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How to Fish: Strategies for beating the Spider Crab
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How to Fish is the name of the game, but defeating its first crabby encounter is less about your rod-and-reel technique and more about your skills with a pair of brass knuckles. I'll spare you the play-by-play, but I ran at the Spider Crab boss multiple times with my bare fists, and it didn't end well. To spare you from the same trial and error, here's how to beat the Spider Crab in How to Fish.
Your first goal in How to Fish is to complete the sailor's tutorial quest for a quick and easy onboarding, but being the goody-two-shoes student I am, I'm recommending you follow a few extra steps to prepare for the Spider Crab boss:
So there I was, fistfighting a giant, somersaulting crab with my bare hands, as you do, before it knocked me out twice. It's a bit of a pain, since every time you lose, you'll have to gather enough cash to buy another beer. I'm too familiar with that grind, but I graduated from university almost a decade ago, and I'm over that life.
The Spider Crab is easy to take down using only your fists in co-op play, but my first How to Fish run was solo, so that's why I recommend buying a melee weapon—preferably the knife. The added damage is a game-changer, so with that in mind, heed my few extra tips before reeling the critter in again:
Even the easiest difficulty takes a few rounds of running in and out for a few hits while the Spider Crab is dizzy, so be patient. How to Fish is all about using the terrain and physics to your advantage, so make the boss work harder to reach you and dodge its attacks while standing on higher ground.
When you're done, pick up what remains of the Spider Crab and deliver it to the old fisherman. He'll give you the keys to his boat as a thank you. Now it's time to load up and head to the next island, where piranha is on the menu. After that, you're off to face the Pufferfish boss.
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Andrea has been covering games for nearly a decade, picking up bylines at IGN, USA Today, Fanbyte, and Destructoid before joining the PC Gamer team in 2025. She's got a soft spot for older RPGs and is willing to try just about anything with a lovey-dovey "I can fix them" romance element. Her weekly to-do always includes a bit of MMO time, endlessly achievement hunting and raiding in Final Fantasy 14. Outside of those staples, she's often got a few survival-crafting games on rotation and loves a good scare in co-op horror games.