Maneater Review

Lights, camera, action! Welcome to Maneater, a documentary about the life and evolution of the bull shark, and as we follow Scaley Pete and his son Kyle aboard the Cajun Queen we soon learn there is a deeper motive behind your adventure into the deep, dark blue.

“Become a Maneater! Experience the ultimate power fantasy as the apex predator of the seas – a giant Shark! Terrorize the coastal waterways. Tear swimmers and divers limb from limb, give the humans a reason to fear you! Maneater is a Single-Player Action RPG, set in the Gulf Coast’s unforgiving waters. Fight to survive in the open ocean, swamps and rivers with danger lurking at every depth. Your only tools are your wits, your jaws, and an uncanny ability to evolve as you feed. Eat. Explore. Evolve!” – Tripwire Interactive

From Tripwire Interactive, the creators of cult hits Killing Floor 2 and Chivalry 2 comes another blood soaked title in the form of the apex predator – the shark. Starting Maneater as only an infant pup, you must chomp and bite your way through seven regions of watery locations to grow bigger and become the ultimate apex predator as you encounter larger and more dominant creatures of the sea like crocs, great whites and even whales. You have varying attacks and upgrades you can ‘evolve’ by spending experience points gained by eating. You can jump out of the water, snatching hunters of their boats while chomping away leaving a big blood trail behind you, while another trick is to chomp down on a turtle and use your tail to hit the shell into land objects. You know, because sharks cant survive on land long… or can they!?

The missions you encounter can range from simple nest feeding, searching for a certain type of sea creature and feeding to ‘thin the herd’ so to speak. Others you will face are epic boss fights where you face of with another – and much usually – larger apex predator, but you shouldn’t attempt these until you have gained enough XP as they are significantly stronger. There are locked XP crates around the areas to search for, finding and cracking these open will give a vast boost making things that little easier. Causing a scene with the local humans will earn you some nice XP but will also raise your threat level; if you cause enough bloodshed local sailors or even the coast guard will come to hunt you down. Cause even more trouble and you will face of against one of the many popular fishing celebrities in the area.

There are seven regions to tackle ranging from the rivers and swamps of the bayou to the deep gulf waters of the southern end of the United States. Every detail has been re-created nicely, from used tires strewn about, glass bottles and empty wooden crates lining the sea floor and huge sewer pipes to twist and weave through leading to secret locations. Jet ski’s and fishing boats glide above just tempting you to lunge up and attack.

Evolving is another main aspect of Maneater, with being able to grow larger than nature intended comes a few perks. As you evolve you will gain powers. You can enable the power of stone, electricity and other such perks. This can turn you from an aggressive adult shark into an unstoppable killing machine, able to crush a boat in a single strike or electrify your prey for that extra damage. You can also mix and match to sample a bit of everything the perks can provide.

Conclusion

Maneater is another great title from Tripwire, plenty of blood and adventure packed into this single player shark fest. Full of fun and great gameplay I highly recommend to any Jaws fan or horror nut out there. The only thing I’d like to see next time… Online shark battles.

This game was reviewed based on Xbox One review code, using an Xbox One console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.