PS Plus Free Game: 24 Essential Maneater Tips for Terrorizing the Seas

General Tips

• Remember your ABC’s – Always Be Chompin! As you move from objective to objective, there’s almost never a reason to constantly be gobbling up any fish you encounter along the way. The more nutrients you devour, the faster you’ll evolve, level up, and become stronger. This will also let you upgrade your mutations faster as you find them, plus heal up in between attacks by other creatures or hunters.

• There are 4 types of Nutrients – Fat (yellow) primarily found in most docile fish, Minerals (blue) primarily found in turtles, Protein (red) primarily found in most aggressive sea creatures and humans, and Mutagen (green) only found in rarer albino creatures. Obtaining any type will help you level up, and each mutation requires a different type to upgrade (though most all will require some mutagen to upgrade to their max tiers.

• Your Grotto is a safe space – and you can’t be attacked by man or sea creature while inside. You can actually use this to your advantage, as any aggressive enemies that follow you into your grotto can still be attacked, but they won’t fight back. Free nutrients!

• Early on when you’re still a pup and teen, you may encounter several hunted creatures in each region that easily outmatch you in power. While you can even the odds later using mutations and evolution upgrades, you likely won’t have many abilities early in the game, so be sure to avoid these enemies at all costs until you’re feeling stronger. If a mission takes place in their vicinity, be quick and stealthy to try gobbling up more docile fish around them before they take notice.

• Once you evolve into an adult, you’ll be able to use your tail to launch things you’ve latched onto. This can be incredibly versatile – as you can use it to open certain gates, toss hunters into the sea (or at each other), and toss fish at predators to stun them. Once you’ve outgrown a particular aggressive fish, you’ll find that you can latch onto the smaller creatures – and chuck them away if they’re hassling you.

• Humans generally aren’t great swimmers unless they have diving gear on – and injured hunters or other humans tossed into the water after getting smacked around, forcibly ejected from an exploding ship, or chewed on, will likely drown on their own – and while they won’t cause you any more problems, you can use them as an easy snack while fighting other still active hunters.

• There are 3 main mutation “sets” – The Bone Set, Bio-Electric Set, and Shadow Set, plus several organ mutations. The Bone Set is gained from defeating apex predators, and is generally best for boat combat. The Bio-Electric Set is gained from defeating named bounty hunters as you increase your infamy, and is generally great for stunning multiple attacking sea predators. The Shadow Set is gained from getting Landmark collectibles, and works well against either type of enemy, due to its speed increase, poison blasts, and life-stealing attacks.

• Once you start finding “Body” Mutations, you can activate special powerups that are charged by eating enough food. If you know you’re about to head into battle with an Apex Predator or attract some bounty hunters, get your powerup ready first to activate it when needed.

• Using different moves will cause certain parts of your body to glow – depending on which of your evolution and mutations are affecting it: like fins glowing when dodging, head and body glowing when dashing, and tail glowing when tail whipping.

Combat Tips

• You’ll eventually be able to outrun any pursuing enemy – but you can expect to be chased and attacked several times while trying to escape. For this reason, it’s often essential that you turn your camera around to face behind you when fleeing so you can be ready to evade at a moment’s notice. Successful evading usually means your enemy will need a moment to recover, giving you more time to escape.

• Combat against other sea creatures is fairly simple, but it’s easy to overlook certain techniques. Enemies will often alternate between quick lunging attacks, and slower charge ups before dashing at you, or whipping their tail if you get too close. Many times, when an enemy charges up and after they dash, their body will glow – indicating they are vulnerable. If you strike at these points, you can deal extra damage, interrupt them with tail swipes, or even latch onto enemies smaller than you and thrash them about.

• When fighting enemies at or above your level – especially apex predators – trying to match them blow for blow likely won’t help. Instead, let them make the first move, dodge and strike a few times, then retreat a short distance and be ready to dodge again.

• During fights, more docile fish tend to scatter away, but they can still be found nearby – wait until after you dodge or stun an opponent to look for a quick meal to regain health in a tough fight.

• Remember that your lock-on isn’t a permanent move – it only lets you turn to face your current attacker. This can take a lot of getting used to, as you’ll need to get into the habit of panning the camera to face your attacker, dodge their incoming attack, quickly lock-on to their new position, and strike quickly before they recover or continue to dart around. If facing multiple attackers, try to keep as many of them in front of you as possible – or you’ll risk getting hit from all sides.

• If you’re able to launch a predator out of water (using your tail whip attack), they won’t be able to fight back until they reach the water again – but you can pursue them and keep attacking.

• Holding down the button to throw something in your mouth will slow down time, allowing you to carefully pick your target – which is especially useful in the midst of several hunter boats, so you can incapacitate someone shooting at you by chucking one of their friends right at them.

• Hunters can overwhelm you if you aren’t paying attention and focus entirely on one boat. Be sure to dart between them, and use your tail whip or toss to quickly empty boats – as they’ll be generally helpless in the water and quickly drown if already injured. You can snack on them to regain health during the fight, but your focus should be disabling boats as quickly as possible.

• Larger boats tend to have hunters attacking from guarded spaces – so you’ll need to jump and land on the boat and thrash around to destroy the top section and expose them.

• If you need to get away from hunters quickly, head to deeper water where they can’t track your movements, or enter grates and sewers where they can’t follow until they quickly forget about you.

Exploration Tips

• Don’t underestimate your shark’s ability to hop onto dry land. You can last a surprisingly long time above water, and when your O2 depletes you’ll start to lose health until you get back underwater. However, not only can you leave the water to grab a quick human snack – you can also use land to get away from other predators and give them the slip if another water source is nearby.

• Early on in Maneater, you won’t be able to progress until you’ve evolved into a bigger teen or adult needed to break down certain barriers – but when you reach the Golden Shores, you’re essentially able to explore the rest of the map if you wish – just take care to avoid the stronger predators that live out towards the open waters!

• After growing up from Teen to Adult, or Adult to Elder, be sure to check back in previous regions for any grates you couldn’t open before – as they may be hiding new collectibles or shortcuts to other regions.

• As you evolve, you’ll be able to increase the distance you can lunge out of the water – and you’ll eventually be able to jump multiple times. With this you can either swim up out of the water or jump from the surface (first jump), and then either jump or lunge two more times!

• There are many underwater caves and sewers in Maneater, and it can be easy to get lost and disoriented in the narrow waterways. As a rule, note that any openings or tunnel passages will always have yellow lights around them.