All 12 badges and how to unlock them
Twelve badges exist. Stranded, New Pet and Bait Crafter come free with normal play; the four named creature badges (KRAKEN, MEGALODON, CROCODON, POSIONED HEXJAW) are the only ones that require a specific monster.
Harpoon a Fish ships twelve badges. Four of them are free with normal play, four require a specific named creature, and one is a competition against every other player. The counts below are awarded-player totals read from the game's badge API on 17 October 2026.
All twelve badges
| Badge | Official description | Players awarded |
|---|---|---|
 Stranded | Welcome to the island! Hopefully you'll never leave. | 703,268 |
 Monster Hunter | Down the rabbithole we go... | 665,502 |
 New Pet | Oh wow you kept that one? | 638,703 |
 Bait Crafter | Craft a Bait! | 202,800 |
 WHAT??? | HOW DID YOU CATCH THAT!?!!??! | 159,382 |
 KRAKEN | You caught the KRAKEN! | 23,610 |
 WORLD RECORD | Catch the BIGGEST FISH of all time! (Per Species) | 1,480 |
 CROCODON | You caught a CROCODON! | 1,166 |
 NIGHTCRAWLER | You caught a NIGHTCRAWLER! | 527 |
 MEGALODON | You caught the MEGALODON! | 489 |
 POSIONED HEXJAW | You caught a POSIONED HEXJAW! | 480 |
 Meet the Owner! | You met me! | 463 |
What the numbers tell you
- Stranded, Monster Hunter and New Pet are the tutorial tier. Around 700,000 / 665,000 / 638,000 players hold them - essentially everyone who has played a session with a pet.
- Bait Crafter drops to 202,800. Crafting bait is where the casual audience thins out, which matches how the crafting bench works: a recipe wants specific fish, and you have to go and catch them.
- WHAT??? at 159,382 is the "how did you catch that" badge - an early rare catch, and the last badge most players get by accident.
- KRAKEN at 23,610 is the attainable monster. It is roughly 50x more common than the other three named creatures, so if you want a "I killed the big one" badge, this is the one the player base actually earns.
- MEGALODON (489), POSIONED HEXJAW (480), NIGHTCRAWLER (527) and CROCODON (1,166) are the deep-water elite. Fewer than 1,200 players each.
- Meet the Owner! at 463 is the rarest of all - it is not about skill, it is about being in a server when the developer shows up.
- WORLD RECORD at 1,480 is per species. Anyone can technically record a species; almost nobody does.
How to actually chase the creature badges
The four named creatures do not have a spawn button - they come out of the deep bands, and your depth is weight-gated. That makes a badge run a shopping list rather than a skill challenge:
- Get to the band the creature lives in by eating at the Mukbang table until your dives reach it (see depth layers).
- Craft bait that targets that band, so you are not fishing the whole ocean for one name (see bait and crates).
- Bring enough bag space for a long session; a badge run that ends because the bag filled is a wasted trip.
- Expect to be contested. Deep water with six players per server means someone else wants your target - read harpooning and stealing before you go.
The one badge you cannot grind
Meet the Owner! is awarded by the developer's presence. There is no bait, no depth and no pass that helps. If you see a server with the group owner in it, stay in it.
Badges are not progression
Nothing on this page unlocks anything. Badges are the game's record of what you have seen - which is why the counts are such a good snapshot of where the player base actually stops. The index page covers the other half of that record, and the codes page covers the one free shortcut the game gives you.
