Professional Fishing 2 Review: A Beautiful Simulator at War With Itself

Is it a hardcore sim or a brain-dead arcade game? A relaxing escape or a frustrating grind? After spending some time in the world of Professional Fishing 2, I'm still not entirely sure, and that's the whole damn problem.

I’ve seen this game hailed as a zen-like masterpiece and condemned as a mobile-tier arcade disaster. The truth is, it’s both. Professional Fishing 2 is a game of profound contradictions, a stunningly ambitious project at war with itself. It has the framework to be the best fishing game ever made, but it's buried under a mountain of baffling design choices and Early Access jank.

A Postcard from a Digital Paradise

Let's start with what the game gets right, because there's a lot to like here. When the game isn't actively fighting you, it can be an incredibly relaxing, zen-like experience. The open world is a solid feature, allowing you to hop on a quad or rent a boat to find your own slice of paradise across two massive reserves. The water and environments look quite nice, and the dynamic day/night cycles add a layer of immersion that’s genuinely impressive.

The on-the-water experience has some great touches. The rowboats, while a bit clunky and slow, are a welcome addition, and being able to stand up, sit down, and just absorb the scenery is a nice feature for immersion. And hey, you can actually swim! It's a small thing, but it’s amazing how many of these games treat water like a solid blue wall, so props for that. There's a decent variety of fish to hunt down, and at its best moments, the game nails that feeling of being alone in nature

The Grind: Earning Your Gills

The game starts you off with a wonderfully nostalgic setup: a basic 80s-style rod, a can of worms, and a dream. The core progression loop is what you'd expect: catch fish, sell them for cash, and use that money to buy better gear. But this is where the first major hurdle appears: the economy is absolutely brutal.

Equipment is absurdly expensive. We’re talking 50,000 dollars for a quad bike. This forces you into a serious grind right from the get-go. To make ends meet, you can take on side jobs like flipping burgers or working as a cashier. These minigames are a decent distraction, but they feel more like a mandatory chore than a fun alternative. The progression feels less like a rewarding journey and more like a slow, painful crawl toward gear that might actually let you catch something bigger than a trout.

A Tale of Two Bite Rates

The core fishing mechanic is where the game completely loses its mind. As many have pointed out, the bite rate is a total mess. For my first hour, I was a machine, pulling in dozens of fish without any effort. It felt like an arcade game, completely devoid of skill or satisfaction. The game even has signs that tell you exactly which fish are in a specific spot, removing any need for actual angling knowledge or discovery.

But then, just as you’re settling into the mindless rhythm, the fish just… stop biting. For hours. The game flips from being absurdly easy to punishingly difficult with no warning or explanation. It seems that to be consistently successful, you have to discover the rigid, hidden "meta" for each spot: like setting your retrieve speed to exactly 37 and only fishing between 6 AM and 10 AM. This doesn't feel like realistic fishing but instead it feels like you're trying to crack a spreadsheet formula.

Death by a Thousand Papercuts

Beyond the major design issues, the game is plagued by a host of smaller, deeply annoying problems that scream "Early Access." The user interface is a clunky, unintuitive nightmare. The character controls are sluggish, making simple movement feel like a chore. Animations are stiff, and key audio cues are often completely missing, leaving you fighting a fish in eerie silence.

The quest system is particularly egregious. Instead of letting you fish at your own pace, the game will spring "surprise" timed quests on you, like catching an insane number of fish in an eight-hour real-time window. If you reject or fail the quest, you get hit with a hefty reputation penalty. It's a system that actively punishes you for wanting to play the game in a relaxed, casual way. Features like the tent, meant for saving your location, feel completely underutilized, and the whole experience can feel unstable, with performance struggling even on powerful PCs.

A Glimmer of Hope

So, is it all bad? No. And that's what makes it so frustrating. For all its flaws, Professional Fishing 2 can create moments of genuine magic. I’ll never forget the what felt like hour long real-time battle I had with a giant pike that I accidentally hooked on my laughably weak starting rod. I was sure my line would snap, but I managed to land it, which, admittedly, was a surprisingly thrilling feeling for a fishing simulator.

The developers are also very active and seem to be listening to feedback, which is the most important thing for a game in this state.

The Verdict

It’s tough to slap a final number on a game that's still being built, but I can tell you where it stands right now. Professional Fishing 2 is a fascinating, deeply flawed, and promising mess. It’s a game with a dozen great ideas that are all competing with each other, resulting in a frustrating lack of focus.

I can’t recommend you rush out and buy it. But I also can't tell you to ignore it completely. This is the definition of a "wishlist and wait" game. The potential for it to become the best fishing game on the market is absolutely there. The open world is a fantastic concept, and the foundation is solid. But the developers need to do some serious soul-searching and decide what kind of game they want to make. Until they do, it remains a beautiful but empty lake. If you are an absolute die-hard for the genre and can stomach the jank, you might find something to love. Everyone else should wait for a few major updates.

Score: 6.7/10 A perfectly fine fishing sim that has all the potential in the world, but needs to spend a lot more time in the workshop.

We at NLM received a key for this game for free, this however didn't impact our review in any way.