Bass Pro Shops: The Strike – Championship Edition coming to Switch later this year

The fishing genre on Switch will expand later this year with Bass Pro Shops: The Strike – Championship Edition. According to GameStop and Amazon Germany, it’ll be released on October 16 in North America and November 2 in Europe.

Bass Pro Shops The Strike might sound familiar to those who kept up with some of the more obscure Wii titles back in the day. That’s right – it looks like this same originally came out on Wii several years ago, and is now returning on Switch. A fishing rod peripheral will be included where players can slot in the Joy-Con.

GameStop has pre-orders for Bass Pro Shops The Strike here and Amazon Germany has it here. We have some screenshots and a bunch of information below.

Bass Pro Shops: The Strike – Championship Edition combines authentic environments based on real lakes, engaging gameplay with accurate fish and lure behaviors that creates an immersive fishing adventure. Players can enjoy 3 different game-play modes including Quick Fish, Career and Bass Pro Shops Invitational Tournament, or compete with friends in mini games like boat races and casting challenges. Players cast, jig, set the hook, and fight as if a real fish were on the other end of the line. The game takes players to some of North America’s most famous fishing hot spots and features eleven types of game fish including Largemouth, Smallmouth, Catfish, and Striped Bass as well as Northern Pike and Muskie. In addition, realistic lake bottom topography, advanced graphics, and authentic fishing gear from the Bass Pro Shops stores, all combine to offer virtual anglers the most comprehensive fishing game experience to-date.

Features List:

• ALL GAMER APPEAL: four modes of entertaining and competitive gameplay. In Career Mode gamers will need to understand the equipment, topography of the lakes, and specific fish behaviors in order to succeed. Players will be guided by the true rules of tournament bass fishing just like they would if they were fishing in real life. With two social arcade games – Boat Racing and Casting Challenge – The Strike is perfect for quick and friendly competitions with up to 4 players.
• AMAZING LAKES Ten of North America’s greatest lakes are realistically depicted, so players can recognize key landmarks and find their favorite fishing spots.
• ABUNDANCE OF FISH The Strike features a large variety of fresh water fish, including Largemouth bass, Smallmouth bass, Striped bass, and Kentucky spotted bass, Walleye, Northern and more. Each lake also contains a legendary fish of record proportions that will challenge even the best players and experienced fishermen.
• VARIETY OF EQUIPMENT Players can tailor their equipment by going to the Bass Pro Shops in-game store to select lures, rods, and reels. Players can also win new boats by winning tournaments.
• STATISTICS The Strike tracks players’ fishing data, ranging from the number of successful casts to the most popular lure. The game also tracks the total weight of each species of fish caught and individual lake totals, tournaments won, etc.
• ONLINE LEADER BOARDS Players will be able to post their fishing stats to online leader boards for the world to see their results.

Fishing controls:

• The trick is that when a fish bites your hook you have to pull back on the right thumbstick to “hook” the fish when you are playing with out motion controls.
• With motion controls enabled you pull the rod back back (motion gesture the left JoyCon) to set the hook. You’ll get a message on screen that reads “Hook is Set” and now you can reel in the fish.
• Then you have to wear out the fish. The meter below that the RED arrow highlights has to get down to empty before you can reel the fish into the boat.
• You have to keep the meter out of the red when reeling in so just roll back a tick at a time to keep it in the green and wear the fish out. If you don’t reel the fish will take out a ton of line on you. It is a bit of a battle but when you get the meter all the way down you can just reel in without struggle.
• The fishing line also changes color to indicate line tension but I focus on that RED/YELLOW/GREEN tension meter because it is right next to the fish fatigue meter.
• Also, see the meter that the YELLOW arrow points at. That is the Drag Line. Adjust that to be 3 green bars. Use the LEFT and RIGHT directional buttons on the Left JoyCon to adjust. That seems to help from the line breaking.
• Casting with motion controls.
• Hold the ZL button and pull back on the rod (LEFT JoyCon) and hold it until the meter reaches the lower GREEN area. Then when it is in the lower GREEN area move your left arm forward until the meter goes to the upper GREEN part of the meter and release the button.
• With standard Controls you hold down the ZR button and push UP on the RIGHT thumbstick to make the meter move. Once it enters the bottom GREEN section press DOWN on the thumbstick and it will go back up. When the indicator gets into the 2nd GREEN section on top, release the ZR button to cast. It takes a minute to perfect but once you get it you should get perfect casts almost every time.