How to Fish Multiplayer

How many players can play How to Fish?

How to Fish is an online co-op game, and its player cap has moved since launch. The Steam store page still describes it as "a 1-4 player physics based fishing simulator," but that text has not caught up with the patches: the official 1.0.4 update (21 August 2026) "added support for up to 8 player lobbies." So the current, correct answer is up to 8 players in a single lobby, even though the storefront copy and the developer's own site still say 1-4.

Co-op is online only. The Steam listing marks the game Multi-player, Co-op and Online Co-op with a broadband connection required, and there is no local split-screen or LAN option. It is also Windows-only, so every player needs the Windows PC version — see Is How to Fish cross platform? for what that means for mixed PC, Mac and console groups.

How to host a co-op game

To start a session, click Host Game in the main menu and set your multiplayer options. You name the save file here — a co-op game runs on the host's save, and progress is written back to that file — then choose a session type. Public lets anyone on your friends list join and hands out a Lobby ID, while Invite Only (added in patch 1.0.5) restricts joining to Steam invites you send.

If you already have a save going and do not want to restart just to play with friends, load it, open Server Settings, and change the session type there. That change requires a restart, so save first. One launch-week note that patch 1.0.4 fixed: special characters in server names used to break the save file, so keep lobby names plain to be safe.

How to join a friend's game

There are two reliable ways in. The first is Steam: open your friends list, right-click the host's name, and join their match, or accept the Steam invite and click Play Game. The second is the Lobby ID: ask the host to press Copy Lobby ID, paste the code into the box beside Session Type on the Join Game screen, and press Join by ID.

Private lobbies work through Steam invites only — there is no code to paste, so the host has to send you an invite directly. If you land on a black screen when joining, that was a known launch bug patched in 1.0.4; the fix on your side is usually to leave and have the host open a fresh lobby.

How progress and items are saved

Because the world lives on the host's save file, story progress, unlocked islands and money all belong to the host — join a friend and you are playing in their game, not merging two saves. Your catches and cash within that session are real, but the persistent progression is the host's.

The game autosaves every minute, and since patch 1.0.6 it also saves when you press Save, Main Menu or Quit rather than trying to save on a crash. Patch 1.0.10 went further: items dropped on the ground now persist between sessions, up to 64 total, prioritizing weapons, tools, quest items and creatures. So a lobby you rejoin later keeps the important gear instead of losing it on the floor.

Why co-op is worth playing

Co-op is not just more people fishing — it changes the difficulty and the economy. Because teammates can revive each other, a boss will not despawn the instant you go down as long as someone is still standing, which makes the harder fights far more forgiving than a solo attempt. That alone is the biggest reason to bring friends to the boss encounters.

The money side helps too. More hands mean more total cash per run, and players report a better chance at the rare fish that sell for the most. Add faster boss kills from the extra guns and you clear islands quicker, so a group reaches the endgame noticeably sooner than a solo player working through the same content.

The "more players" mod, and whether you need it

Before the 1.0.4 patch, four was the hard cap, and a free Nexus Mods tool called "How to Fish More Players" — loaded through the third-party BepInEx injector — raised it to eight. The catch is that the official patch now does the same thing natively, so on a current, updated game the mod's whole purpose is already covered.

Because it is an unofficial mod running through a third-party loader, it is experimental and use-at-your-own-risk: the host and everyone joining should run the same version, and larger groups put more strain on the host and the network. If your game is patched to 1.0.4 or later, the built-in 8-player lobby is the safer choice and there is no reason to install anything.

Fixing common multiplayer problems

Most co-op trouble is connection-related, and the patches have chipped away at it. Patch 1.0.4 fixed the black screen when joining a lobby; patch 1.0.9 added a short Steam connection debug line to the main menu (if the Steam relay text turns red, the connection failed to initialize); and patch 1.0.10 increased the time allowed to connect, lowering the chance of being disconnected instantly. Patch 1.0.6 also stopped fake "Game Name" servers from cluttering the list.

If a lobby still will not connect — a Connection Failed message, or a black screen that a fresh lobby does not clear — work through the How to Fish online fix checklist, which walks the Steam-side network steps (restart Steam, verify files, disable VPN, flush DNS) in order. For the wider platform and buying picture, start from the platforms hub.