The Big Catch is an action 3D platformer developed by Filet Group, being published by XSeed Games, and is currently slated to release sometime in 2025! In it you play as Caster, a young fyskari and employee at the titular Big Catch, a seafood resturant in the middle of a vast desert. The game is set to follow your adventures working there under Chef Leurre, gathering fish for him to cook alongside your co-worker and fellow fyskari, Tackle! Our understanding of the story is still very limited from what we can gather from trailers and information on the website, however many screenshots have let us know that there are far larger mysteries than in the desert than what the catch of the day is.
The game was originally launched as a kickstarter campaign on September 15th, 2022. Over the course of one month the game proceeded to tear through its original funding goal of CA$ 120,000 (as well as every single stretch goal set out by the developers) reaching a final pledged ammount of CA$ 241,747 !! In total the game had 4,440 backers, 101 of which (yours truly included) were superbackers. Of the many rewards for backing, one of the most notable was:
The Tacklebox!! Originally promised to be a backer exclusive demo, The Big Catch: Tacklebox ended up being a free to play "demo" for the final release. Demo is in quotes here, as despite the developers calling this excursion into the world of The Big Catch a "demo" it's more accurately a prologue as it is 8-10 hours of content entirely unique from the final game. In it you play as Caster's co-worker, Tackle. This cocky counterpart plays identically to Caster, however this allowed players (backer or otherwise) to get a feel for the general gamefeel and engine of The Big Catch. As of 2/13/25, The Tacklebox has 91% positive reviews on Steam.
At its heart, The Big Catch feels amazing to control. At least to me! I know that the way this game handles is a point of contention for a lot of people! While not outwardly marketed as such, The Tacklebox at the very least is in-line with Foddian platformers in many ways, being a difficult gauntlet of platforming challenges stacked in a row that you need to learn to overcome. The difference that veers it away from being just another rage game however, is that unlike a rage game the controls are incredibly tight. Every mistake you make feels like your own due ot the sheer level of control you have over Tackle and none of the platforming ever feels intrinsically mean-spirited like a Foddian game. While every challenge is difficult and feels like more of a puzzle than an outright platforming segment, this puts it more in line with something like Celeste! While some would ALSO consider that a rage game, I highly disagree due to the extreme level of polish on the controls and the level design being on the player's side. The same can be said of The Tacklebox (and presumably The Big Catch), while the world around you is a series of obstacles none of them are ever designed to make a player hate them outright.
More than this, I am personally incredibly picky about two things when it comes to my 3D Platformers, that being how you climb vines and how the game controls in the water. If I don't like the answers to either of these questions, I'm likely to not really care too much about a game, they're just big pet peeves of mine. The Tacklebox got them both right on its first try. Climbing vines on any wall is as simple as holding a direction and going that way, and swimming feels absolutely effortless. Slap that onto a game with a very parkour heavy moveset and I'm sold on that alone.
For those that know me, it's no secret that the original kickstarter trailer for The Big Catch has made me cry numerous times. This game knows what it wants to emulate, and does so absolutely flawlessly in my opinion. From that opening shot of a lens flare and sea birds I was sold on this game in 2022, and have continued to remain sold on it to this day through Tacklebox. This game's visuals are not only incredibly charming, but wildly impressive when you realize that swapping between a sharp, modern look and something so crunchy it came right out of your den as a kid is as simple as pausing the game and changing a setting. No real wait times, no re-loading of pre-existing graphics, no need to go to the main menu. In a pause menu you can take something made in 2025 and make it look identical to something put out in 2002. There's plenty of times where I find myself playing this game and it truly invokes a feeling of playing lost media. A feeling that this game is authentically from that time, and simply got burried somehow only to be uncovered by Filet Group now.
Of course this effect wouldn't be possible on visual alone, no it takes more than that to sell a game which is why the audio too is phenomenal. Many have compared this game's general sound design and composition to be incredibly Wind Waker, the devs themselves included and that couldn't be closer to the truth. In the same way that Wind Waker is one of the Zelda titles with the most personality, every note in this game oozes with love for this era of gaming. Even the menu sounds call back to the musical nature of Wind Waker's menu, and it turns what was already an authentic visual experirence into something that truly sells itself as a product from a bygone era.
As it has come up very briefly in the previous section, this game has truly touched me emotionally and it's not even out yet. I've found that in general, I have an innate enjoyment of games that feel like they could've come out around the time I was born, truly that early 2000's era of game design touches a very special part of my soul and The Big Catch is far from an exception. If anything, it may be the defining game of that principle for me. What's more is that the devs are incredibly receptive of their fans, as I see nothing but love from that crew in the official discord, even a few reactions to fanart, etc. . The dev team is admittedly pretty small, but what they lack in size they make up in dedication to giving the players a product that not only fulfills their vision for everything this game could be, but for everything it should be.
