Call of the Wild: The Angler

Call of the Wild: The Angler is a first-person open-world simulation game centered on fishing, set in expansive and realistic wilderness environments. Developed by Expansive Worlds as part of the Call of the Wild series, it allows players to explore diverse natural locations like lakes and rivers, with authentic tackle systems, dynamic weather, and wildlife interactions, emphasizing a sandbox-style angling experience.

Call of the Wild: The Angler: A Beautiful, Broken Dream of the Open Water

Introduction: The Hook and the Line

In the crowded ecosystem of video games, few genres promise such a specific, meditative experience as the fishing simulator. It is a genre built on patience, on the quiet dialogue between human and environment, on the existential thrill of a line tightening in the dark water. Into this placid pool, Expansive Worlds, the creative division of Avalanche Studios Group and the architects of the acclaimed theHunter: Call of the Wild, launched an ambitious, audacious, and ultimately tragic proposition in August 2022: Call of the Wild: The Angler. The game’s thesis was revolutionary—translate the open-world, explore-at-your-own-pace ethos of its hunting progenitor to the serene, aquatic counterpart. The result was not a simple fishing minigame, but a sprawling, breathtakingly beautiful sandbox where the primary objective was to find your own peace, and perhaps a trophy bass, in a living, breathing wilderness.

This review will argue that Call of the Wild: The Angler is one of the most profound “what if” stories in modern gaming. It represents a spectacular collision between a noble, player-respecting vision and the cold, hard realities of scope, genre expectations, and commercial sustainability. It is a game of stunning vistas and broken systems, of profound relaxation and infuriating bugs, of a dedicated community’s love and a developer’s eventual, weary surrender. To understand The Angler is to understand the perils of ambition in a niche genre, the weight of a franchise legacy, and the heartbreaking calculus of live-service game development.

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Development History & Context: From the Hunter to the Angler

The Studio and the Vision
Call of the Wild: The Angler was developed by Expansive Worlds AB, a studio formed under the Avalanche umbrella specifically to build upon the success of theHunter: Call of the Wild. The core leadership was transplanted from other ventures: Game Director Paul “Rushy” Rustchynsky arrived from a career in racing simulations (Project Cars, Driveclub), while Managing Director Samuel Peterson brought experience from broader outdoor game development. Their stated mission, as per a 2023 interview with Gaming Nexus, was clear: “to provide compelling outdoors content to a fantastic community of outdoors enthusiasts and gamers” and “inspire the world to experience the joy of nature through video games.”

The development cycle was remarkably short for such an ambitious open-world title. From inception to launch in August 2022, it took “just over two years.” This compressed timeline is a crucial datum. The team was building a new IP, a new core gameplay loop (fishing versus hunting), and a massive, procedurally populated world simultaneously. The most significant late-stage pivot, as revealed by Rustchynsky, was in the fish spawning system. Originally planned as a hand-placed, design-driven approach, it was changed to a procedural system based on environmental factors (depth, temperature, turbidity). While this resulted in a more “accurate simulation,” it also speaks to the immense technical challenge of simulating an entire aquatic ecosystem from scratch in two years.

The Technological and Market Landscape
The game was built on Avalanche Studios’ proprietary Apex Engine, the same powerhouse behind Mad Max and Just Cause. This granted the project immense potential for scale, density, and dynamic weather systems—the very hallmarks of its visual beauty. However, the engine was also known for its complexity and, at times, performance idiosyncrasies.

In 2022, the “simulation” space was dominated by highly specialized, often menu-heavy titles like Fishing Sim World and Russian Fishing 4. The Angler’s direct predecessor, theHunter: Call of the Wild, had carved out a massive niche by blending realistic animal behavior with an accessible, open-world “game-ified” structure. The market was primed for an “open-world fishing” game, but the expectation was for a hybrid: the serene exploration of theHunter married to the nuanced, gear-centric mechanics of a dedicated fishing sim. The Angler aimed for that synthesis but, as we will explore, landed in a contested middle ground.

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Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive: The Ghosts in the Park

Narrative is not the primary draw of a fishing game, yet The Angler makes a concerted, if flawed, effort to contextualize its vast wilderness. The story is introduced via a cinematic framing device: you are a relative summoned to manage Golden Ridge Reserve, a national park based on Yosemite National Park, after the mysterious disappearance of the previous manager, your uncle. This setup promises mystery, legacy, and a connection to the land.

However, the narrative dissipates almost immediately. The park’s warden, Ranger Cody, becomes your primary NPC contact via radio. His role is twofold: to deliver mission objectives (remove invasive species, tag trees, repair structures) and to provide comic relief through his rambling, often crass, personal anecdotes. This tonal dissonance is the game’s first major thematic misstep. The “call of the wild” implies a profound, spiritual connection to nature. Instead, the game’s human element frequently feels like a sitcom sidekick interrupting the silence. Lines referencing “nachos and colostomy bags,” as noted by Gaming Nexus reviewer Eric Hauter, are meant to be earthy and humorous but actively work against the serene, reverent atmosphere the visuals strive for.

The underlying theme is ostensibly stewardship and exploration. The tasks from Cody are framed as conservation efforts. Finding invasive plants, reporting pest infestations, and maintaining outposts all position the player as a caretaker, not just an extractor. This aligns with the “catch-and-release” philosophy explicitly promoted in all marketing—the beauty is in the pursuit, not the harvest. Yet, the game’s progression system—earning cash and XP to buy better gear to catch bigger fish—undermines this. You are a park ranger funded by the monetization of wildlife spectacle.

The most damning narrative failure is the complete absence of a cohesive, engaging plot. The uncle’s disappearance is a thread dropped almost entirely. The “diamond” trophy fish and other legendary species serve as the de facto “bosses,” but there is no ecological mystery, no personal journey, no reason to care about Golden Ridge beyond its beauty. The world is a stunning stage with no play. This vacuum left by a weak narrative is then filled by the chore of progression, turning thematic exploration into a gear-check treadmill.

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Gameplay Mechanics & Systems: The Promise and the Price

The heart of The Angler is its dual promise: authentic, deep fishing mechanics within an unprecedented open world.

The Fishing Loop: A Tale of Two Modes
The gameplay is segmented into three core fishing techniques:
1. Float Fishing: The classic, serene method. You cast a float and wait. The tension is in the bobbing water and the eventual dive of the float, requiring a quick button press to set the hook.
2. Lure Spinning: A more active, predator-focused technique. You cast and immediately begin retrieving, manipulating the lure’s action with the left analog stick. Fish here are more aggressive but also more erratic.
3. Jighead Spinning: A vertical, “hop-and-drop” technique used for bottom-feeders, requiring precise timing and rhythm.

The core mechanical brilliance, praised by many critics (notably Gaming Nexus‘s 8.8/10 review), is the reel tension system. Using the D-pad, players adjust a percentage of “give” on the line. Too tight, and you risk a broken line during a fish’s sudden surge; too loose, and the fish runs endlessly, draining your line. This is combined with a “pumping” action on the rod (pulling back and reeling in bursts) to tire the fish. For large species like Catfish or Largemouth Bass, this can be a ten-minute, active battle. This system successfully bridges arcade accessibility and simulation tension. It feels engaging and physical.

However, the execution is where the cracks appear. As repeatedly documented in Steam community threads, the float fishing mechanic is notoriously buggy and inconsistent. Users report lures sinking without bites, fish behavior being utterly random and unconnected to bait/lure choice, and the tension slider feeling unresponsive or broken. The much-touted “procedural spawning based on environmental factors” often feels opaque and, to players, arbitrary. Why is a Lake Trout spawning in a warm, shallow bay? The game provides no feedback, making the core “hunt” feel like guessing.

The “Open World” Experience: Exploration as a Chore
Here lies the game’s most profound contradiction. The world is undeniably massive and beautiful. The five reserves (Golden Ridge, etc.) are vast, with detailed topography, winding rivers, hidden ponds, and drivable vehicles. Finding new outposts and fast-travel points is a core loop, rewarding cash. Yet, as players like “congrad” on Steam raged, this exploration often feels like a punishing chore. The critique is sharp:
* No Maps/Minimap for Points of Interest: Lakes and ponds are unlabeled. A mission to “catch a Pike at [Specific Location]” forces you to drive endlessly, guessing at shorelines.
* Traffic Jam Gameplay: Trails often turn red, forcing you to dismount and walk, turning traversal into a slow, punishing hike simulator.
* Vehicle Physics: Driving, especially in first-person with no third-person view option (a glaring omission), is clumsy and frustrating. Getting stuck is common.
* Lack of “Game” in the Sandbox: Outside of Cody’s repetitive missions (find invasive plants, mark trees), the world offers little structured reason to explore. The joy is supposed to be self-generated, but without clear goals or meaningful discoveries (unique gear, narrative bits, wildlife events besides fish), many players feel adrift.

Progression & Customization
Progression is a classic gear-grind. Cash and XP from missions and fish allow you to buy better rods, reels, and countless lure variations. The claim is a “growing selection,” but at launch, the variety felt sparse. Customization is primarily aesthetic for your avatar. The illusion of depth is present but paper-thin; it’s a collectathon for statistical upgrades, not a meaningful RPG-lite system.

Multiplayer: The Mirage of Seamless Co-op
A major selling point was drop-in/drop-out co-op for up to 12 players, presented as a seamless, shared world experience. In practice, at launch and for much of its life, it was notoriously laggy and unstable. The Movies Games and Tech review called it “laggy, complex, and just a mess.” The Steam forums are filled with tales of friends unable to join, desynced boat positions, and bizarre server glitches (like the “Gold Green Sunfish” and “Carpsucker Hunt of ’24” memes referenced in the final dev blog). It was a fantastic idea executed with the polish of an alpha build.

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World-Building, Art & Sound: The Unsuccessful Symphony

The Visual Triumph
This is The Angler’s undisputed crown jewel. Using the Apex Engine, Expansive Worlds crafted a staggeringly beautiful, atmospheric world. Golden Ridge Reserve, with its Californian Sierra Nevada inspiration, is a masterclass in natural lighting, foliage density, and topographic variety. Turquoise springs, dense forests, snow-capped peaks, and tranquil meadows create a postcard-perfect simulation of wilderness. The water rendering, while a source of early complaints, was a technical achievement for its time—reflective, turbulent, and visually integrated with the environment.

The attention to ambient detail is frequently breathtaking: swaying grass, drifting pollen, day/night cycles that dramatically alter mood. This world feels alive, a stark contrast to the sterile menus of other fishing sims. It successfully sells the fantasy of a real, untouched place.

The Audio Tapestry
The sound design is excellent and immersive. The crunch of boots on gravel, the lapping of waves, the buzz of insects, the distant call of birds—all are crystal clear and spatially accurate. The sound of a reel spinning, a line whooshing through the air, and the satisfying plunk of a lure hitting water are tactile and rewarding. The gentle ambient soundtrack (or lack thereof, in favor of pure nature) perfectly complements the meditative pace.

Where Art Fails: The Uncanny Valley of Life
The beauty is marred by a critical lack of world interactivity and life.
* No Wildlife: Outside of fish, the ecosystem is empty. No deer drinking at the water’s edge, no birds taking flight, no bears. The world is a stunning diorama.
* Static Environments: Walking through mud or flowers leaves no trace. The world is a backdrop, not a reactive space.
* Human Soullessness: The few NPCs (like the warden) are either distant radio voices or static models in outposts with canned, repetitive lines. The “living, breathing world” of the marketing is a visual mirage. The beauty is skin-deep; there is no pulse beneath it.

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Reception & Legacy: The Community and the Crash

Launch and Critical Reception
The launch in August 2022 was * rocky. Metacritic shows a *63 Metascore (Mixed/Average) from critics, with user scores plummeting to 3.7/10 (Generally Unfavorable). Critic reviews were polarized:
* Praise (Gaming Nexus: 8.8/10): Hailed it as a “class all its own,” beautiful and rich, recommending it even to non-fans.
* Criticism (CD-Action: 55/100, PC Games Germany: 40%): Slammed it as “unfinished,” “more befitting Early Access,” with “bug-ridden” multiplayer and a core experience that is “simplified” and “devoid of subtleties.”
* The most common critical refrain: “It has the bones of something great, but it’s not there yet.”

The Steam Story: A Community Fractured
The Steam user base tells a more brutal story. The game peaked at ~9,000 concurrent players shortly after launch (per SteamDB charts cited by users). Within two months, it had lost over 90% of that player base. The forums became a battleground between a dwindling group of passionate defenders (“BuckarooBass,” “Max Pavo”) and a growing chorus of disillusioned critics (“Emme,” “WhiteWolf215”) accusing the former of being “sunk cost fallacy” victims and “spreading lies” about ongoing support.

The central conflict was semantic and ideological:
* The “Sim” Crowd: Felt betrayed by marketing. They bought a game advertised as a “realistic” and “authentic” fishing simulator. They found an arcade-y, buggy, shallow collector game with a gorgeous facade. Their litany of complaints—no proper fish behavior, no labeling of water bodies, simplistic mechanics, terrible float fishing—was a demand for the depth promised.
* The “Relaxation” Crowd: Argued the game was a beautiful “zen experience” where the “sim” label was irrelevant. For them, the joy was in the vibe, the exploration, the simple act of being in a virtual wilderness.
This schism is irreconcilable and defines the game’s legacy: What were you buying? A tool for peace or a platform for mastery?

The Slow Death and the Final Blog
For two and a half years, Expansive Worlds did work. Following the Gaming Nexus interview in early 2023, they committed to a roadmap: free DLC like the Norway Reserve (initially free as a goodwill gesture), constant patch cycles addressing bugs, water rendering improvements, and feature requests. This period saw Steam reviews slowly trend less negative. The team’s transparent, humble communication (Rustchynsky citing Driveclub‘s recovery) earned them respect.

But the numbers never recovered. The live-service model requires a critical mass of players to justify ongoing costs. On January 14, 2025, the heartbreak arrived. The official blog, cross-posted to Avalanche’s site and the game’s wiki, announced the “end of development.” The language was poignant and personal: “It’s with a heavy heart…”, “We wouldn’t have made it these two-and-a-half years if we hadn’t listened very closely to our passionate community…”, but “maintaining the audience size necessary… proved more challenging than expected.” The servers would stay online, multiplayer would function, but no new content, no fixes, no future. The Discord went read-only. The dream was officially shelved.

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Conclusion: A Monument to Unfulfilled Promise

Call of the Wild: The Angler will not be remembered as a great game by history’s standards. Its Metacritic and user scores are middling to poor. Its mechanics are inconsistent, its world is hollow, and its narrative is an afterthought. But it will be remembered as a significant, cautionary landmark.

It is the prime example of a “failed masterpiece”—a game where the vision exceeded the execution and the market’s patience. Its greatest achievement, the breathtaking open world, became its prison. The team at Expansive Worlds had the talent to build a stunning stage but not the time or resources to populate it with life, systems, and depth. They aimed to reinvent a niche genre and instead created a niche within a niche: a beautiful, peaceful, but fundamentally broken experience.

Its legacy is threefold:
1. A Benchmark in Atmosphere: For better or worse, no game has made the act of looking at a virtual landscape while holding a virtual rod so compelling. It set a visual and audio standard for “serene wilderness” that others will emulate.
2. A Polarizing Genre Experiment: It proved that “open world” could be applied to fishing, attracting a new audience while alienating purists. It exposed the deep philosophical rift in sim design: accessibility vs. simulation.
3. A Case Study in Post-Launch Life and Hard Limits: Its rise, its struggle, its slow improvement, and its inevitable, quiet cancellation is a text-book study in the economics of live-service gaming. It demonstrates that even with a dedicated team, community goodwill, and a unique selling point, a game can fail to find the sustainable audience size needed to survive. The final dev blog is a masterclass in graceful, sorrowful surrender.

Final Verdict: Call of the Wild: The Angler is a beautiful ghost. It haunts Steam with its gorgeous, empty reserves. It is a testament to the fact that a game can be technically flawed, commercially unsuccessful, and critically divisive, yet still contain something intangible and special. It is the game you boot up to watch a sunset over a digital mountain range while waiting for a bite that may never come. Its tragedy is that it asked us to find peace in its waters, but its own development was a constant, losing battle. It remains, in its abandoned state, a perfect—if unintended—simulation of fishing itself: a pursuit of hope in the face of overwhelming quiet, often ending in an empty hook.