This fishing game awards bonus XP for no-scoping an airborne mackerel, and I think that's beautiful

The player takes aim at an airborne fish in How to Fish. — (Image credit: Dazed Games)

I've spent precious little time in my life with a line in the water, but I admire fishing in the abstract as an alignment of man and his environment through pelagic contemplation. Based on what I'm seeing from upcoming co-op angling game How to Fish, however, I've apparently missed some critical bits of the fishing equation. Bits like whipping a fish out of the water so you can quick-scope it in midair with a bolt-action rifle for bonus XP.

The description on the How to Fish Steam listing doesn't do it justice: "You and your friends are out drinking and boating. You crash into a small island where you have to fish using everything from fishing rods to assault rifles," it explains. "Sell your catch, earn money, buy better fishing gear, and defeat boss fishes to unlock new islands and finally make it back home."

We've been living in a post-Ridiculous Fishing world of absurdist angling for years. But what catches my eye about How to Fish is the speed of its 0-100 acceleration from traditional fishing to physics-based guntoting dipshittery. In the trailer, there's a scant two seconds before the player is unloading an uzi magazine into a fresh catch so it can be grilled for money, earning a string of Call of Duty-esque XP bonuses beneath their crosshairs.

Players launch a live shark from the water with their fishing poles so their friends can fistfight it. A melee-killed codfish gets stolen by a seagull, which gets shot out of the air with a sniper rifle. In a gif embedded in the description, the player earns separate headshot and one-shot one-kill bonuses by quickscoping a mackerel, which they punctuate with a CS2-style twirl.

I should note that the listing's mature content description mentions "gambling with in-game currency." Judging from the bet placed at a roulette table in one of the game's screenshots, "currency" can apparently mean "an entire grilled dogfish."

The player earns 100 points for killing a codfish with a sniper rifle in How to Fish. — (Image credit: Dazed Games)

In short, it's a good bit. And I admire the affect of the list of features that developer Dazed Games plans to add before release, which includes "A character model that isn't a bean." Noble goals.

How to Fish doesn't have a demo or release date yet, but once it's playable, you can bet I'll be practicing my flick shots. By which I mean flicking a mackerel into the air and shooting it.

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Lincoln has been writing about games for 12 years—unless you include the essays about procedural storytelling in Dwarf Fortress he convinced his college professors to accept. Leveraging the brainworms from a youth spent in World of Warcraft to write for sites like Waypoint, Polygon, and Fanbyte, Lincoln spent three years freelancing for PC Gamer before joining on as a full-time News Writer in 2024, bringing an expertise in Caves of Qud bird diplomacy, getting sons killed in Crusader Kings, and hitting dinosaurs with hammers in Monster Hunter.

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