Fishing Planet

1. Summary

The praise in Fishing Planet's reviews centres on how close it feels to real fishing. Players like the tackle system, where rod, reel, line, leader, hook and bait all have to match, and fish that react to weather, time of day and depth. The lakes, rivers and ocean maps look good, and the sound of water and birds helps make it a game people play to unwind or as a stand-in for days they can't get out on the water. 6.4% of the longer reviews call it the best fishing game they have played, and 17.3% point out that it is free to start.

The two complaints that come up most are about money and time: shop pop-ups and pack offers on almost every screen, and a slow XP and money grind made heavier by travel, licence and repair costs. Players tie both to premium time and expensive DLC packs. Smaller groups object to paid map access that expires, ocean maps locked behind very high levels, multiplayer that is harder to reach than the store page suggests, thin in-game guidance on building rigs, disconnects that lose hooked fish, and Denuvo anti-cheat bans that players say came without explanation. The fishing itself draws little criticism. Where reviewers part ways is on whether the grind and the paywalls are a fair price for a free game or a reason to leave.

2. What keeps coming up

What players praise

Fishing that feels like the real thingHigh

Realism comes up in 15.5% of the longer reviews, some of them from people who fish in real life. They praise hook sets, drag, fights that differ by species, snags, and the way bait, lure size and retrieve style all matter. The tackle system gets credit for depth (10.9% mention the variety of gear, species and fishing styles), and some players say they learned to fish from it or went back to fishing in real life afterwards (3.4%). A reviewer who fishes outside the game puts the balance this way: "Its realistic enough to tickle the fishing itch while still being arcade like enough to be fun to play." A small group (1.8%) disagrees and calls the fights arcade-like or the fish unrealistically strong.

A calm way to fish when you can't go outsideHigh

Players describe it as something to put on after work, alongside music, podcasts or an audiobook, or in winter and bad weather when real fishing is off; 13.8% of the longer reviews call it relaxing, chill, calming or peaceful. The ambient sound gets regular mentions: "The sounds are great with the ambient sounds of birds and water flowing and it's VERY relaxing." Other reviews say the mood breaks when a pop-up appears or a long fight ends in a lost fish.

Waterways, species and sceneryHigh

Players enjoy moving from Lone Star Lake to rivers, swamps, the Congo and ocean maps such as Japan and the Maldives, each with its own fish list and missions. The graphics, scenery or sound come up in 12.1% of the longer reviews, nearly always positively. A typical short version: "solid game beautiful water graphics and sounds". The few graphics complaints (0.5%) call the visuals dated, and a handful of players ask for more regions, especially Australia and more coastal US fishing.

It teaches real fishingMedium

A small group credit the game with teaching them about rods, reels, line weights and fish behaviour, sometimes enough to buy real gear. One reviewer says "the game has actually taught me most of what i know about how to fish in the real world".

Where players are split

Fishing with friendsHigh

For the 11.4% of longer reviews that mention friends, family or co-op, the game is at its best fishing next to someone, sometimes a parent or child. Getting there is the problem. Newcomers report that joining friends requires level 5, that most boats seat one person, and that shared boats on the ocean need high levels or a paid pack (1.8% describe these gates directly). "It says multiplayer is unlocked at level 5 but actually it just says that to make u play to level 5." Others ask for voice chat, crossplay with console and a way to give friends bait or lures.

Whether paying is optionalMedium

Players argue about this directly. 6.0% of the longer reviews call the game pay-to-win or pay-to-progress, and 2.6% insist you can play without spending. On one side: "Extremely Pay to Win, it's basically Raid: Shadow Legends, but with fish." On the other, from a long-time player: "i played up until about level 70 without paying a dime." Other reviews land in between: everything can be earned, but slowly enough that they felt pushed toward premium time or a pack. A few long-time players suggest that anyone who spends should put the money into premium time or cheap premium-shop gear rather than the expensive packs.

Fish fights and line tensionMedium

How fights play out comes up in 3.6% of the longer reviews, with reactions both ways. Some players enjoy long, tense fights with big fish. Others say fish escape on a split second of "low line tension" at the end of a long fight, or that ocean fights drag on for very long stretches. "You might fight the fish perfectly for 20 minutes IRL and get it within 15-20 of the boat and it will charge and there goes your fish along with all the cash and xp." A couple of veterans object to a change to the fight mechanics: one says fish too big for the current tackle now simply come unhooked with a message to upgrade, and another, writing after a 2024 ocean update, says the new mechanic wastes time and takes the fun out of fights.

Updates and reworksLow

New maps get praise, and so does what players describe as a mid-2026 rework of the starting lakes and the new-player experience: "I love the reworked lonestar island." Others say updates brought frame drops, crashes or quieter nerfs to XP and payouts: "stop nerfing maps every update to make the grind worse".

Community and chatLow

Some players credit club members and YouTube guides for getting them started, and one lists "Very friendly and helpful community" first among the game's pros. Others describe slurs in public chat alongside strict filters that mute or chat-ban players for mild jokes or ordinary words, and one long review says "the official discord is such a terrible place".

What frustrates players

Pop-ups and pressure to payHigh

Players describe offers appearing on login, on level-up, when leaving a lake and when opening menus, even for packs they already own and even with premium active. Monetization pressure (pop-ups, ads for packs, "money grab" or "pay-to-win") comes up in 17.9% of the longer reviews, and pop-up ads alone in 7.5%. Reviewers with only a few hours played raise pop-ups most often. "If I say no to a pop-up about buying something, stop opening it another 10 times in less than 5 minutes." Some say they quit before reaching the fishing they came for.

A slow grind made heavier by travel, licence and repair costsHigh

Grind complaints, in 17.0% of the longer reviews, come up more often from people with more hours in the game. They describe XP requirements that climb steeply from the mid-levels, long stints farming one species (walleye and sturgeon are the usual examples), and an economy where travel fees, real-time licences, repairs and small keepnets eat the earnings (7.1% name these costs). "So you're not even making money at that point. You're just getting back to where you were before you travelled." Others mention fines for keeping the wrong fish, licences that expire in real hours, and gear that sells back for a small fraction of its price. A small group (1.4%) say they enjoy the grind and see it as part of fishing.

Little guidance on rigs, the shop and menusHigh

The game explains too little, according to 12.2% of the longer reviews: which rod, reel, line, leader and bait fit together, why bought items are greyed out, how the backpack and home storage work, and how to sell fish without leaving. Newcomers raise this most. Some say they only got going after watching YouTube guides or community spreadsheets, and some lost their savings on gear that did not fit. "How bad is a game when you have to google things before finishing the tutorial." A few players hit a dead end with no money and no working rod and found no way to reset their account.

Disconnects, crashes and bugsMedium

Technical problems come up in 9.8% of the longer reviews, most often from players with hundreds of hours. A dropped connection costs more than a restart here: players say it loses the fish on the line after a long fight, plus licence time and gear durability. "I was fighting a fish for 30 minutes, in the middle of the fight it decided to disconnect me and i lost the fish." Players in Southeast Asia describe high ping and ask for a closer server. Others report crashes after major updates, frame drops, a stuck reel that needs a restart, an Escape key that stops working, and a screen that goes black when taking a trophy photo.

Paid content that expires or stays lockedMedium

6.1% describe content they paid for or wanted but could not use. Much of this is about DLC that includes only 30 or 60 days of access to a high-level map, which then locks again until the player reaches its level: "I have no idea why they would make you pay $50 for a DLC just for temporary access." Others object to ocean fishing sitting behind level 80 and up ("being forced to grind to level 54 then to the 80's just to experience saltwater fishing is just absurd"), to keepnets and boats that can't hold the biggest fish without a paid boat, and to seasonal events that need high levels or paid bait. 4.0% call the DLC overpriced, and a few reviewers add up the full DLC catalogue at well over a thousand dollars.

Denuvo anti-cheat and unexplained bansMedium

Some of the 6.0% who raise the anti-cheat or bans refuse to install a kernel-level anti-cheat for a fishing game at all. Others describe permanent bans they say came from tools running in other programs, such as Cheat Engine or an autoclicker, from sharing a PC with a sibling, or from no reason they could find, followed by support that would not say what was detected. One player banned for running Cheat Engine on a different game writes: "Support completely useless, replying in canned responses." Ban complaints made up a larger share of the reviews in late 2024, when players described a wave of bans after the anti-cheat arrived. A few reviewers were later unbanned, and a few admit they really were cheating.

Account and platform limitsLow

Smaller groups object to the always-online requirement and email signup for a mostly solo game, the lack of progress sharing between PC, console and mobile, and the lack of any way to reset an account after a bad start.

Fish locations that feel scriptedLow

A few veterans say fish appear at fixed spots on timers, so everyone casts to the same place with the same setup, which they feel undercuts the sense of discovery and makes competitions about memorised spots.

3. The player conversation

The tone is mostly friendly and often jokey. A large share of the reviews are one-liners ("fish", "fih", "relaxing", "best fishing game") or memes, and the short positive ones mostly say the same thing: this is the best fishing game they have found, and it costs nothing to try. The detailed reviews are more critical, and some of them still recommend the game while listing the same problems. A typical mixed review praises the fishing and condemns the business model in the same breath.

People in their first hours talk most about pop-ups, confusing rigs and menus, the level-5 gate on fishing with friends, and in some cases bans that hit new accounts. Long-time players talk about XP walls in the mid and late levels, expensive packs with timed map access, fish lost to line tension or disconnects, and maps they believe were nerfed. Some long-time players who now leave negative reviews say they loved the game for years, and their complaints are about how it has changed.

The week of August 5, 2024, during the anti-cheat ban wave, was among the least positive in the slice (77%), as was the week of June 16, 2025, when players describe crashes and bugs after the Maldives map arrived (76%). Complaints about pop-ups made up a larger share of the longer reviews written in the first half of 2026 than of those from late 2024. Most weeks stayed between about 80% and 90% positive.

4. What the developers could do

1. Cut the pop-up offers back hard. Monetization pressure comes up in 17.9% of the longer reviews, and players, newcomers especially, describe offers on almost every screen, including for packs they already own.
2. Rebalance the early and mid-game economy. Players say travel fees, real-time licences, repairs and small keepnets cancel out their earnings, and they ask for costs that scale with level and licences that run on in-game time.
3. Make paid map access permanent, or state its limits plainly at purchase. Buyers of 30 and 60 day packs say they lost access to content they paid for once the timer ran out before they reached the map's level.
4. Teach rig building and the shop inside the game. Players say they needed YouTube to learn which rod, reel, line and bait fit together, and ask for compatibility hints, warnings before selling or deleting gear, and an account reset.
5. Protect a hooked fish when the connection drops. Players report losing long fights, licence time and gear durability to disconnects, and players in Southeast Asia ask for a closer server.
6. Explain bans and offer a real appeal. Players banned by the anti-cheat say support would not tell them what was detected and closed their cases. They ask for a stated reason and a review by a person.
7. Open up fishing with friends. Players want to join friends from the start, share multi-seat boats on freshwater maps without a high level or a pack, give friends bait, and play across PC and console.
8. Tune the low line tension escapes. Players lose fish to a split second of slack at the end of long fights and ask for a longer grace period, especially on ocean maps.