Probably the most underrated recreation of 2024 jogs my memory of Animal Crossing, however it’s all about fishing – and nothing else

When your recreation(s) of the yr largely include psychological horror and back-to-back, brutal boss fights — as mine did — you’ll nearly undoubtedly want one thing mindlessly stress-free to chill with. Positive sufficient, as I wrapped up my time wandering across the streets of Silent Hill 2, an lovely, unsuspecting recreation started doing the rounds on social media: Webfishing.

Webfishing is easy. You fish. That’s it. After hours of deciphering Silent Hill 2’s ending situations, fishing is all I needed to do.

Positive, Webfishing does have a bit extra to it than simply fishing. There’s a chat perform, and finally, the concept is that you just make buddies — or cling together with your present buddies — and chat whereas ready for a fish to chew. There’s cosmetics, upgrades, and even playing, however not the predatory kind; Webfishing, thankfully, doesn’t require you to spend a penny past the £4.29 that the sport truly prices.

Positive sufficient, myself and an in depth buddy set to work catching fish and rapidly spent most of our income on scratchcards. Our newfound income, which weren’t actually income in any respect, had been rapidly spent on cosmetics and higher bait. Higher bait means greater fish, and the fish in Webfishing get actually massive…

And what occurs if you catch these massive fish? Most of the time, you’ll discover different folks — who all appear like Animal Crossing characters, by the best way — cheering for you in chat. I’ve had a few of my nicest, most harmless of on-line interactions all yr in Webfishing.

An extremely easy premise with, for probably the most half, a beautiful playerbase and neighborhood. In a single random foyer that I joined, hoping to quietly fish whereas watching YouTube, I joined a gaggle of individuals fishing from a rest room. One of many many issues you are able to do in Webfishing that I didn’t know existed on the time. One other participant introduced out a guitar and commenced taking requests from others, whereas all of us continued to fish from the identical, small rest room.

On one other event, myself and my buddy determined to spend our Saturday night having some in-game (and actual!) beers whereas enjoying Webfishing and catching up on one another’s lives. Our server rapidly went from simply the 2 of us to a number of pixelated cats and canine gathering on the pier to speak about something and the whole lot, get drunk on in-game wine, and naturally, fish.

There have been a couple of casualties to the wine, however all in all, logging right into a recreation to fish together with your buddy after which discovering your self chatting to an entire array of like-minded, LGBTQIA+ folks whereas doing so isn’t one thing I essentially anticipated from Webfishing once I first put in it. I used to be pleasantly shocked, and it’s what retains me coming again. That, and fishing, after all. There’s an actual kick from catching a fish so massive that it clips by the map. Although, not a lot of a kick from then spending your entire income from it on scratchcards, and dropping most of them.

Webfishing is weird and surreal at the perfect of occasions, particularly if you witness your buddy parkour from one aspect of the map to the opposite — meowing frantically all the time, as a result of that’s a factor you are able to do — however there’s one thing simply so pretty about all of it. Webfishing is a small nook of the web the place — when hackers aren’t making an attempt to smash the enjoyable — you’ll be able to really swap off and loosen up for some time. Fish, gamble, parkour. Push folks into the ocean. Get wine drunk on the pier. Webfishing is an underrated gem and a uncommon place of respite for avid gamers who want a break from all of it.