How to Fish Age Rating: 12, 14 or 18?
Contents
How to Fish carries neither of the two ratings parents usually look for — no PEGI, no ESRB. What the Steam page does carry is three regional scores, and they differ from each other by more than a factor of two.
Three boards, three different numbers
| System | Region | Score | Stated reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam self-assessment | Germany | 12 | alcohol and tobacco, fantasy violence |
| DEJUS | Brazil | 14 | fantasy violence |
| IGRS | Indonesia | 18 | online interaction, alcohol and tobacco, violence |
The minimum age on the store page itself is 0, which means the page opens with no age gate and Steam never asks for a date of birth.
What the boards react to
The developers described the sensitive content in one line of their own: the game contains cartoon violence towards fish and gambling with fish, with no real money. Both are plainly visible in play.
Violence. The entire loop is catching and killing creatures. Achievements are literally named after killing your first creature, killing one with a 360 no-scope, and killing a seagull with dynamite. The art style is cartoonish and there is no conventional gore, but the action is killing.
Gambling. The islands hold a machine that pays out skins and a roulette wheel where you can bet on green. The achievement for winning on green sits at 38.4% of players. The stakes are in-game currency rather than card payments — which is exactly what the developers meant by the words about real money. This is most likely what pushed the Indonesian score to 18: that board counts gambling as a separate factor.
Alcohol. The premise is a group drinking on a boat and crashing into an island. One early achievement is about a stolen beer, and patch 1.0.10 specifically fixed how the beer behaves when punched. The German self-assessment names alcohol outright.
Online is the fourth factor
The Indonesian rating is the only one that lists online interaction. The game has co-op for up to eight people and a chat nobody moderates. Patch 1.0.10 removed rich text from that chat precisely because it was being abused. For a child that is an argument for a private invite-only lobby rather than public servers.
The practical read for parents
This is not a violent game in the adult sense: no dismemberment, no realistic blood, no sexual content. Three things are still worth a deliberate decision:
- the machine and the roulette — gambling is presented as a normal way to earn;
- alcohol — not as a bonus, but as part of the premise;
- open chat — solved by a private invite-only lobby.
If none of the three is a dealbreaker, the German 12 is closer to the actual content than the Indonesian 18. Formally, though, the strictest rating in force is 18, and we say so plainly rather than hiding it.
Frequently asked questions
What is the official age rating of How to Fish?
There is no single one. The Steam page lists three regional scores: Germany 12, Brazil (DEJUS) 14, Indonesia (IGRS) 18. Neither PEGI nor ESRB rated the game.
Is there an age gate on the store page?
No. The minimum age field on the Steam page is zero, so the page opens without any age confirmation.
What did the developers themselves flag as sensitive content?
Their own note mentions cartoon violence towards fish and gambling with fish, with no real money involved.
Can a 10-year-old play it?
Nothing formally forbids it, but the strictest of the three ratings is 18. The deciding factors are the gambling machine, alcohol in the setup and voice chat with strangers.