There’s no push to perfect your rig or to try different baits.
Here that necessity isn’t in place and so if you’ve not had a bite you just need to wait a bit and you will get one. Fishing isn’t like that – there are natural lulls in the action that force you to think about your approach, tweaking what you’re doing a little. In a perfect world, fishing would be like this game’s vision: you appear by a lakeside, cast in a single piece of sweetcorn or a maggot, wait ten seconds and reel in a fish. It’s here that the game starts to fall behind some of the other offerings on the marketplace. So, getting a bite is not a problem, and indeed the official website promises that fish are biting hard down by the water. The simulator part of the title is certainly undeserved. Compare that to the Dovetail Games titles where the boss fish will punish the unprepared angler, and what’s left is almost arcade-styled simple fishing. When you compare this to other fishing games, there’s a sense of inevitability about each fight, and without a lie I’ve never lost a fish in this game – not once. There’s no need to move the rod, no need to pump, apply sidestrain, nothing – just press LT. It is pretty much a case of rinse and repeat this process until the fish is on the bank. Basically you are left to hold down the left trigger to reel in the line, and if the stress meter at the bottom of the screen turns red, you let go of the button when the colour changes to green, you hold it down again. I have got to get me one of these reels – it would save me so much effort.īut, fighting the fish in Ultimate Fishing Simulator is so easy that it robs the experience of any fun. The same happens when you reel in your line the handle revolves under its own steam. Yet when you cast in this game, it does it all by itself, without a human hand touching it. Now, as any angler knows, when casting with a fixed spool reel you have to click the bail arm over to allow line to come off the reel. We stroll to the waterside, and prepare to cast. It’s not going to give Dovetail Games’ Euro Fishing any sleepless nights, but it’s still perfectly pleasant. The surroundings look very nice, if not exactly photo-realistic, and the water effects are pretty good too. So, we appear on the lakeside, and have to walk to the bank and cast in. It is very difficult in this game to selectively fish for particular species though – something I’ll come onto later.
While we are on the subject of the fish species, the achievement structure is very much geared up to you catching all the types of fish in the game, with the first capture of every species awarding you a sweet cheevo.
However, the only lake that is available to us at the start is Betty Lake, a smallish patch of water that appears to be absolutely stuffed with trout of various different varieties. The reason there is so much to go at is that the Xbox version of Ultimate Fishing Simulator contains three of the DLC packs that were released for the game back from when it was on Steam. There are a variety of different lakes to unlock and fish, and there are an impressive number of species of fish to catch as well. For instance, Farming Simulator 19 sold over a million copies in its first ten days after release.One thing there is no shortage of in Ultimate Fishing Simulator is content. Sales figures of these proportions may seem high, but many simulator titles sell impressively well. Additionally, players have purchased over 100,000 add-ons and DLC packs. However, this will also serve as the studio’s first foray into core platform development.Īccording to Ultimate Games, the first Fishing Simulator managed to sell over 115,000 units.
MasterCode seems a good choice, as it has past experience with fishing simulator titles via its own Professional Fishing Mobile. Instead, a Polish studio called MasterCode will take over this task. Unlike the original, Fishing Simulator 2 won’t be developed by Bit Golem.
Its full release is planned for 2021, alongside the later console ports. Assuming everything goes to plan, though, it should only stay there for around half a year. The sequel will find its way to Early Access during the second half of 2020. Two years later, publisher Ultimate Games has unveiled a sequel is coming to Steam: Ultimate Fishing Simulator 2. Despite its inherent niche design, it was easy to tell the devs had put plenty of time and work into the final product. Bit Golem’s Ultimate Fishing Simulator was a surprise hit of 2018.