Maneater: Truth Quest (PS5) Review

Developed by Tripwire Interactive and published by Deep Silver, 2020’s Maneater put players in the shoes, uh, fins of a bull shark on a quest for revenge. It was quite a fun game to sit down and play if you just wanted a bit of mindless fun. It was let down, however, by some repetition and mission types which tasked you with murdering both humans and wildlife in the pursuit of getting bigger and stronger. The powers were great though and could be mixed and matched for a variety of abilities. Maneater: Truth Quest is the game’s first story DLC and continues the crazy story but unfortunately is let down by it being incredibly short and having very little mission variety.

Maneater: Truth Quest picks up right after the events of the base game. The story follows the shark as she leaves Port Clovis after senses another, more sinister apex predator. She heads to Plover Island, which is also known as Site P, to investigate what mysteries the island holds. The story itself is pretty entertaining and manages to keep the same tone and brand of humour from the base game. This is mostly thanks to the fact that the entire journey is narrated by Trip Westhaven, the documentarian-turned-conspiracy theorist. Westhaven is once again portrayed by Chris Parnell (Saturday Night Live, Rick and Morty) and his delivery is just fantastic.

The gameplay in Maneater: Truth Quest is pretty much identical to that of the base game and will see you swimming around, fighting with hunters and murdering almost anything that gets in your way with all of the abilities you have at your disposal. Truth Quest does function as post-game content though, so there are some new mission types, the level cap is raised and there are some new mutations. 

The mission variety is a little lacking though. Aside from missions that task you with going to a specific location and killing some things, it doesn’t offer much that is new. There is a new time trial mission type which sees you swimming through rings and jumping through a ring of fire at the end, but it just feels like busywork. Towards the end, I was just ticking them off a checklist. The same goes for Questers, the tinfoil hat-wearing followers of Trip Westhaven who spout conspiracy theories when you get near them. They’re a little trickier to find and are essentially a new collectible, but it feels quite similar to the missions that have you going around killing things.

The game is still enjoyable to play through, especially with the new Atomic Set, which allows the shark to literally fire a laser beam from its head. There are also some new enemy types, both human and aquatic. The human enemies or Hunters are still as relentless as ever but now they also have helicopters added to their ranks. Hitting them requires hurling items or other Hunters at them using your Whipshot since they can’t really be rammed or munched on. Aquatic species in the vicinity of Plover Island have mutated and taken on abilities that were available to our shark in the base game. These initially appear as Apex predators but will show up as regular enemies once their Apex mission has been beaten. Taking on the new enemy types was pretty exciting since they presented a new challenge and changed the combat flow slightly. 

Truth Quest’s other problem is that it is incredibly short. Essentially, Plover Island functions as a region that is cut off from Port Clovis. It has its own set of collectibles and enemies but it isn’t long before you’ve ticked everything off of your list. Truth Quest’s story can be mopped up in an evening, slightly longer if you decide to hunt down the Questers that have been added to the regions from the base game.

Maneater: Truth Quest is great if you enjoyed the base game and wanted a little more after everything was said and done. The story is quite mysterious and enjoyable thanks to Chris Parnell’s portrayal of its conspiracy-theorist narrator, but the experience is so fleeting. The mission variety also hasn’t evolved much and what is new, feels a bit like busywork. That being said, it’s still fun to swim around a new area and murder things, especially so with the new Atomic Set. The new Hunter and aquatic enemy types also make for some interesting fights thanks to being airborne and mutated, respectively. If you felt indifferent about the base game, then Maneater: Truth Quest might not be for you, however, if you had a blast with the base game and wanted more, this would be a good fit.

A Review code for Maneater: Truth Quest was provided to Gameblur by the publisher