Please Stop Making Me Fish In Video Games

It’s time we all admitted that fishing in video games sucks. It’s not relaxing. It’s not rewarding. It’s not even remotely fun. Yet, for some reason, developers keep shoving it into otherwise fantastic games as though it’s a must-have feature, right alongside combat, crafting, and menu screens so convoluted that you’ll need a PhD to understand them–but that’s a topic for another time.

I didn’t sign up to be a professional angler. I signed up to fight interesting enemies, build myself an impressive base, or explore galaxies far, far away. Still, time and time again I find myself forced on to a pixelated dock, staring at a bobber, waiting for a fish that I do not care about.

Sometimes, said fish will turn up, poke its little head above the water tauntingly, and then I’m thrust into a quick-time event that I neither want nor am good at. Yet be it for resources or experience, here I am, reeling and releasing as instructed. Fishing has become the universally unskippable side quest.

I get it. Fishing, at first glance, seems relaxing. Maybe it’s intended to be a peaceful little side activity to give you a break from, well, whatever the point of the game in question actually is. In reality though, it’s an immersion-shattering, momentum-obliterating chore that far too many games insist on cramming into their worlds as if we’re all secretly longing for Deadliest Catch: JRPG Edition to become a reality.

Take The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. It’s a fantastic game, widely beloved, and yet it grinds to a halt in its early hours because Link absolutely must, for some reason, prove his worthiness by catching a fish. The sword-wielding, foe-slaying protagonist will only be deemed heroic by sitting still, eyes twitching, waiting for a small aquatic creature to succumb to him.

Final Fantasy XV’s Noctis whips his rod out so often you’d be forgiven for mistaking him for a professional angler rather than the True King. His fishing career begins in an almost charming manner–he’s just a prince fishing with his pals! But as FFXV progresses, its world growing more compelling and its story more high-stakes, I don’t want a detour to play a minigame that’d be at home as a DLC for Wii Sports. Let me enjoy my gods, empires, and magic cars.

Red Dead Redemption 2, widely considered one of the most immersive open-world games of all time, shatters that immersion by dragging you into fishing with young Jack. It’s heartwarming at first, fine, and I can forgive it for using fishing as a means to show the bond between characters and enhance the game’s storytelling. But just as I’m about to concede that perhaps fishing in games is occasionally okay, the legendary side quest appears and suddenly Arthur Morgan is a fly-fishing fanatic. All I want to do is rob trains and flee the Pinkertons.

Even when you consider games that perhaps do need fishing in them to complement the gameplay style, such as Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing, they still choose to present fishing as a daunting test of patience rather than a light-hearted experience. Stardew’s fishing mechanic has caused me to rage-quit more often than any title in the Dark Souls series. I just want to live a peaceful farm life, but every time I try to fish it feels more like disarming a bomb than the relaxing minigame it should be.

And though fishing is less needlessly intense in Animal Crossing, the amount you are encouraged to do is baffling. Nothing pays as well as fishing–Animal Crossing’s entire economy could be run on black market fish sales. Cool new furniture in the shop? Sell fish to afford it. Progress the museum collection? So much fishing. If I see one more sea bass, I am hurling my Switch console into the nearest large body of water. And no, I won’t be fishing it back out.

If fishing added anything meaningful, I’d probably be more on board. But as far as I’ve seen, there is no way to embellish a fishing minigame to the point that it is enjoyable. Press button, wait, press button again. When it comes down to it, I don’t see any way that the mechanic can fundamentally evolve past that–which is why more developers need to start learning that it’s not endearing, it’s infuriating.

The immersion-breaking nature of fishing is potentially the biggest reason I hate it, though. One minute I’m fighting impressive enemies, navigating an apocalypse, or trying to escape Hell, and the next I’m sitting at a lake waving a fishing rod, inciting tonal whiplash and huge frustration. If I’m the literal son of the god of the Underworld, I shouldn’t be expected to know how to fish, least of all enjoy it.

Don’t get me wrong, there are games that somehow manage to do fishing relatively well. Sea of Thieves leans into the absurdity of it all, while Spiritfarer’s meditative approach fits the narrative of the game well. They’re exceptions though, not the rule, and it still makes me wonder why fishing has to be everywhere.

Fishing in games has become the equivalent of a frustrating fetch quest. Developers use it as padding, or a way to add hours of playtime to your experience, but it’s not meaningful content. Some people may genuinely enjoy it, but the rest of us–who I’m willing to bet are the majority–are being held hostage by virtual trout. If you’re going to insist upon putting fishing in your game, make it optional, or at least enjoyable. Let me buy the fish instead of sitting here waiting for them as they taunt me. Let me bribe a nearby fisherman for his haul. Let me launch a grenade into the ocean and collect 600 at once. Let me get on with my life.

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