Who made How to Fish: Dazed Games, the Swedish two-dev studio behind the Steam hit — Carl-Vilhelm and Melvin, Landfall backing, launch numbers and update pace.
Who Made How to Fish? The Dazed Games Story
How to Fish was made by Dazed Games, a small Swedish studio whose core team is two developers — Carl-Vilhelm and Melvin, the names signing every patch note. If that sounds improbable next to the game's numbers, it should: the title sold a million copies in its first two days on Steam and peaked near 370,000 concurrent players, making it one of 2026's genuine breakout co-op hits. Here is who the studio is, how the game got made, and why the answers explain both the game's charm and its rough edges.
The developers: Carl-Vilhelm and Melvin
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, confirmed by GamesRadar+ |
| Peak concurrent players | ~370,000 | SteamDB tracking |
| Launch price | $7.99, with a launch discount taking it to $4.95 | Steam store API |
| Player cap at launch | 4-player co-op | Store listing |
| Current player cap | 8-player lobbies since patch 1.0.4 | Patch notes |
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 numbers back this up: How to Fish peaked at roughly 370,000 concurrent players in its launch window (per SteamDB-tracked figures reported by Rock Paper Shotgun) and still holds a six-figure concurrent count months later — the Steam Web API reported 240,965 players in-game at the time of this update. That is an enormous active population for a two-person project, and it explains both the breakneck patch cadence and why the developers can afford to keep shipping free content updates rather than pivoting to a new title.
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.
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 — eight-player lobbies, private invite-only sessions, removal of fake griefed servers, boss balance changes
- Patch 1.0.8 — controller glyph fixes, audio slider corrections
- Patch 1.0.9 — difficulty modes (Easy cuts creature health 25% and damage 50%; Hard raises both 25%), a Steam connection debugger for multiplayer issues, save-corruption fixes
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 three 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 and Melvin. They sign every patch note personally and handle community support through the game's Discord.
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?
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.
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 and Melvin, 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, and the weekly patch notes show them still running the shop themselves. 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
- Is How to Fish Co-op? Multiplayer and Crossplay Explained — how the eight-player update changed lobby rules
- System Requirements and Platforms — pricing, platform availability and hardware needs
- Black Screen Fixes — the connection debugger this duo shipped for join failures
- Beginner Guide — start here if the million-player wave washed you ashore
More How to Fish Guides
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 in How to Fish: the $25 price, throwing mechanics, clustered-shallow farming loops, boss emergency uses and when dynamite loses money.
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: the leech quest, the shotgun that makes the fight trivial, and the drop that unlocks Island 3.
Every island in How to Fish in unlock order — Lighthouse, Forest, Desert, Rocks, Military Volcano — with the boss trophies that gate each one.
How to Fish beginner guide: the first hour done right — the $3 rod, $10 radar, which weapons to skip, boss trophy rules and the mistakes that waste cash.