Maneater | Xbox One Review

Once in a blue moon a game shows up in your life, bites into you, and doesn’t let go until you have finished it completely. Maneater is just such a game for me. I was awestruck by this game from the moment I first laid eyes on it. The idea of a shark RPG is something I have never seen before, and I don’t think this world will see again. A game that at times is so utterly chaotic, it is hard to believe it ever was ever green lit in the first place. I want to dive into this game and take a closer look on why I think the developers over at Tripwire Interactive may have a sleeper of a game that I believe you shouldn’t let sink into the depths.

Baby Shark…

Maneater is an RPG, in which you take control of a shark and are on a revenge mission across a wide variety of locations. You task yourself with hunting down a sport fisher named Scaly Pete who killed your mother and left you scarred on the day you were born. It is quite possibly one of the most bizarre premises I have ever heard for a game. The entire story of the game is also told from the viewpoint of what can only be described as a low budget fishing show. From your humble beginnings as a baby shark, you must consume everything in your path and enact your revenge on your nemesis. Along the way are a multitude of animals, humans, and other obstacles you have to deal with to reach your ultimate goal.

Ohhh She’s a Maneater 

Maneater is a game that has a wide variety of missions to keep you entertained for quite some time. There are missions in which you have to hunt down a specific animal or bounty hunter. These quests make Maneater almost feel like an underwater version of Assassin’s Creed. There are tons of collectibles to hunt down and find, for those of you out there that love exploring and checklist style games. The collectibles also have an incredibly wide variety of hilarious and obscure pop-culture references ranging from movies like Titanic to Demolition Man. All of which is narrated wonderfully by Chris Parnell.

A Bigger, Better You

One of my favorite mission types is flushing out and taking down different apex predators, from a mighty hammerhead shark to a massive sperm whale. The way these missions are constructed is well done, having you eat a large amount of the food source of a certain predator to drive them out into the open to fight them. You will fight regular versions of the same predator along the way, to help learn traits and weaknesses when you fight the superior version. Once you defeat them, you also unlock new ridiculous traits to make your shark stronger as the story progresses.

Maneater is also a fun game to just swim around and enjoy the sights. A lot of time and love was put into the graphics of this game and how the environments are constructed. I enjoyed just staring at the sights, from the bayou in the beginning of the game to the unnerving depths of the Gulf area near the end. The sound design is also well put together and slightly disturbing to hear the screams of all the people you can eat at times. All the other animals placed in the game seem to move and act like their real life counterparts.

The Scary Bits

This game does come with quite a few faults, but for the first game of its kind, I can overlook some minor details. With that being said, I found the combat in this game to be not great. The lock-on button doesn’t function well and when surrounded by multiple enemies it seems to be a chaotic flurry. It almost feels like the game just turns into a button masher and you have to hope for a good outcome. Also some of the collectibles are fairly hard to get to, and take a lot of time and patience to figure out how to acquire them. There is also a great deal of rinse and repeat missions that feel unnecessary, to the point of just padding the game.

Final Chomp

I had an absolute blast playing through Maneater, from the first hunting mission I took down to flopping around on land trying to snag a few more humans. This game is just good, stupid fun and doesn’t take itself too seriously. I can’t remember the last time a brand new game held my attention so thoroughly that I finished all the missions and achievements before moving onto something different. The developers of Maneater have really found a unique formula and it works so well. It was truly a new experience I will remember for quite some time.

To hear me talk more about Maneater, be sure to listen to Episode 296 of The Gaming Outsider Podcast.

This review is based on a purchased digital copy of Maneater on the Xbox One. It is also available on PS4 and Windows with a Switch version to come later this year.