Brand-New Steam Game Reaches Over 260,000 Concurrent Players After Launch

A new co-op fishing game has become one of Steam's biggest releases of August. How to Fish reached a peak of 268,101 concurrent players on August 23, only three days after launching on PC.

Developed and published by Dazed Games, How to Fish combines fishing with physics-based combat, co-op play, boss fights, and increasingly strange equipment. The 268,101 figure represents people playing at the same time, rather than total players or copies sold.

How to Fish launched through Steam on August 20 and took only a few days to pass 260,000 concurrent players.

The 268,101-player peak also gives How to Fish the highest concurrent-player peak yet for a Dazed Games release.

The game is currently available only on PC. No PlayStation, Xbox, or Nintendo versions have been announced.

Despite its name, How to Fish does not play like a traditional fishing simulator. One to four players begin after crashing their boat on an island and need to earn enough money to keep progressing.

Fish can be caught, sold, and used to fund better equipment, but the game quickly introduces weapons, quests, new islands, and boss fights. Its physics system also lets players launch fish through the air and hit them with weapons for trick-shot bonuses.

Rare fish variants give players more to collect, while completing quests and defeating bosses opens access to new islands with more dangerous creatures and better gear.

How to Fish normally costs $7.99 on Steam in the US. Dazed Games launched it with a 38% introductory discount, dropping the price to $4.95 until August 27.