Have you ever had fantasies of what it was like to be a shark? Well good news, the folks at Tripwire have you covered with their new action title Maneater. In this game you play as a shark that levels up and evolves into some of the most dangerous incarnations of the creature imaginable. And your job is to pretty much kill everything in sight. Oh, and you’re also getting revenge for your mom on a specific shark hunter that killed her.

Maneater is a 2020 action-RPG, it is developed and published by Tripwire Interactive. It is currently available on PC, Playstation & Xbox consoles and was recently released for Nintendo Switch.

Editor’s Note: A Nintendo Switch review copy for Maneater was provided by Tripwire Interactive in support of this review. Medium spoilers for Maneater may be present within this review.

Play as an ever evolving shark in Maneater.

Maneater is a special kind of game. On one hand the very idea of it is pretty damn ridiculous. On the other I think that was kind of the point to not take it so seriously. And I think that’s where most of the fun in Maneater comes from. It knows exactly what it is and doesn’t care if you were expecting something else. Everything else like the RPG and evolution mechanics are just the icing on a watery cake.

Maneater works because it embraces what it is; a whacky shark tale.

THE GOOD: The game starts off with an adult female bull shark causing all kinds of havoc on a beach killing the wild life and humans. It’s ultimately hunted down & killed by a shark hunter named Scaly Pete. Pete cuts open the shark removing her child (the player shark) from her stomach as he plans to hunt it down and killing it later on as it grows. The baby shark bites off Pete’s hand before escaping into the ocean. As time passes the shark grows and evolves into new species of the creature with Pete hunting it down.

As the game progresses you level up and gain XP which powers up the shark for higher level enemies. You can also gain new abilities such as being able to produce electricity. You also evolve by killing the apex predators spread across the map. These apex predators range from alligators and orcas which can get the jump on the player if you’re not careful. The game’s map is a decently sized open world with eight different regions to explore throughout the game. If the player is legit killing as they please then the world will evolve and respond in kind by sending out more powerful human enemies dependent on the player’s wave of destruction. This I thought was a pretty neat idea to make the world feel involved with the player.

I also really dug the evolution mechanic it’s a unique approach at these types of games. For Maneater, this feels like an experiment that the devs will undoubtedly want to come back to with another game. Be that a Maneater sequel or whatever else it may end up being used in. Which for the next game the concept I hope they really go all in with it. Maybe even add in some kind of customization somehow?

Witness the evolution of man…eating sharks in Maneater.

THE BAD: It’s a short ride for Maneater being at a total of eight hours in play time which at least in my opinion is the game’s biggest offense. The second is that the game is seriously lacking in difficulty and there’s no way to change that. I understand the thought process behind this however. The game is meant to be dumb fun so the developers didn’t want to interrupt that with insane enemy power spikes. The evolution mechanic is also never taken full advantage of with a small limited number of forms. Speaking of limitations the game also doesn’t use villain Scaly Pete as much as it should have, but they probably didn’t want to exhaust his appearance to the player.

Maneater is an excellent game for the limited amount of time spent with it.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: Maneater is a silly game that’s a pretty good time for what you’re able to get out of it. Greater difficulty would have been appreciated, but given the game’s presentation as a less serious title it’s forgivable. Now that it’s on Switch the game is a perfect way to kill some time if you just want something to chill with while travelling. I don’t know if there are plans for a sequel, but I’d really like the devs at Tripwire to take another opportunity at the style of play in Maneater. If they wanted to explore the evolution mechanic and what not with another type of animal like a bear or something along those lines with more evolution opportunities that would be pretty sweet.