When I started playing Maneater, I drew some comparisons to Biomutant - in the sense it is open world, very colourful (heavily saturated), has commentary from a narrator, looks quite post-apocalyptic (but actually it's just a polluted sea). You grind for resources but instead of crafting, you select a perk and upgrade it many times.
The narration is humorous, but sometimes gives shark facts. If they are true or not though - I don't know. The general presentation is that it’s a TV show about shark hunters.
In the prelude to the story (which acts as the tutorial), you play as a full-grown shark, but eventually get captured by the game’s antagonist Scaly Pete, a shark hunter, who kills her, then slices a baby shark out of her womb, scars it and throws it back. He wants the baby to grow up to get the satisfaction of killing them as an adult.
The baby shark is who you play as, with the aim of becoming strong enough to get your revenge on Scaly Pete.
Eating gives you nutrients which levels you up, and you spend those nutrients on upgrades. You age from the baby shark to teen, to adult, then mega. The upgrades involve stange augmentations, and collecting the full set results in a very sci-fi shark. Initially, you eat small animals like turtles and groupers, but will move onto larger creatures over time, eating seals and taking down sperm whales. In each area, there is at least one hostile creature, and alligators pose an initial, stronger threat.
Eating humans gives you infamy which triggers hunters to come after you. Take so many of them out and the boss appears, of which there are 10. Standard humans can be swimming, on boats (pedalo, jet ski, pirate ships, cruise ship etc), or on land. You can survive for several seconds out of water, so you can beach yourself and thrash about.
The combat takes a fair amount of button presses if you are up against a group of shark hunters shooting at you. You need to move and dodge, leaping out to bite or swipe them. Often you need to retreat and find some creatures to munch on to restore your health. The final couple of shark hunters are extremely challenging to take down, but are weirdly way more difficult than Scaly Pete is.
When you battle the aggressive sea-life, you generally wait until they charge, you dodge out of the way, then charge in yourself when they are vulnerable. If you manage to hold them in your jaws, you can thrash about for more damage. You also have a tail-whip attack which can be used when you have them in your jaws to launch them. Tail-whipping normally is a stun attack.
The upgrades, known as “evolutions” can be changed when you are in your grotto (there’s one per area, and can quick-travel between them). I found the electric upgrades were best against sea-creatures which stuns them, then the bone ones were the best when you want to fight the shark hunters in their ships (does extra ship damage). There’s some upgrades giving you bonuses to the different types of nutrients, then the usual health upgrades.
The game does a good job of making the locales feel different. From shallow rivers, swamps, resorts, and deep water. You start in a swamp maze, then it opens up more as you progress. The deeper sea is naturally ominous, but you are a predator so it’s not as unsettling as a game like Subnautica.
The game seemed quite restrictive at first, but I think it was partially down to me thinking I had gone as far west as I could, but I was mistaken. I had found other potential exits which were restricted, but the exit really was to go west. You can actually venture into most areas without hindrance if you generally follow the path around the map anti-clockwise. You will probably need to get to around level 10 before venturing far, otherwise some threats could easily take you out. It’s also a good idea to focus on the story missions, because there’s lots of them, and it does a good job guiding you through the map. A lot of the “story” missions just involve eating certain types of fish, killing humans, defeating the apex predator, then checking in on Scaly Pete.
The basic open-world objectives are here: find chests, registration plates, landmarks, and defeating certain animal targets. It's easy to find these because your shark has a sonar ability which highlights nearby creatures and objectives. The sonar can be levelled up for increased range. Completing sets often rewards you with the upgrades so are worthwhile to do.
I encountered a few crashes to the desktop, and a few moments of frame rate drops. It generally performs well though and looks good.
I find open world games quite simplistic and repetitive, and this falls into that category. The difference is that you play as a shark which makes a huge difference; shark games are rare so this feels really refreshing. It is well made and well-presented, and at around 12 hours, it doesn’t overstay its welcome.