How to Fish was made by Dazed Games, the two-person studio of Carl-Vilhelm Johansson and Melvin Olsson. Here is the team, the patches and the 2026 numbers.
Who Made How to Fish? Dazed Games, the Two-Developer Studio
How to Fish was made by Dazed Games, a two-person Swedish studio: Carl-Vilhelm Johansson and Melvin Olsson. Those two names are the entire development team — they sign every patch note, answer bug reports in their own Discord, and built a game that reached a million players in two days. Landfall Games funded part of the project and Evil Landfall publishes it, but the creative work stays in-house. Here is who they are, what they shipped through September 2026, and why the team size explains both the game's charm and its rough edges.
The developers: Carl-Vilhelm Johansson and Melvin Olsson
Every How to Fish patch note ends the same way: "Thanks, Carl-Vilhelm & Melvin." That is not a corporate sign-off — it is effectively the whole team. Dazed Games operated as a compact indie outfit out of Sweden, with the two founders handling development while leaning on external partners for publishing muscle.
The studio's public footprint is deliberately playful, matching the game's tone. Their TikTok presence shows prototype clips months before release — early lure mechanics, fish additions, shotgun-fishing experiments — which is part of why the game's community felt invested before day one. When players report bugs in the Community Discord, the developers answer directly and ship fixes within days; patch 1.0.8 and 1.0.9 landed back-to-back within the game's first week.
Second game, first hit
How to Fish is Dazed Games' second release, and the difference between the two projects explains the studio's trajectory. The first game built their technical foundation; this one applied it to a formula the team describes in three words quoted by GamesRadar+: "Fish fish, kill fish, sell fish."
The pitch resonated because it fused two proven loops into something nobody had quite shipped: the physics-comedy of gang-adjacent co-op games with actual fishing progression — bait tiers, island bosses, an economy worth optimizing. Under the absurdity sits a genuinely structured game, which is why guides like the five-island progression chain matter as much as the memes.
The Landfall connection
Dazed Games did not get to launch alone. Two external partners shaped the path to release:
- Landfall Games provided a project investment to complete How to Fish, announced via Sweden Game Arena with a summer 2026 target — funding that let a two-person team polish a physics-heavy multiplayer game to shippable state.
- Evil Landfall, the publishing house launched by the creators of PEAK and Content Warning, picked up How to Fish among its first projects. That lineage matters: Evil Landfall specializes in exactly this genre — chaotic co-op experiences with viral ceilings — and its other launches had already proven the audience.
This backing structure is the quiet answer to a question players ask constantly: how does a team this small run servers-side infrastructure, ship weekly patches, and respond to a million buyers? It does not do it alone — but the creative decisions stay in-house, which the patch notes' personality makes obvious.
The launch, by the numbers
The game's first week produced numbers most studios wait years for:
| Milestone | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Release date | August 20, 2026 | Steam store listing |
| Copies sold | 1 million in 2 days | Developer announcement, covered by GamesRadar+ |
| Peak concurrent players | 373,971, on August 26, 2026 | SteamDB tracking |
| Concurrent players, September 22, 2026 | ~11,254 | Steam player-count API |
| Price | $7.99 list — the -38% launch discount has ended | Steam store page |
| Player cap at launch | 4-player co-op | Store listing |
| Current player cap | 8-player lobbies since patch 1.0.4 | Patch notes |
| Latest patch | 1.0.12, September 4, 2026 | Steam news hub |
The trajectory kept moving after launch week. Rock Paper Shotgun's coverage of the eight-player update called the game "Steam's latest cursed co-op sensation," and the developer's own news feed went from launch announcements to milestone celebrations ("1 MILLION FISHERMEN IN 2 DAYS?!?!1?") within forty-eight hours.
The population curve is worth reading honestly, because a lot of guides still quote launch-week numbers. How to Fish peaked at 373,971 concurrent players on August 26, 2026, six days after release — the high-water mark for the game so far. By September 22, 2026 the same counter sits around 11,254 players in-game, which is a normal decay curve for a $7.99 co-op title once the streamer wave moves on, not a dead game. Eleven thousand concurrent players is still more than most two-person projects ever see, and it is the reason the patch cadence stayed weekly through early September rather than stopping at launch.
Why the game feels the way it does
Knowing the team size reframes common player observations. The physics jank that produces both comedy and chaos? A two-person team ships physics systems with sharp edges, and the community treats those edges as features. The rapid-fire patches addressing exactly what Discord complains about? Small teams iterate at the speed of their bug reports. The absence of versions for consoles and macOS? Porting costs real engineering time a duo does not have mid-launch-window — the game remains Windows-only per the store listing, with no other platforms announced. Our platform and system requirements page tracks what that means for Steam Deck, GeForce NOW and cloud streaming, since those are the only official ways to play away from a Windows PC.
It also explains the eight-player lobby situation. The co-op and crossplay breakdown covers it in detail, but the short version is that the store page long advertised 1–4 players while patch 1.0.4 had already raised the cap to eight — a documentation lag, not a design decision.
It also explains the content roadmap honesty. When asked about post-launch plans amid the million-sales news, the response was characteristically direct: more content is coming, yes — without overpromising dates or scope.
What the studio is working on now
The patch cadence tells the current story better than any roadmap post:
- Patch 1.0.4 (Aug 21) — eight-player lobbies, private invite-only sessions, boss balance changes
- Patch 1.0.8 — controller glyph fixes, audio slider corrections
- Patch 1.0.9 (Aug 24) — difficulty modes (Easy cuts creature health 25% and damage 50%; Hard raises both 25%), a Steam connection debugger for multiplayer issues, save-corruption fixes
- Patch 1.0.10 (Aug 27) — dropped items survive across saves (up to 64 on the ground, weapons, tools and quest items prioritised), weapons and tools washed in water lose the "cooked" state, anglerfish nerf, beer-bleed and tuna respawn fixes
- Patch 1.0.11 (Sep 1) — official GeForce NOW support and Steam Deck Verified, toggle-aim / toggle-sprint / hold-to-attack options, save-corruption checks with automatic backups, and a rule that catches people out: with friendly fire switched off, your own explosives still kill you
- Patch 1.0.12 (Sep 4) — Steam Cloud saves, piranha rebalance, a small tuna nerf, an item speed cap so loot stops flying out of reach, MetaVoice 4.3 voice fixes
Six patches in fifteen days is the honest answer to "who is still working on this game": the same two people, reacting to Discord bug reports in real time.
The 1.0.12 notes end with the closest thing to a roadmap Dazed Games has published: this is "most likely the last bugfix patch" before the team starts on content updates. Content work is confirmed as under discussion, with no date attached to it.
As of September 22, 2026, 1.0.12 is still the newest build — no 1.0.13 has been announced, so anyone waiting on another balance pass or a new island is waiting on the content update rather than another hotfix. The Steam news hub is where every note lands first, and the studio's own page at dazed.games is the only other official channel.
Difficulty selection arrived barely a week after launch — a direct response to the mix of veteran squads and fishing-game newcomers filling the same lobbies. The pattern across all six patches: infrastructure and accessibility first, content expansion promised alongside.
Official source: How to Fish Steam News Hub — all patch notes signed Carl-Vilhelm & Melvin, with developer replies in the Community Discord.
FAQ
Who is the developer of How to Fish?
Dazed Games, a Swedish indie studio run by two developers: Carl-Vilhelm Johansson and Melvin Olsson. They sign every patch note personally and handle community support through the game's Discord.
Who created How to Fish — was it a big studio?
No. Two people created it. Dazed Games is the developer of record on Steam (app id 4001890), and the studio's entire credited core team is Johansson and Olsson, with Landfall Games and Evil Landfall providing funding and publishing rather than development.
Is Dazed Games the same as Landfall?
No. Landfall Games invested in the project's completion, and Evil Landfall — Landfall-affiliated creators' publishing house behind PEAK and Content Warning — publishes it. Dazed Games remains the independent developer making the game.
How many copies has How to Fish sold, and how many people still play it?
One million copies within its first two days on sale, per the developer's announcement covered by GamesRadar+. Later sales figures have not been published. The concurrent-player peak is 373,971 (August 26, 2026), and the game sat around 11,254 concurrent players on September 22, 2026.
Is How to Fish Dazed Games' first game?
No — it is the studio's second release. The first established the technical base; How to Fish became the breakout.
Summary
How to Fish comes from Dazed Games — Carl-Vilhelm Johansson and Melvin Olsson, a Swedish duo backed by Landfall money and Evil Landfall publishing savvy. Two developers built a million-copy hit in a genre dominated by bigger teams, patched it six times in fifteen days, and then declared 1.0.12 the last bugfix build before content work begins. The next time a black screen eats your lobby or a boss wipes your squad, remember who you are emailing: it is genuinely just those two.
Related Guides
Four pages pick up where this one stops — lobby rules, platform reality, join failures, and where to start fishing:
More How to Fish Guides
How to Fish has no console build, so there is nothing to cross: Steam PC, Deck and GeForce NOW players share the same 8-player lobbies. Co-op facts for 2026.
Desert Island guide: the grill master's shark, the tourist's endangered creature, SMG attachment shopping, and beating the Pufferfish.
How to get drip rainbow creatures in How to Fish: what they are, where they spawn, how the Island 4 slot machine turns them into legendary weapon skins.
Dynamite does 200 explosion damage per stick in How to Fish — what that one-shots, how many sticks each boss needs, and the patch 1.0.11 self-damage rule.
The Fishipedia completion guide for How to Fish: logging every species, rare variant and drip entry with a checklist order that avoids wasted island trips.
Forest Island guide: the five-leech quest and special bait, where guns unlock, the girl's big yummy fish, and the Giant Piranha fight.
How to beat the Giant Piranha in How to Fish: the $1 Leech Bait summon chain, 2,500 HP solo tactics, and what patch 1.0.12 did and did not change.
Every island in How to Fish in unlock order — Lighthouse, Forest, Desert, Rocks, Military Volcano — with the boss trophies that gate each one.