Why Yes, I Would Like To Chomp Into Maneater 2!

Today’s Sony State of Play started off by playing a lot of the usual, expected hits: Wolverine, Monster Hunter, and so forth. But the first real, brand new, crunchy announcement of the show really managed to wake me up from my 8am stupor: we’re getting a sequel to Maneater! It’s Maneater 2! Maneater, if you recall, was a sick-as-hell action RPG (a “ShaRkPG” if you will, as per the marketing) game released back in 2020 in which you play as a bull shark on a revenge mission. After a jackass shark hunter kills her mom, the baby shark left behind is after blood. The game takes place in an open world…well, ocean…and you can swim along, snack on wildlife, chomp down humans, explore to unlock abilities and fight off scarier underwater enemies like alligators, bigger sharks, and whales, and slowly evolve and mutate into a true menace. It’s a pretty stand-out premise, and it had the added advantage of being played for comedy a lot of the time. It’s very fun to be a pissed-off shark with mutant powers! Who knew! Maneater 2, meanwhile, is set during an invite-only soft opening for a water park called Neptune’s Kingdom, full of soft, fleshy humans enjoying a swim. And you’re a hungry shark, of course, a different one from the one in the first game. Neptune’s Kingdom is a testament to excess, and its rich overlords are going a bit overboard with the money, doing genetic experiments with marine wildlife to create abominations that live under the surface, so there’s all sorts of weird stuff to find and fend off as you swim deeper and deeper. Critically, the original Maneater did just okay, but it’s one of those sort of middling games that a lot of people really love not just despite, but including its rougher bits, so I’m thrilled we’re getting another one. We didn’t get too many meaty details on how the sequel will play out in this trailer, though we did see the main shark doing some sick tricks right out of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, fighting an orca, chomping on a guy coming out of a water slide, and transforming into some wild deep-sea mutant-looking-thing to fight a giant crab. Yeah, that’s sick as hell. Maneater 2 is planned for release sometime in 2027, and will presumably be coming to, at minimum, PlayStation 5 given its presence in this State of Play.