Deep Blue Sushi Achievements Walkthrough

Deep Blue Sushi ships with 15 Steam achievements spanning cooking, fishing, combat, customer service, and good old-fashioned co-op chaos. This page is the per-achievement walkthrough that complements the Achievements Hub overview — every entry below lists the unlock condition (where known), the fastest path to trigger it, and the workaround if it is currently bugged. Use the jump links below to skip to a category.

Achievement Categories At A Glance

• 5 fishing / exploration achievements — First catch, fishbook completion, 100-meter free-dive, sandcastle chaos, and the cat.
• 4 cooking / restaurant achievements — First sushi, first paid customer, sub-3-second delivery, and same-day catch-to-serve.
• 4 social / co-op achievements — Friendly harpoon, slipping on a dropped fish, MVP of the day, and the Alien Compass.
• 2 combat achievements — First drown and the Red King Crab.

Fishing & Exploration Achievements

Sandcastle Menace

• Trigger: Knock down your first sandcastle.
• How: Walk (or, more entertainingly, harpoon into) the small sandcastles that line the Shallow Waters beach near the dive dock. They are visible on the surface in the first 30 seconds of any session. Unlocked by 100% of players in public tracking, so it is effectively guaranteed.
• Tip: This is the rare achievement you cannot miss. If it does not fire, check whether your build is current — a few pre-launch builds did not track the sandcastle state.

Born to Fish

• Trigger: Catch your first fish.
• How: Use the harpoon on the nearest Common Mackerel or Sardine school in Shallow Waters. 85.71% global unlock rate, the second-most-earned achievement in the launch set.
• Tip: Hold the harpoon, lead the moving fish, and fire when the reticle tightens. Do not waste ammo on Sardines if Mackerel are nearby — both fire the achievement but Mackerel is the higher-tier catch.

Sink or Swim

• Trigger: Dive 100 meters deep and return to the surface without drowning.
• How: Upgrade the oxygen tank twice (any tier), then do a free-dive down to the Deep Ocean boundary. Touch the 100 m depth marker, turn around, and surface in one breath. 11.43% global unlock rate, so most players will need a deliberate attempt.
• Tip: Watch the oxygen bar at the bottom of the HUD. Start your ascent at 50% oxygen. The 100 m mark is around the boundary between Mid-Depths and Deep Ocean.

No More Question Marks

• Trigger: Discover every species in the FishBook.
• How: Catch at least one of every fish in the FishBook. 0.00% global unlock rate as of this writing — it is the rarest achievement because several fish only spawn in late-game zones.
• Tip: Use the Fish Tier List to plan your catch order. The S-tier and A-tier species are the bottlenecks; C-tier and D-tier fill in quickly on a single shallow dive.

Cat Tax

• Trigger: Give a fish to the cat.
• How: A kitchen cat NPC spawns near the prep station at the start of each service. Drop any fish on the floor in front of it. 22.86% global unlock rate, mostly because new players do not realise the cat exists.
• Tip: Any fish works — even a Sardine. The cat does not care about tier.

Cooking & Restaurant Achievements

First Roll

• Trigger: Make your first sushi.
• How: Combine rice, nori, and any fish at the ChefDesk to complete the Mackerel Sushi recipe. 94.29% global unlock rate, the most common cooking achievement.
• Tip: Follow the prep timing windows exactly. The first recipe is the tutorial — it is forgiving on quality but does require the correct order of operations.

Sweet Smell of Money

• Trigger: Earn your first cash from a customer.
• How: Serve a completed dish to any seated customer during a service window. 88.57% global unlock rate.
• Tip: Serve within the patience window for full payout. Leaving the dish on the pass until it expires still counts as a serve but yields less — it still triggers the achievement.

Last Call!

• Trigger: Serve an order with less than 3 seconds remaining.
• How: Let a customer’s patience bar tick down to the last 3 seconds, then serve the dish in the nick of time. 22.86% global unlock rate — risky but very satisfying.
• Tip: Pre-prep two dishes during the rush so you can grab one the moment you hear the timer ping. Practice on Friday-night rush hours.

Employee of the Day

• Trigger: Catch a fish, prepare sushi, and serve a customer on the same day.
• How: Do all three in one in-game day. 60.00% global unlock rate. This is the loop the tutorial teaches, so most players get it for free.
• Tip: Dive first thing in the morning, prep during the lull before service, and serve at lunch rush. Do not save the catch for tomorrow.

Co-op & Social Achievements

Friendly Fire?

• Trigger: Hit a friend with the harpoon.
• How: Aim at another player and fire the harpoon while both of you are underwater. The harpoon is lethal to fish and lightly damaging to other players. 40.00% global unlock rate — half of co-op players trigger this by accident.
• Tip: Easiest in a small lobby. Stand next to your partner, aim at the fish behind them, fire. If you miss, the harpoon will graze them and the achievement fires.

Slip Hazard

• Trigger: Make another player slip on a fish you dropped.
• How: Drop a fish (or trigger the fish-drop animation) in a doorway the chef on shift is about to cross. 31.43% global unlock rate — accidentally triggered in 5-player lobbies, deliberately easy in 2-player.
• Tip: The chef slips for about 1 second. It does not damage the kitchen but does feel chaotic. Pair with Friendly Fire? in a duo lobby to chain social achievements.

Daily MVP

• Trigger: Become the MVP at the end of the day.
• How: Score the highest tips + satisfaction score at the end of the in-game day. 68.57% global unlock rate.
• Tip: Focus on high-value dishes (Sushi Roll, Sashimi Set) during the dinner rush. Speed counts more than perfect quality.

Alien Compass

• Trigger: Collect every piece of the Alien Compass.
• How: Find all the fragments of the Alien Compass hidden in the ocean. 8.57% global unlock rate — the second-rarest achievement because the compass pieces are in late-game zones.
• Tip: Compass fragments are tied to the Quest System side chain, not the main restaurant loop. Treat it as a long-term goal and revisit each zone after upgrading your equipment.

Combat Achievements

Just A Scratch

• Trigger: Drown for the first time.
• How: Run out of oxygen in a deep zone. 31.43% global unlock rate. The screen fades, the player respawns at the boat, and the achievement fires.
• Tip: Most players earn this naturally within the first hour of play. If you want to trigger it on purpose, dive in the deep zone without an upgraded tank.

Red King Crab

• Trigger: Defeat the Red King Crab.
• How: Find and defeat the Red King Crab boss in its lair. 0.00% global unlock rate as of this writing — PaperPixel has confirmed the boss is locked behind the final-act story content that is still in development.
• Tip: The boss encounter exists in the files but is not yet wired up to the live game. Until PaperPixel flips the flag in a future build, this achievement cannot be unlocked. Track the Early Access Roadmap for the update that adds it.

Quest Walkthrough Note

Several achievements (Alien Compass, Red King Crab, Cat Tax) sit behind the quest system. The Sleep quest in particular can fail to appear on the first quest of the run — see the Known Issues page for the current workaround. As more quests ship in Drop 1 / Drop 2 (see the Early Access Roadmap), more achievement triggers will land with them.

100% Completion Strategy

Here is the recommended order to knock out the achievements with the least grinding. It assumes solo play but adapts to co-op if you have a partner.

1. Session 1 (tutorial): Sandcastle Menace, Born to Fish, First Roll, Sweet Smell of Money, Employee of the Day. These fire in the natural tutorial loop.
2. Session 2 (rush hour): Last Call! and Daily MVP. Run a 5-table Friday-night service and chase sub-3-second serves.
3. Session 3 (chaos): Friendly Fire? and Slip Hazard. Bring a partner for both.
4. Session 4 (deep dive): Sink or Swim. Upgrade the oxygen tank twice, then free-dive to 100 m.
5. Session 5 (cat): Cat Tax. Drop a Sardine at the kitchen cat.
6. Session 6 (exploration grind): No More Question Marks. Use the Zone Fish Guide to plan your catches per zone.
7. Session 7 (Alien Compass): Compass fragments. Long-term, do not grind — the fragments surface naturally as you progress.
8. Session 8 (combat): Just A Scratch and the eventual Red King Crab once PaperPixel ships it.

Related Content

• Achievements Hub for the category-level overview
• Fish Tier List for the catch order that completes No More Question Marks
• Zone Fish Guide for which fish spawn in which zone
• Co-op Tips for the Friendly Fire? and Slip Hazard unlocks
• Early Access Roadmap for the Red King Crab unlock timeline