Call of the Wild: The Angler (Xbox)

[Mike Sydney]

I’ve been playing the excellent, excellent hunting game “Call of the Wild: theHunter” for the last few months and this week it’s companion game The Angler released on Xbox Game Pass.

My first fish! Caught on a bloodworm under a float - what a monster !

The game - naturally set in US - starts you out float fishing with worms on a size 10 hook and takes you through the basics of drag settings, line classes and depth below floats, before graduating to lures. 
Spinners, crankbaits, soft plastics, surface lures, a pretty good variety of fishing styles are catered for.
Retrieves come in four flavours - constant, stop-and-go, twitching and jigging. Retrieve speeds can be changed easily enough and it’s entirely possible to retrieve as you would in real life - the subtleties of the control are there.

It’s good fun, if you have Game Pass it’s free and worth a crack. Still definitely a game rather than a Sim, and no replacement for the real thing  - but it is relaxing and the digital views are stunning.

I’ve played a bunch of fishing games. Fishing planet, pro fishing simulator, bass master and this is easily the best of the fishing titles….still, all fishing games seem to have the same issues. For starters they’re almost exclusively targeting bass carp and muskies with little species variety, and further there’s little satisfaction in “finding fish” - with games too frequently relying on visual cues (splashing) to show where the fish are.

Still, it’s fun. If you want a fishing game this is probably the one. Outside of pure fishing games  sea of thieves, DayZ, far cry 5 also have some pretty good fishing activities within them.

For those into hunting COTW: theHunter has really amazed me. I’ve spent a lot of time stalking deer, elk, beer, rabbits, turkeys, ducks, geese, foxes, coyotes - it’s a lot of fun tracking animals and taking the time for that perfect shot. 

if you’re hunting or fishing on Xbox send me a PM and we can team up!