Firstly, it's fair to say that anything people are passionate about will divide opinion. Anglers are definitely passionate about Angling, and while Fishing Sim World does its best to please everybody across numerous different Angling disciplines (and succeeds admirably in many respects), the game sometimes falls short of people's expectations or real world experiences. However, this game is developing at a steady pace and once you get past these small imperfections there is a huge amount of content to explore which is constantly being expanded with DLCs and FLCs. The Developers listen to the players and seem to prioritise reasonable content requests from the community, they even follow the first rule of Angling and "ask the locals" when adding new Fisheries to the game.

I wanted to wait until the Pro Tour update was released before I reviewed Fishing Sim World. Now that it's here and I've given it a good tickle, I'm happy to say that it's really impressive. The seven Fisheries you used to get with the base game have now increased to ten. We get a shiny new career mode for Bass, Carp and Predator Fishing complete with sponsorship deals from some really big names in the industry. Barbel, Trout and loads more trophy fish were added to the game along with deadbaiting and a host of new lures. You can even fish for some more exotic species at Gillams Resort in Thailand if you decide to purchase / bundle the Giant Carp Pack DLC that was released alongside this update (which I can also highly recommend). This is on top of all the content that was already in the game before the update, such as online tourneys in which you can compete against other players for a coveted spot on the podium / the Angler of the month title, or Freedom Fishing, where you can just pick your gear and head out for a nice relaxing session at your favourite water.

Fishing Sim World is made in the Unreal engine and therefore is absolutely stunning to look at, much more so than any of the other fishing games I have seen being released on PC recently. While graphics are not the be all and end all, a big part of Fishing are the surroundings that you do it in so I'm counting that as a positive in this case. The fish models really stand out and have obviously been created with great care and attention to detail, there is just so much variety, even for fish of the same species. The physics are also excellent and playing with a rumble pad gives you a more tangible connection to each fish. One item of note is that the game is locked to 30fps for *insert reasons*, you are not, however, attempting to head shot somebody at 200yrds with your Carp rod so this causes me little concern.

People tend to complain about the amount of DLC for this game and accusations of greed are common. In reality it is not free for the Developers to license the real world venues that these DLCs contain and they are often on sale, three times in the last three months at time of writing. You can also be selective with your purchases depending on which of the Angling disciplines you wish to pursue. To put things into perspective, you get 10 waters with the base game, with another 8 currently being available through DLC purchases.

In summary, Fishing Sim World is the closest I have come to actually Fishing without being on the bank. There is plenty to enjoy, even for those players that have never been Fishing in their life, with a wide variety of content being added all the time. There are some small technical issues, but nothing game breaking in my opinion. Fishing Sim World has a really bright future and I can't wait to see what the Development Team are going to do with it next.