into the game’s repetitive gameplay loop. Beyond its growing arsenal of weapons, How to Fish doesn’t introduce many new mechanics as you progress. Instead, it falls into a familiar power-creep cycle where weapons become increasingly powerful with each island, effectively pushing you to sell your old gear and buy the biggest gun available to maximize your damage potential.
It’s a little strange because the weapons don’t really bring anything new to the table, as most boss fights in How to Fish can die with a well-placed shot to the head but their increasingly bloated health pools force you to keep upgrading to bigger and stronger weapons. There’s only one encounter that requires a specific type of gun, and that ended up being my favorite boss fight in the game because it actually encouraged a different approach. At that point, How to Fish starts feeling less like a fishing adventure and more like a numbers game, as you’re essentially forced to grind rather than approach encounters creatively or think outside the box.
The grind is not necessarily a bad thing, as there’s a certain coziness to simply sitting down and fishing. The game also finds other ways to make things a little more interesting, like a gambling machine that lets you risk your catch for a chance to sell it for double or even quadruple the price. Because it’s entirely optional, it fits the game’s friendslop charm, creating more opportunities for hilarious moments rather than feeling like a mandatory part of the progression.
Plus, the game at least tries to add some variety elsewhere, as bringing these coveted bosses to the surface requires more than simply casting a line and waiting. Each one has different objectives tied to its type, whether it’s collecting leeches to use as bait or taking down a giant Tuna first. And I have to admit, watching your arsenal evolve from a simple knife into a full-fledged Assault Rifle also feels genuinely rewarding.
It also helps that each island feels distinct in its own way, even though they ultimately follow the same basic objective: take down a massive boss and obtain another USB drive containing the coordinates to the next island. I wanted to see more islands during my journey, though, as some of the bosses began to feel a little derivative, with not enough meaningful differences between them.
Is How to Fish Worth It?
Worth the Quick Catch, But Could Use More Bait
How to Fish is a genuinely enjoyable online co-op game to play with friends. Its responsive gameplay and unusual blend of fishing and shooting hit an addictive sweet spot, especially as you watch your numbers steadily climb and your arsenal grow more powerful.
That said, the game still has a few problems holding it back. Its inconsistent physics system can make incoming damage frustrating to avoid, while its unbalanced weapon selection doesn’t do enough to add variety to the experience.
But that doesn’t mean there’s no room for improvement. How to Fish is priced at just $8, which is probably around what you’d spend on fishing bait if you were actually planning to fish in real life. It’s an easy purchase to justify, and much like a good fishing trip, you can still get your money’s worth. There’s a lot of potential here, especially beyond its currently limited selection of five maps, and I’m hoping future updates can reel in even more content.
How to Fish Related Guides
| Recommended Guides | |
|---|---|
 Fish |
 Bosses |
 Islands |
 Weapons |
 Baits |
 News |
 Bugs and Errors |
 Review |
FAQ
How Many Players Can Play in a Single Lobby of How to Fish?
As of Patch 1.0.4, How to Fish supports up to 8 players in a single online co-op lobby. The game is also playable solo.
How Many Islands Are There in How to Fish?
How to Fish currently has five islands to explore.
How Many Weapons Are There in How to Fish?
Apart from your fists, How to Fish currently has eight weapons in total: Brass Knuckles, Knife, Pistol, SMG, Shotgun, Sniper Rifle, Dynamite, and Assault Rifle.
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