In a world full of fish games, be a shark game.
NO SPOILERS
She’s a maneater, Nelly Furtado once said and she was right. Jaws of a nightmare, fins torn and battle worn, a blank stare in her eyes; she is coming for you. Actually… not in this game. In this game, called Maneater, you are the jaws of a nightmare with the fins that are torn and battle worn and a blank stare in your eyes. Because you play as a shark!
Before I dive into it further (dive into it, see what I did there), for those of you who don't know, here is the official description of the game:
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!
Maneater is special because you play as a predator, specifically a shark. The game relies on this power fantasy to carry the player through the gameplay and everything revolves around this central idea. Gameplay wise, it is nothing new from other open world games, you have the main missions, side missions, new areas to unlock, points of interest, skill trees, fast travel points, collectables, you name it. Just look at the map below.
Do not let that overwhelm you. The game took me 20 hours to complete 100% and get the platinum trophy. It was one of the easiest platinums to collect so this is a very accessible game. All the systems I mentioned above are easy to grasp and get into and the game doesn’t overwhelm the player with content and mechanics like you would expect from a traditional RPG. This isn’t the Witcher. This is a simple game with some RPG elements and a central story at its core. A shark game with a story? Now, do not expect a masterpiece. You are a shark on the path of revenge after an infamous bounty hunter cut your mother’s belly open and ripped you out, leaving her to die. All for sport. And unlike other fish in the sea, you do not suffer from short-term memory loss. No, you are hungry for vengeance and you evolve and evolve until you are ready to take this human criminal down for killing your loved one. Seriously, it’s just another day in the sea, amirite? But I digest.
From the map above, you can see the entire world the game has to offer. The map is split into regions that vary in a lot of ways, except gameplay. This is one of the most ideal open worlds I have played, simply because its size is pure perfection. Forget driving for 20 minutes to get to a location, this shark game is small, compact and full of only the necessary details. I never got bored of it, in fact, it was just enough. The variety of the regions keeps it fresh and interesting as long as you find the gameplay entertaining. The locations are stunning, ranging from murky and muddy waters like the Fawtick Bayou, to the rich and loud night life of Prosperity Sands, to the vast and open ocean of The Gulf. Each location is exciting to explore and swim around and it made me eager to unlock them and see what beauty they hide.
One of the most impressive aspects of the game is the level design but not in the traditional sense. It’s interesting because it combines a lot of level design principles you would normally find in open world and linear games but this time, it’s underwater. One of the most important principles you will find here are landmarks and leading lines.
The Grotto is the equivalent of the Resident Evil safe space where your game is saved. Going in there, saves the game and keeps all the predators away, even though sometimes they come in but their AI state turns to harmless so they become easy pickings. It is the safe spot where the player can upgrade their shark fins to bigger shark fins and shark jaws to bigger shark jaws. That leading line in the photo above is the power source of a broken and sunk submarine in the grotto, showing the player the way in and illuminating the shark’s safe space. Pretty neat. In fact, all the grottos in the game have a similar set up. There's always a power cable. There's always a shark. There's always a grotto. Simple but effective.
Other more subtle leading lines can be found in the terrain itself. It would have been very hard to navigate the underwater areas without some sort of memorable terrain and object placement. Take a look at some of these pictures below.
The game does a fine job of keeping the level locations and art memorable so the player can navigate the world without getting lost or confused. “Wait, wait, wait. I have definitely seen this floating speck before.” Marlin says to Dory in Finding Nemo, but that is not something the player has to worry about. There are also a set of tech tricks that help the navigation underwater such as highlighting/outlining close distanced objects by removing background objects with ambient "fog" and reducing the fog surrounding them. That makes them stand out a bit but also sells the idea that under the water vision is reduced.
This game is a finely decorated fish tank and, obviously, it’s a game that is based underwater and things can look very similar like grass, rocks, fish, floating specks, but the different combinations of them and their setup (along with those tech tricks) allow for variety and cool looking sights. Swimming underwater is just as fun swimming over the water, skimming as they call it, and the player can always switch between the two super easily. This can help the player get their bearings before diving under again.
The world has been built with care and attention to detail, not the same as you would find in a AAA game, but enough to make it look good and feel like an amazing underwater experience. As you can see in the pictures above, the floating debris, the tall, towering plants, the lights in the distance, all lead the player towards areas to explore, new things to collect and creatures to feast upon. Under that shining water line, the sandy ground and the depths of the sea feel busy, packed with a ton of things that feel natural at the same time. Ranging from the insane - a sunken ship, a radioactive bunker, a graveyard of mafia corpses, to more subtle, realistic things such as caves, sunken boats, statues and even a lot of pop-culture references like the IT clown, Pennywise. No matter how preposterous the object or location, it all still feels like it belongs underwater or, above the water, as earth and water are both important in this game. A great achievement in world building if you ask me. And the best part about it, is that if the player notices an interesting location from far away, from a different region, towering above in the distance, they will most likely be able to get to it later on. That is what we call the denial and reward system in level design.
So what do you actually do in this game, you ask. Well, you have a designated button for jaw movements which makes the shark bite, so need I say more? The player will bite and bite, and bite their way through tunnel barriers, through human flesh, through innocent sea life, through boats and umbrellas and anything the developers thought of. The game is primarily focused on that mechanic, so if you enjoy it then you will have lots of fun. The shark does these spectacular animations when it bites and, depending on how the player controls it, it can leap through the air and tear its prey apart, it can slam its body into a boat, it can leap from the water and grab an unaware human partying on a side of a yacht before diving back into water; its tricks and shark mannerisms are superb and fun and unique. There is something satisfying watching it all play out, seeing the blood spatter on the surface of the water, staining the boats before they slowly sink into the depths as if they are props in a Dexter episode...or maybe that’s just me.
There is one thing the game is that might turn you away from it. One thing. Just one thing. That one thing. One. Thing. It’s repetitive. Such a funny way (that a lot of people use) to describe a negative aspect of a game. Games and their systems are by definition repetitive. It shouldn’t be a negative description. And for me, this game is just as repetitive as Spiderman’s combat or Uncharted’s climbing sections. So, if you do not like doing the same thing over and over again because you believe that’s the definition of insanity, then this game might not be for you. For me, the repetition of this game isn’t a negative aspect of it because I enjoyed its systems and the feel of the general game. It starts a bit unbalanced, needs getting used to, but if you get past that and allow yourself to just enjoy its humongous ridiculousness, then you will be entertained by it.
The gameplay also offers a variety of…victims. There are all sorts of sea life to devour with your jaws, from barracudas, to turtles, to other sharks and even larger beasts such as deadly orcas and whales. There are silly humans minding their own business on yachts, beaches, inflatable flamingos, all unaware of your grumbling stomach and your appetite for murder.
The game has an infamy system, much like a wanted system in other open worlds. Cause enough trouble and the shark police will be after you, or as they all them, the Bounty Hunters. The more humans you chew, the more wanted you get, the more bounty hunters sent after you. The more bounty hunters you annihilate, the more wanted you become and then mini bounty hunter bosses come after you with all sorts of weapons. The more mini bosses you defeat the more shark upgrades you unlock the more badass you become. It’s all very simple really. The AI and bosses are not too easy and not too difficult to fight and scale up depending on the sharks level; once the player reaches higher levels, the hunters will bring in divers with guns or throw bombs at the player's location but at lower levels you can expect less explosions and more generic combat. All in all, a fun combat experience if you can ignore the awful auto-targeting system which has been slightly improved with recent updates.
If you think fighting mini human bosses with EMPs and homemade cages around their boats is cool, just wait until you hear that you can fight badass sea monsters! Oh, well, you just heard it so, yes, you can do that! To progress each region the player must fight off the region’s Apex Predators, as they are called in-game. They are similar in combat terms but still a bit unique and a good enough challenge before progressing with the main campaign. These bosses also provide the player with upgrades and can be found in the game at any time although the player will not be strong enough to defeat them. So even though the game allows the encounter to happen, the player will be deciding for themselves when and if they want to take them on.
Now. The shark itself is also a system of its own. After the initial introduction to cool abilities by playing the mother shark, the game forces the player into her offspring and the main character of this water tale, the baby shark. So the player starts of as a little baby shark, full of innocence and cuteness, unable to fight off the bigger predators lurking in the depths and they must survive and evolve.
The evolutions are part of the progression system of the game. The player sort of has to upgrade the shark into a deadly super powered machine. I fish you not. There are specific "classes" of shark upgrades, or Evolutions as the game calls them, and they are separated into the Bone set, the Bio-Electric set and the Shadow set. They are all equally fun and the player can pick and mix their abilities like a kid at a candy store. The Bone set makes the shark into a heavy beast, able to smash things into oblivion. The Bio-Electric set stuns and leaves enemies vulnerable for attacks. Finally, the Shadow set makes you a stealthy mothersharker while utilizing poison to whittle down opponents. And, as mentioned above, the players can mix those abilities to fit their own playstyle.
The player can choose to have a bone head, a shadow jaw, bio-electric fins and the game will allow it. It is really fun upgrading each component as it also upgrades visually. A level 1 shadow head is very different looking from a level 5 shadow head. The system also introduces other abilities that do not change anything visually, like the organs. The shark has 3 main organ slots that can be changed and upgraded (what a weird thing to say, huh?). The player can choose to have the ability to survive more time outside water or digest more fat from sea life or have an advanced sonar, etc. All interesting and unique to a shark game.
And there you have it. There are many games in the sea but only this one allows you to swim in it. The shark itself is awesome, the world is the perfect underwater paradise, the gameplay is fun enough. If you, like me, are a shark fan and have been waiting for a cool, over the top game full of shark craziness with license plates to pick from your teeth, with interesting waters to explore and the goal of becoming the ultimate predator, then this game is for you.
Quick THOUGHTS
Maneater is worth buying during a sale.
Maneater is not a AAA quality game but it aims for it.
Maneater has a beautiful underwater world to explore.
Maneater is the ultimate shark game for shark fans.
Maneater can be relaxing if you just want to go for a swim and enjoy the exploration it offers.
Maneater suffers from framerate drops and some control issues that can put off some players.