Hello fishers! :)
The Rift Fishing Demo is very close! Specifically on Monday, February 23rd, 2026 03:00 AM PST.
I'm sorry that it has been so quiet from my side, but a lot has been happening behind the scenes. My full-time job holidays ended shortly after the playtest and that job is currently taking quite a bit of time away from developing Rift Fishing. Things have been pretty stressful and I needed every minute I can get to focus. I won't be able to reply to questions for now, while I'm still working through the weekend.
In regards to the Demo itself, expect it to be a more polished version of the Playtest. The focus was on bugfixing, especially for networking / multiplayer and a fishing minigame rework. Not all known bugs are fixed. There's a bunch of other smaller additions and quality of life features.
I'm still working full steam on the Demo itself and will also be patching and updating the Demo with some new content for the first few weeks. So, please keep reporting bugs as you encounter them during the Demo :)
Short list for the Demo:
Lots of bugfixes
12 new fish (5 more to come), reworked fishing system / 4 minigames with stats-improving equipment from Rifts
Player report function, bigger lobbies, host migration with chat + player position
Singleplayer bugs fixed
Color picker, pixelation filter, brighter nights
Snarl/Purr/Whine expressions
PocketPal to open menus and find Rifts + players
Placables: Campfire, Lantern, Bench
Much love <3
Saia
Here is a non-exhaustive list of changes / additions:
FISHING
The fishing system has gotten a rework
12 new fish, all modelled by @Golditale (with 5 more to come during the Demo patches)
There are 4 minigames (including 'Hold input only') to choose from and they all work a little differently.
The circle matching minigame has been fixed and generally made easier. Especially the first tier of fish will be much easier. Then it ramps up.
Fish have proper unique stats now, which are influenced by their size and rarity.
Tying into fishing is the new **equipment system**. When you fish in a Rift you can get Anchors or Totems. These come with different stats that influence your chances to get certain sizes / rarities of fish and improve your performance during the minigames. You can equip 1 anchor and 3 totems at a time. Anchors will have unique effects in the future.
The new system will need some balancing. The goal is to have all fish be catchable with equipment you get passively for relaxed fishing. But players who want to min/max a little, can hunt for equipment with the stats they like to let them fish faster and target certain sizes / rarities easier.
Rifts spawn more often (their chances were lower than intended, and I upped it from there), are easier to reach and provide the equipment. The extra time until a fish from the Rift bites has been reduced. I wanted to rework Rifts for the Demo, but didn't have the time. Phased fish aren't as valuable as intended right now (as special rewards etc are missing), so the chance to catch an Equipment piece is 50% right now.
There are active spots now, bubbles in the water, where time until a fish bites is 3 times faster.
Minigame won't start until you are done typing in chat
3 second countdown before the minigame (can be turned off in Options)
MULTIPLAYER
There is a new Report function for players that can be found in the Lobby Management menu, the same menu that shows all players in a lobby. Players banned from the lobby can now be seen by everybody, to make reporting psosible after a person has been banned from the lobby.
Lobbies can now have up to 24 players, if you think your system can handle it
Host migration should be much more stable and carries over the old chat and the old player positions. Also, a host will be prompted to start host migration if they try to leave a lobby, which gives everybody a warning and timer to choose to quit the lobby or stay for migration.
Customization reset when having the customization menu open while a player joins should be fixed
Player customization not showing on other players and nametags disappearing should be much more stable. But it still needs some work. As before re-opening and closing the customization menu (K) will refresh how you appear to other players.
SINGLEPLAYER
All of the weird singleplayer bugs should be fixed, like the Unstuck button not working or being able to walk through water.
AUDIO
3 new tracks composed by @Finn were added
Spinball and Leafskate have their own catch jngles now. All new fish also have a jingle.
The Riftpedia let's you play the jingles of caught fish (and jingle play behaviour can now be changed in the options)
Other sound effects have been added. The 'mysterious bird' sound bug was also fixed.
It was probably expected, but the Demo does not have instruments yet.
UI & PAINTING
Many new icons for UI buttons and body customization have been added, drawn by @Golditale
The chat box has now customization options (gear icon) like Font Size, Background Opacity and more. As well as a simple /roll command. There is also a /me command in the game, for everybody who didn't know yet.
A color picker has been added. It can always be used, without a need for ink. Ink is now only used to create color palettes, and the cost for ink is only 10% of the original cost.
Unfortunately Painting is still work in progress. I was not able to fix bugs like the color change when two people draw, or the rework in general to have joining players see the paintings. But I'll still try to find the time to fix this in a Demo patch.
Quests should work properly now. The Playtest had a bug that broke quest progression.
Sell All button has been added to shops
You can hide all UI with H
Pixelation filter added
MISC
The phone / prism is now the 'PocketPal'. You can open it up with Q, then click the icons or press the numbers 1-6 to open menus like the Inventory, Customization etc. directly. Here you will also find the new Fishing menu to switch your minigame. More things will be added to the Fishing menu in the future.
When the PocketPal is open, you can see markers in the world. Those show other players and active Rifts to make finding both easier.
You can snarl / purr (cat) or snarl / whine (wolf) with V and B now. This is temporary, and in the future there will be a proper 'Expressions' menu with more options, similar to the Emote Wheel.
Placables: This is not the finished system for Placables, but the shop offers a Campfire, Lantern and Bench now. They can be used infintely, but you can only place one light source (Campfire or Lantern) and one bench at a time. Please don't harass other players with this.
Small changes like:
Double-tapping an item on your hotbar to unselect it
Rarity shown on hotbars
Items have VFX depending on their rarity
New Options
Video:
Brightness Adjustment
Gamma
Color Temperature
Graphics:
Pixelation filter (6 strengths, mix it with Screen Percentage for fine control)
Color Depth (for posterization effect)
Chromatic Aberration (Default is 0)
Typical UE5 graphics options that didn't do anything have been removed from the menu
Audio:
The wrongly set Emote slider is fixed (it visually showed 0, but still played at full volume)
Controls:
Mouse Sensitivity Horizontal / Vertical
Mouse Zoom Modifier (how quickly you zoom)
Invert Mouse Axis X and Y
Sprint Toggle
Controls - Keybinds:
Toggle Mouse Cursor is now re-bindable
The new expressions are bound to V and B by default here, but like mentioned the system will change. At that point in the future it will be a single keybind again.
Toggle UI visibility with H
Gameplay:
Camera Zoom Max Distance to zoom out further (a sort of free cam is still coming)
Night Brightness ('Darker' is the initial setting from the Playtest)
Fishing Jingle (let's you change how often the Fishing Jingle plays when catching a fish)
Skip Fishing Countdown (skip the newly introduced 3 second countdown until minigame starts)
Skip Fishing Rewared Popup (completely skip the popup)
Simplify Minigame Numbers / Visuals (will hide some new visuals that some players might dislike)