[E3 2019] Maneater Is A Uniquely Weird Game In Which You Play As A Shark

If we have an award for the weirdest game announced at E3, Maneater from developer Tripwire will probably take the crown. It is an open-world action game that is presented as a reality show in which you become a shark.  As you eat your way through a multitude of underwater ecosystems, growing in size and even evolving more characteristics, you’ll be able to enter more perilous territories. What for, you ask? Well, everything you do in this game serves only one ultimate purpose: To exact vengeance upon the hunter who wounded you when you were young. It’s basically Feeding Frenzy on steroid. Check out the trailer for it below:

So, the first thing you can see from the trailer is that the game has pretty nice graphics. It shows your shark lurking in the waters of a polluted bay next to a crowded city, preying on fish, birds, and people alike – basically anything that comes near its jaw. Everything looks awesome, from the neon lights shining out from the city buildings to the rays of the setting sun reflecting off of the water.

The second impression is that this feels like a hybrid between a horror and a comedy movie. The entire affair is gruesome, but it is also extremely silly at the same time. Take the way the shark can even jump ashore to catch beachgoers off guard (the game has 7 regions, each of which requires you to terrorize the human population to a certain level before it allows you to proceed). The first blow is horrifying, as the camera zooms in the jaws of the beast while screams pain and fear fill your ears. But then you’ll see your shark squirming around as any fish out of the water should be. The feeling of having to giggle after just witnessing a bloody homicide is what makes the experience so unique.

As a shark, you’ll mostly interact with the environment with your teeth, but that is done in a variety of ways.  In the early levels, you’ll be feasting on other animals to get your shark grow in size and progress through its 5 stages of life. Interestingly enough, “adult” is only the third stage, so we’ll probably get something ridiculous by the late game. Everything you consume provides one of 4 types of nutrients - from the basic “protein” to the more unconventional “Mutagen X” - which is basically a currency that you can spend on upgrades.

Yes, you get to upgrade your shark through an evolution system, giving you unnatural things like iron teeth, bone armor, and more.

As mentioned above, all the things you do contribute towards completing the main story quest: Your moist protagonist was disfigured at an early age by a hunter named Scaly Pete, so now you seek to repay him in kind.

But as a semi-open-world game, Maneater offers more things for you to do than just the main quest. The sea is full of secret locations and side missions, and the humans will also react to you. As you become a growing threat to them, bounty hunters will take it upon themselves to take you down for some nice cash. On the other hand, you’ll earn certain rewards if you kill them as well.

There are other dangers that you must take into account too. Each region has an apex predator that, understandably, will not take it kindly to you hunting down their prey. So after a while, you’ll become their target. You’ll have to overcome these fearsome foes to reach the top of the food chain.

So year, you can see that everything about this game is weird: the tone, the set-up, the story, the upgrades. But the weirdest thing is, it actually looks incredibly promising. We’ll definitely keep a close eye on this game, so stay tuned for more updates.