How to Fish Troubleshooting Guide

How to Fish is a young, fast-growing release, and like any new Steam game it has rough edges. Here's how to fix the most common launch, crash, and performance problems, plus what to do when nothing on this list works.

How to Fish Won't Launch

Verify integrity of game files. In Steam, right-click How to Fish > Properties > Installed Files > Verify integrity of game files. This catches most corrupted-install issues.
Update your GPU drivers. An out-of-date graphics driver is one of the most common reasons a new release fails to start at all.
Restart Steam completely. Fully close Steam (not just the window) via Task Manager and relaunch it before trying again.
Check Windows is up to date. Missing Windows updates or runtime components (like the latest Visual C++ Redistributables) can silently block newer Steam titles from launching.

How to Fish Crashing or Freezing

Close background overlays. Discord, GeForce Experience, and other overlay software occasionally conflict with newer Unity/Unreal-style titles — try disabling in-game overlays one at a time.
Lower your graphics settings. Even though How to Fish is lightweight, running at very high settings on older hardware can trigger instability, particularly in busy co-op scenes with four players and lots of physics objects on screen.
Update your GPU drivers. Worth repeating — driver issues cause the majority of both launch failures and mid-session crashes on PC.
Check your system meets the minimum spec. See the system requirements — a Ryzen 3 1200 / GTX 1050-class PC with 8 GB RAM is the baseline; below that, instability becomes far more likely.

Multiplayer / Co-op Connection Problems

Confirm both players are on the same game version. Steam usually auto-updates, but a paused update on one machine will block matchmaking.
Check your firewall isn't blocking Steam networking. Steam's peer-to-peer connections need outbound access; overly strict firewall or router settings are a common cause of failed joins.
Try having the other player invite you instead of joining directly. Steam Overlay invites (Shift + Tab > friend > invite) tend to be more reliable than searching for a public lobby.
Restart your router if joins consistently time out. This resolves a surprising number of NAT/connection issues with Steam co-op titles.

Audio or Controller Issues

Since How to Fish ships with full controller support, including DualShock and DualSense, controller-detection hiccups are usually fixed by reconnecting the controller after the game is already running, or toggling Steam Input on/off from the Steam overlay's controller settings. For audio dropouts in co-op specifically, double-check your default playback device in Windows matches what you expect — a common cause of "no sound" reports is simply a headset or Bluetooth device grabbing the default output silently.

Performance Issues & FPS Drops

How to Fish's low-poly art style keeps its baseline requirements light, so persistent low FPS on a system well above the minimum spec is usually a settings or background-process issue rather than a hardware limitation. Try closing unnecessary background apps, capping your frame rate rather than leaving it uncapped, and confirming no recording software (OBS, GeForce Experience instant replay, etc.) is running unnecessarily in the background.

Steam Deck Performance

How to Fish is rated Playable on Steam Deck and has been reported to hold 60+ FPS at max settings while staying under about 16W of power draw. If you're seeing worse performance than that on Deck, try switching from the default TDP/refresh settings to a manual cap (e.g. 40Hz refresh, 10-12W TDP limit) via the Deck's quick-access performance overlay, which typically improves both battery life and frame stability with no visible downside on a game this lightweight.

Before You Report a Bug

How to Fish is a newly released game from a very small, two-person team, so patches roll out reactively based on what players report. Before posting a bug report, it helps to check whether the issue is already known:

Search the Steam Community discussions for How to Fish for your specific error message or symptom.
Check the official Discord's bug-report or known-issues channel (see our community page for the invite).
Note your exact system specs, whether you're on Steam Deck or desktop, and whether the issue happens solo, in co-op, or both — this context makes a fix much faster to track down.

Because the team is small, turnaround on niche bugs can take longer than it would from a larger studio — but the game's rapid growth and strong review score suggest reports are being acted on.

Still Stuck?

Quick answer: verify game files through Steam, update your GPU drivers, and disable background overlays first — that combination resolves the majority of launch and crash issues on PC. If problems persist, check the game's Steam Community discussions or the official Discord (see our community & support links) for issues other players have already reported, since a fix from Dazed Games in a future patch may already be on the way.

Page last updated: 2026-08-27