Best Weapons & Upgrade Order
A video-tested weapon progression for How to Fish from early melee to shotgun, SMG, sniper and Assault Rifle, with boss-specific notes.
Practical progression instead of buying everything
Video-tested: The launch-day runs consistently performed better when players bought for the next boss instead of collecting every gun immediately.
Early game: Knife or Brass Knuckles
A basic melee weapon is enough to make Spider Crab much safer than fists. The Knife remains useful later for tiny creatures and finishing weakened targets.
Giant Piranha: Shotgun has a clear role
The Giant Piranha fight floods the island with small piranhas. Shotgun spread helps crowd control, and one multiplayer run repeatedly scored strong multipliers on the adds.
Mid game: SMG after recoil control
Players liked the SMG’s damage output but repeatedly complained about raw recoil. Suppressor or Compensator upgrades made it far easier to keep shots on fast targets.
Casino/Bird stage: Sniper becomes useful
The Giant Bird spends much of the encounter moving through the air. A Sniper can create high-value precision kills and gives a better long-range option, although some players preferred an upgraded SMG for raw DPS.
Volcano: Assault Rifle
The Assault Rifle appears at the volcano stage and performed much better against late whales in the tested run. The same player concluded that Shotgun damage was too low for Magma Whale compared with upgraded AR hits.
This is a route recommendation from video testing, not an official weapon tier list. Patches can change weapon balance.
Evidence & source notes
- Official Steam store page — Official game description, features, release date and progression loop.
- Launch-day gameplay transcripts supplied for this guide — Quest steps and combat observations are taken from the supplied walkthrough transcripts and are labelled Video-tested.