About

Webfishing is a multiplayer chatroom-focused fishing cozy game released in mid-October 2024. In the video game, players are anthropomorphic animals who fish various fish and engage in mini-games and exploration on an island. Socializing with other players and customizing one's character is a key component of the game, making it similar to social games like VRChat.

History

On September 23rd, 2022, indie developer West (also known as lamedeveloper) released^[1] the initial build of Webfishing, a multiplayer social fishing game, for the Cozy Autumn Jam (post shown below).

Just released WEBFISHING for @Gooodgis's Cozy Autumn Jam! An online multiplayer fishing game! I'll be hosting an official server for up to 64 players for a while! I'll be on there for a bit fishing!! (Link in reply) pic.twitter.com/XzosVlhW3f

— west (@westthewerst) September 23, 2022

On September 24th, 2024, the official trailer for the game was released, garnering over 105,000 views, 930 reposts and 6,500 likes on X^[2] in one month (YouTube^[3] upload shown below).

On October 11th, 2024, Webfishing was released for PC on Steam.^[4][5]

Gameplay and Features

Webfishing is a multiplayer fishing game focused on socializing with other players. The game offers a variety of mini-games, such as fishing, metal detecting and playing guitar. Webfishing features a progression system: as players catch new species of fish and find various objects, they are able to sell them and improve their gear and camp and buy new cosmetic objects. The players are able to communicate via chat and emotes, with a dedicated button used for meowing and barking.

Reception

The game was met with positive reviews from critics and audiences. On Steam,^[6] the game had a 98 percent approval rating with over 6,200 user reviews as of October 24th, 2024. The game received positive reviews from PC Gamer^[7] and Inverse.^[8] The design of the game has been compared to that of Animal Crossing and other cozy games.

Fandom

Following its release in mid-October 2024, the game achieved popularity on social media, with users sharing fan art, fan animations and memes based on it. For example, on October 17th, 2024, X^[9] user @thebenjimaru posted a fan art that received over 600 reposts and 5,600 likes in one week (shown below).

On October 20th, 2024, X^[10] user @iKissMTFs posted a Webfishing gameplay clip captioned, "world's first webfishing trickshot." The post (shown below) received over 1,000 reposts and 8,900 likes in four days.

world's first webfishing trickshot pic.twitter.com/KPPFUvyI9j

— Chloe 🐾 (@iKissMTFs) October 19, 2024

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References