Published , by TJ Denzer
Published , by TJ Denzer
When Maneater was first announced by Tripwire Interactive, many were perplexed by the third-person action-RPG adventure of a shark. However, Tripwire has gone over and above to win our hearts and set our minds swimming at the possibilities of becoming the apex sea beast. Maneater looks like more than zany fun. It’s looking like a surprisingly deep and enjoyable shark tale, and recently we caught up to Tripwire Interactive President John Gibson to confirm our suspicions and learn a little more about the meaty goodness going into Maneater.
Gibson spoke to a lot of what inspired Maneater in the first place and the list runs long. There’s a little Dark Souls and Punch-Out!! in the cadence of combat, but it was a desire to explore the action-RPG genre that really got blood in the water for Maneater’s development.
“The open-world action-RPG genre is a genre we’ve always really liked,” Gibson told us. “We’re really inspired by games like the Far Cry series and Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and we really wanted to be able to do something like that, but in a completely new and unique way. How many open-world action-RPG shark games were there? Before now, zero. Now there’s one!”
As we continued to talk with Gibson, he shared more on what went into the evolution of shark abilities in Maneater. What began as a simple tenant of allowing players to take the game at their pace slowly turned into something more complex as emerging playstyles became noticeable to the Tripwire team. Taking notice of players who wanted to go right after boats of people pushed Tripwire to create a Bone evolution set for becoming more tanky and upping your ability to ram. Players gathering swarms of enemies and then turning to fight them inspired a Bioelectric evolution that would allow players to exercise crowd control against groups of enemies. As players have found their own ways to engage with the game, Tripwire is working hard to cater to them.
Be sure to check out the whole interview above for more interesting facts and info on Maneater. Want more videos? Don’t forget to subscribe to the Shacknews and GamerHubTV YouTube channels for more exclusive interviews and videos as well.