Fishing: Barents Sea and King Crab DLC Review

Fishing: Barents Sea is a fishing simulator which offers a near-perfect fishing experience for the player. The game is developed by Misc Games and published by Astragon Entertainment GmbH. As you might expect, this game is a slow paced, relaxing and relatively boring (for some people, not me). So, before you even read this review, I strongly recommend asking yourself a single question: “Do I want to spend hours in an open world-ish fishing simulator?” if your answer is yes, carry on fellas.

Fishing: Barents Sea was originally released on February 7th, 2018 and it received its first big DLC on November 13th, 2018. Both the original game and DLC has received many different reviews but we decided to take them into consideration all together as they both have pretty similar positive and negative sides.

Welcome to Norway

The game takes place in the northern parts of Norway where you get your first fishing boat and start…well…fishing. Tutorials are pretty clear and easy to understand. Controls are pretty simple and there are two different points of view: third person and first person. Depending on what you are getting out of the sea, you should switch between these points of views.

Different from other fishing simulators, in this game you will use fishing lines, nets and crab cages. I can honestly say that the developers work hard to make it as realistic as possible and it actually feels good After you haul your first line of fish and completing a series of mini-games which wants you to click on the perfect moment so that you can get better fish results, you go to the nearest port to sell your cargo. You get well paid for your hard work and start doing the same thing over and over again to get richer.

Been There, Done That

The game is pretty repetitive but you should expect something like this from a game which is really good at presenting you the most realistic fishing experience I’ve seen so far. Yes, it is a really good simulator and it deserves every single penny you want to spend for it if you actually want to have a simulator.

Pulling the fish out of the water or gutting them are two main activities. When you finish these activities, you suddenly get a great feeling of achievement. Huh… That’s how it feels to actually fish, doesn’t it? This is actually a great part of this game, but it also kind of lowers the attractiveness of it as an actual ‘game’. However, no matter what, even if these repetitive games exist, it is a good fishing game.

As mentioned above, the only thing you will be doing is to repeat the same process over and over again until you run out of ship updates or ships. You can get new crew members, better updates, better fishing lines, pots and baits. You can explore the map to discover new possibilities and other ports. The list goes on and there is something addictive in it. You can easily spend hours just fishing and selling in order to get that sweet update for your boat.

What About the King Crabs?

At some point in the game, you will start hunting the King Crabs. This part is pretty problematic as the mini-game is not well implemented and it can get buggy from time to time. However, it is still something and it is actually fun when you manage to do it. The DLC also offers two new ships, along with the new fishing mechanic for the King Crabs and 2 new mini-games.

Other than the fishing itself, there are a couple of missions you can get from a bar in a city like bringing a specific type of fish to a ship.This also makes the game more attractive especially when you get a new ship and discover its interior. I really liked the fact that every single ship has a different character and possibilities.

There are also many different mechanics in the game which would help you improve your fishing skills and your ships. One of them is your logbook where you keep record of all your sales as well as events which would guide you and tell you which kind of fish is on demand. Another mechanic is kind of an experience system which gives you better licenses to buy better and bigger ships.

Technical Part of the Game

When it comes to the visuals and sounds, I can easily say that the game offers a decent experience. Music is pretty good; visuals are beautiful, at least mostly. Graphics look a little bit dated and buildings look pretty awful. But overall, I can say that the game does a good job on the visual part.

However, the game has many bugs and performance issues. Even having a good system would result in FPS drops from time to time and playing the game on the highest settings is a pain. An optimization is absolutely required.

Then there is the bug problem. Oh yes, this game has many bugs and animations are pretty weird. If you hire crew members and out them on a position, they just wait there, doing nothing and just watching the sea when you’re moving around. First person animations are pretty bad and they look weird. Your hand stands on the wrong position when you’re gutting the fish and the fish you get out of the water looks like a rubber toy. But if you don’t care about these and if you just want to enjoy a casual fishing game, this can be a good pick.

Final Verdict

Fishing: Barents Sea and the King Crab DLC are both interesting games. The original game offers an excellent replica of actual fishing in real life. On top of that, the DLC offers new mechanics, new mini-games and 2 new ships. However, the game has some fundamental issues like bugs and performance problems.

If you want to have a casual fishing experience or a game that you can play maybe a couple of hours a day, this can be a good game for you. However, I actually suggest waiting a little bit more before buying the DLC as it has a couple of bugs and the original game should be enough for you for a while.

You can get Fishing: Barents Sea and the King Crab DLC on Steam now.