Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime." - The Common Growth (1911) by M. Loane

I'd like to thank Ultimate Games S.A. for the review key to this title.

As the quote above refers to, this review discusses fishing. Coming from a family that has an avid tradition of fishing, I was greatly interested to see how well Ultimate Fishing Simulator 2 captured the essence of this popular sport, hobby, and occupation. Despite being an Early Access title at the time of this writing, it more than seems to have earned its "Ultimate" moniker.

The game itself is entirely devoted to fishing, both by yourself and in competition with other fishermen and women. To that end, it allows the player to fish in a variety of real-world locations, fish for actual real-world fish, and simulate the effort and mechanics of that real-world activity insofar as can be done in a video game.

Two main types of fishing are supported. "Bob" fishing is the classic fishing where bait is added to a hook and the line is tossed out to "bob" in the water until a fish goes for the bait. "Spinning" fishing involves trolling the line through the water, with a spinning lure attached to draw the attention of the fish by its movement to compel them to get hooked for capture. There is also an option to make casual play less realistic and more fun, specifically an "underwater camera" mode. For those wanting a more realistic and less arcade game-style experience, this can be disabled.

Graphically, this game does a pretty good job of simulating a real-world aesthetic to match the locations you can fish at, ranging from the United States to the Kurile lakes of Russia, and even the Blue Bay of Thailand. The fish, marine environments, equipment, and actions also reflect a high emphasis on realism, with it all modeled on real-world equivalents. The overall graphical quality, provided you can max out settings, is very good-looking. You won't forget it's a game, but it's so realistic looking it will still feel like being at real-world locations.

The game sounds and music are generally ambient, given it's based on real-world fishing, though the intro theme is very pleasant on the ears with its gentle instrumental theme. Otherwise, the game sound effects are all quite true to fishing. The casting of lines, the hooking of fish, the splashing and struggling of the fish as they are being reeled in, and various background noises like the sounds of birds are all cribbed from their real-world inspirations.

The game can be controlled with the keyboard and mouse, any Steam-compatible controller, or the Steam Deck's controls. There is a warning at the time of this writing some functions of the controller may have bugs, but I encountered nothing in particular when using one that harmed my experience, and while all the above are mapped out well for fishing, I recommend the controller or Steam Deck controls for smoothest play. The game includes a helpful tutorial to ease you into the controls regardless of how you choose to set them as well.

The online component consists mainly of tournament features where the player can compete with other players around the world, and may even establish private tournaments for friends. I found the latency of the connection excellent and it was not overly complicated to set up a match, with a variety of different tournament settings available.

The stability was excellent. Load times are a bit long when loading fishing locations on the Steam Deck, barely more than a few seconds on PC, and otherwise are nonexistent. Any system that can meet or exceed the minimum requirements will have a smooth experience when playing, and it's a very crash-free game thus far. It is "Playable" on the Steam Deck, but be advised some text is rather small, which can be ameliorated with certain resolution settings, but not entirely. It also runs quite well on native Linux via Steam Proton out of the box. The only possible issue I noticed is some loading text was in what looked like Russian or Polish, but that's about it.

Morally, I'm pleased to say this game is stainless. There is no violence, language, sexual content, occult/supernatural, or ethical concerns of note. It's simply a game based on real-world fishing only.

It's an Early Access game, but I found it greatly enjoyable with hardly any discernable issues of note, and hopefully, it will just continue to improve. I'd consider it worth its price for technical reasons, and see no objection to anyone of any age playing for moral ones.