Singleplayer Pause

Freezes gameplay time and the active boss departure countdown while the game's native pause menu is open in a strict singleplayer session.

Safety boundary

The mod changes Time.timeScale only when all of these conditions are true:

• the player is outside the main menu;
• the game is using its offline transport, not Steam;
• the local process is both server and client;
• exactly one client is connected;
• the local player exists;
• the native pause state is active.

Online hosts, online clients, offline clients, and local sessions containing more than one client are never frozen. The previous time scale is restored when the pause menu closes, a singleplayer condition becomes false, the mod is disabled, or the game exits.

FishNet normally advances from unscaled time even when Unity's Time.timeScale is zero. During a valid singleplayer pause, the mod blocks simulation tick advancement while leaving FishNet frame and late-frame updates active. Before acquiring that freeze, it waits for the current tool equip/draw transition and any firearm shot, cooldown, queued shot, or reload to reach a safe boundary. While frozen, it uses the game's native TryActivateAnimatedHands path to keep the held weapon or fishing rod renderer and IK active even if the separate hand-draw transition was interrupted. Native held-item reconciliation remains untouched. Weapons, rods, projectiles, hits, enemies, and boss deadlines then resume without accumulated catch-up, while chat, save notifications, and fishing-line frame maintenance continue to run.

Usage

1. Start a Singleplayer world.
2. Press ESC to open the game's normal pause menu.
3. Gameplay freezes until the pause menu is closed.

There are no settings or custom keybinds. The mod follows the game's native pause action.

Compatibility

• How to Fish 1.0.4
• BepInEx 5.4.23.5

Development disclosure

This project was developed with substantial assistance from OpenAI Codex. The packaged code was reviewed and compiled against the game before release.