Somehow, a sequel to one of my favourite daft games was announced right under my nose and I completely missed it. Maneater 2 is real, it is coming in 2027 and I am absurdly excited to become a giant underwater murder machine all over again.
Tripwire Interactive and Demiurge Studios announced Maneater 2 during Sony’s State of Play on September 3. It is currently in development for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2 and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, although a more specific release date has not been announced.
This time, a new female bull shark finds herself trapped inside Neptune’s Kingdom, an ultra-luxury private island and theme park where the rich have apparently combined the excess of Las Vegas, the whimsy of Anaheim and the grandeur of Ancient Rome. Naturally, all of that money has also been spent screwing around with nature, creating altered arctic and volcanic biomes alongside genetically modified creatures.
The basic idea remains familiar: eat, explore and evolve until the shark is powerful enough to escape, leaving Neptune’s Kingdom covered in blood, fire and presumably some very awkward insurance claims. Tripwire says the park will include attractions to destroy, secrets beneath the water, enhanced apex predators and heavily armed security forces determined to stop you. Chris Parnell is also returning as disgraced reality TV host Trip Westhaven, providing the same nature-documentary commentary that gave the first game so much of its personality.
Gameplay wise, everything seems mostly familiar, but there are a few twists: at one point the shark instantly transforms into a mutated version of itself, and in another scene performs what can only be described as a wallride. It’s shark parkour. Sharkour?
Maneater 2 is being built in Unreal Engine 5, with Tripwire promising more detailed underwater environments and improved NPC behaviour. The Steam page also describes a fully open aquatic sandbox and plenty of genetic experimentation, so hopefully the sequel will push the original’s wonderfully stupid mutations even further.
I’m personally very excited for this one. Maneater is almost the perfect definition of a good AA game: goofy, weird and willing to take a chance on an idea that a massive publisher would probably dismiss after somebody said the phrase “open-world shark RPG” out loud. It had plenty of problems, especially repetitive missions and messy combat, as I complained about in my original review, but the simple pleasure of becoming a bone-armoured megashark and using humans as bowling balls was difficult to deny.
Maneater 2 is due to launch in 2027. I’ll have more thoughts once I have properly sat down with the trailer, but for now: yes. Give me the shark game.