The Best Fishing Minigames in Video Games

The world is ending, and the hero would like to go to the lake for a few hours first.

Entries
10
Category
Games
Updated
  1. A battered old fishing rod lying on a harbor dock beside a single gaping orange fish.

    10. Pokémon Red and Blue

    Game Freak · 1996

    A fishing guru in Vermilion City hands you the Old Rod, which in practice catches only Magikarp, the weakest creature in the game. Patience is rewarded much later when it evolves into a sea serpent. The only fishing minigame that is a long con.

  2. A long wooden pier in a jungle bay with a fishing pole and a crate of fish, a sea serpent fin far out in the water.

    09. World of Warcraft

    Blizzard Entertainment · 2004

    A skill trained by a fishing master, ranked up one cast at a time, with a weekly competitive fishing tournament in Stranglethorn Vale. Millions of players visited a dragon-infested fantasy world and chose to stand on a dock for hours. Correct choice.

  3. A plastic fishing reel controller on a carpet in front of a CRT television showing a lake.

    08. Sega Bass Fishing

    Sega · 1997

    An arcade cabinet with a real rod and reel, ported to the Dreamcast with a fishing controller that let you crank a plastic reel in your living room. It is a whole game, not a minigame, but it belongs here as the place the genre peaked and stayed.

  4. A tiny square fishing pond on an island beside a wooden sign and a single fishing rod, all in pixel shapes.

    07. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening

    Nintendo · 1993

    A small fishing pond on a Game Boy island, where a few rupees buy a rod and the biggest fish is worth a Piece of Heart. It was a black-and-white handheld with four buttons, and it still had the third best fishing in a series that keeps adding it.

  5. A canoe drifting on a quiet fishing hole surrounded by tall pines, a fishing rod laid across it.

    06. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

    Nintendo · 2006

    Hena's fishing hole, a whole optional resort with a canoe and a hidden loach, and on the Wii you hold the remote as the rod and wind the nunchuk as the reel. It is the closest motion controls ever came to justifying themselves. Nintendo made it about fish.

  6. A wooden rowboat on a misty bayou with a fly rod, a lantern and a cowboy hat resting on the seat.

    05. Red Dead Redemption 2

    Rockstar Games · 2018

    A realistic fly-and-lure system across rivers, swamps and lakes, with legendary fish hidden around the map and a bait shop in the bayou. Arthur Morgan is an outlaw with a bounty on his head and tuberculosis. He has also found the perfect spot for pike.

  7. A sleek black car parked by a mountain lake, an expensive fishing rod and tackle box on the shore.

    04. Final Fantasy XV

    Square Enix · 2016

    The crown prince of a fallen kingdom's main hobby is fishing, and the game gives it a full reel-tension system, lures and a leveling skill. Square Enix then released a whole VR fishing spinoff, Monster of the Deep, in 2017. Priorities set, at a royal level.

  8. A riverbank in a quiet village with a fishing rod, a bucket and a giant fish shadow under the water in the rain.

    03. Animal Crossing

    Nintendo · 2001

    Fishing is half the game: catch everything, donate it to the museum's owl, and sell the duplicates to pay off a raccoon's mortgage. The coelacanth only bites in the rain. The sea bass bites constantly, as if it has been told about you and wants the job.

  9. A small wooden pier on a farm pond at sunset with a bamboo rod and a vertical meter gauge planted in the dock.

    02. Stardew Valley

    ConcernedApe · 2016

    Eric Barone made the whole farming game alone, including a fishing bar that is easily the hardest thing in it. A green bar chases a jittery fish up and down a meter, and new players lose dozens of carp before they catch one. The farm can wait. It always waits.

  10. A rustic fishing pond hut with rods on the wall and a long silvery loach-like fish beneath the water.

    01. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

    Nintendo · 1998

    The fishing pond at Lake Hylia, where a big enough fish wins a Piece of Heart as a kid and the Golden Scale as an adult. Then there is the rare Hylian Loach, and a sinking lure that marks your record as cheating. Hyrule is in peril. Link is busy.

Honorable mentions

  • A small fishing trawler in thick fog with its lamp on, strange eyes glowing under the black water.

    Dredge

    Black Salt Games · 2023

    An entire game built around a fishing trawler, except the fish come up mutated and something is out there in the fog after dark. You sell your catch, upgrade the boat and try to be docked by nightfall. The fishing minigame grew up and went to sea.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A large fishing rod with a frog-shaped lure dangling over a quiet pond, sneakers and golden rings scattered on the bank.

    Sonic Adventure: Big the Cat

    Sonic Team · 1998

    In a game about running very fast, one of six playable stories belongs to a slow, large cat who fishes for his lost frog. The fishing is fiddly and the frog keeps getting away. A whole campaign spent sitting still in a Sonic game.

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