So I had dlc ideas going in my head for weeks now, and having beaten the game and left wanting more these ideas just got to be so big it just turned into a flat out sequel. Since I’m big into single player everything here is with that in mind, if multiplayer is your thing I sincerely hope the devs will craft something that will appeal to you but these here are just my pie in the sky, unlimited time and resources ideas I would love to see as dlc or preferably sequels for single player.
Setting
I thought of setting the new game in a pacific archipelago island chain that way each island could have its own unique setting such as one island being a tourist resort island, another could be more of traditional islanders island, one could have a navy military base and oceanic research station, another could have more deserted or have undiscovered indigenous tribes that can act as the human enemies in that location. As an archipelago the underwater locations have numerous biome possibilities in between islands and biomes around the coast of the islands, such as sandy lagoons, colorful reefs, deep sunken ship graveyards from a war, a sunken city of a lost civilization, volcanic caves, and river deltas.
Playable Characters
Everyone has a favorite shark, and while I understand and like that a bull shark was used I still wanted to replay the game as a different shark just for the sake of replayability, so I thought why not incorporate popular species into the game as named characters each with their own unique starting area and character driven B story plot. I was also a fan of the unique and funny descriptions of different species attitudes and dreams for the future written in the mission descriptions in maneater and seeing that more played out for each of the characters would be a fun thing to see expanded on. As far as evolutions go, I think having two unique sets would be fine given the number of proposed characters to play as. Each maneater would have their own unique favorite prey item similar to the apex quest that grant a greater boost to healing and more resources if consumed by that playable maneater. Cosmetic only items could be rewards for quests that allow players whose favorite predator isn’t part of the playable maneaters to cosmetically at least look like them.
Enemies
Enemies would be similar to the current maneater but with a bit more diversity and mechanics such as having rivals of the same species directly hostile towards you if you are lower level with each predatory species in the game having a max level but with varying levels below that for dynamic encounters at all sizes and ages for your maneaters during gameplay.
Base gameplay would just be a more refined version of what we got in maneater based on player feedback, the devs own refinement and any new mechanics they would wish to include in the game. I thought the game would benefit from having a GTA V kind of system where you pick your starting maneater and play with it up to a certain point and another maneater becomes available to start until you have unlocked all the maneaters and then you can hop between each one as you will finding them in different locations or situations as you assume control, all maneaters will start as pups or juveniles. There would be an overarching A plot that concerns all the maneaters, but there would be B plots that are unique to each maneater and would act as character development, and fun C plots you would find just by exploring and doing side quests. As each maneater would have certain unique attributes and abilities there will be some areas inaccessible to certain maneaters and certain locations only discoverable by other maneaters that may or may not be opened by a specific maneater. While most of the map is explorable by all maneaters only certain locations will have apex predators unique to the B plot of each maneater. To complete each maneater’s story you must become a “Local Legend” for you home island by killing all apex predators in your maneaters story and maxing out your infamy so you can battle the current island’s “Local Legend” and replace them.
I thoroughly enjoyed Chris Parnell’s narration of the game, but I thought for this crazy big sequel idea I had what if there was two or three different narrators each telling the story of a few of the individual maneaters, but each narrator is from a different type of tv program where one is more reality tv show focused, another is more nature documentary and so on. Each narrator would have their own personal brand of narration and humor and could probably have a not so amicable relationship as rivals in the tv show narration job opportunities.
I just needed to get all that out of my head and express it, if you made it this far sorry for the long read but I’d like to hear other peoples thoughts and ideas on the aspects I had not given too much thought to.
Setting
I thought of setting the new game in a pacific archipelago island chain that way each island could have its own unique setting such as one island being a tourist resort island, another could be more of traditional islanders island, one could have a navy military base and oceanic research station, another could have more deserted or have undiscovered indigenous tribes that can act as the human enemies in that location. As an archipelago the underwater locations have numerous biome possibilities in between islands and biomes around the coast of the islands, such as sandy lagoons, colorful reefs, deep sunken ship graveyards from a war, a sunken city of a lost civilization, volcanic caves, and river deltas.
Playable Characters
Everyone has a favorite shark, and while I understand and like that a bull shark was used I still wanted to replay the game as a different shark just for the sake of replayability, so I thought why not incorporate popular species into the game as named characters each with their own unique starting area and character driven B story plot. I was also a fan of the unique and funny descriptions of different species attitudes and dreams for the future written in the mission descriptions in maneater and seeing that more played out for each of the characters would be a fun thing to see expanded on. As far as evolutions go, I think having two unique sets would be fine given the number of proposed characters to play as. Each maneater would have their own unique favorite prey item similar to the apex quest that grant a greater boost to healing and more resources if consumed by that playable maneater. Cosmetic only items could be rewards for quests that allow players whose favorite predator isn’t part of the playable maneaters to cosmetically at least look like them.
- Saltwater Crocodile: the crocodile would allow for both salt and freshwater biome exploration and would be a way for devs to work out more terrestrial style combat for future non shark focused maneater games that they might want to explore in the future. The younger croc could face threats from big cats and other big terrestrial reptiles inland, as well as having a breath meter for deepwater diving much the same as the sharks out of water breath but lasts longer and improves as the croc grows and evolves. As far as evolutions go the only one that comes to mind clearly is a type of mosasaurs evolution that would be for longer dives and faster water movement, the second evolution could be geared more towards land speed and agility. Cosmetic options could be alligators, camens, or other freshwater crocodiles.
- Mako: the mako would be the lower health high speed and agility character that is more for hit and run, strategy over brute force gameplay. The mako could have the highest natural speed, jumping, and lunging over the other maneaters. The only evolution that comes to mind would be something like a flying fish evolution that would take advantage of the makos speed and jumping height to glide long distances for evasion, exploring areas not accessible to other man eaters, or to snatch more dangerous hunters off their boats to finish off away from the group. Cosmetic options could be probeagles, salmon, or thresher sharks.
- Hammerhead: hammerheads can grow large, it could have the best sensory ability like the sonar but far better that can be upgraded as the game goes on to find secrets not detectible by any other maneater in the game. Given its sensory abilities it could be the only maneater in the game that has the option for a hard lock instead of the normal soft lock. Its preferred food could be stingrays that would damage other maneaters that eat them. I personally cant think of any preferred evolution type or cosmetics.
- Bull Shark: the bull shark is still a very obvious maneater choice and would fit in as a good all a rounder general type character that’s familiar, easy to use but doesn’t have the specialties of the other maneaters but none of their drawbacks either. Evolutions could be throwbacks to the current game or all brand new ones. Cosmetics could be lemon, black, or white tip reef, and oceanic white tip sharks.
- Tiger Shark: the tiger shark would be a type of mix class type of character that specializes in biting attacks. The tiger shark could have the ability to consume more resources from larger prey with less meat chunks created on kills, and have a means of utilizing stealth such as laying still on the sea floor gives a percentage of not being noticed by hunters if you are still in detection range. Bites would do slightly higher damage to unarmored prey and has a higher change of dismembering humans without actually being able to hold them in your mouth. Both for evolutions and cosmetics nothing comes to mind for me.
- Great White: the great white would be a type of medium speed tank that is pure power. It could have some advanced move sets that only allow it to use the full potential of its abilities in conjunction with its mass and momentum to deal out maximum damage. The only evolutions I can think of is something similar to bone armor that would make it anti boat and another evolution that’s more for anti-apex predators. I cant really think of cosmetics but I’m sure other people will have ideas.
Enemies
Enemies would be similar to the current maneater but with a bit more diversity and mechanics such as having rivals of the same species directly hostile towards you if you are lower level with each predatory species in the game having a max level but with varying levels below that for dynamic encounters at all sizes and ages for your maneaters during gameplay.
- Predators
- General wildlife: There will be predators that predominantly inhabit specific island biomes with some overlap in certain areas. They will be at a variety of levels for more manageable to challenging fights when playing your character.
- Apex: apex predators will act the same as a boss or miniboss but specific species are set to specific locations and to designated player maneaters as they progress that story. Apex predators will not necessarily be from the dominant predatory species of the area but could be an invasive predator not meant to be there but took over, and oversized smaller predator such as a moray eel that grew to be way oversized, or a giant squid up from the depths at its hunting ground.
- Humans
- Bounty hunters: as in maneater there will be people hunting you when your infamy goes up and that system will behave very much the same.
- Fisherman: will leave bait on buoys or off the ship that will usually be the current players maneater. If eaten you will be hooked and will have to fight to break free if big enough or try and fight off the boat when pulled up before they are killed or die from suffocation.
- Marine biologist: while not directly hostile they act similar to fisherman in how they catch you except you are tagged with a timed tracking beacon. This beacon will trigger proximity buoys that will alert all combative human enemies to your location if you get too close to populated beach areas and will have to be avoided until the tracking beacon detached after the given time allotted.
- Poachers: poachers are human enemies that will attack you in non-populated areas after achieving a certain infamy rank. Are triggered by destroying offshore ships or coming withing proximity of a tracking buoy while tagged.
- Military/CG: the coastguard will be the highest tier human enemies once your infamy is maxed when near populated areas, the navy will be come if signaled away from populated areas or in the more open sea.
Base gameplay would just be a more refined version of what we got in maneater based on player feedback, the devs own refinement and any new mechanics they would wish to include in the game. I thought the game would benefit from having a GTA V kind of system where you pick your starting maneater and play with it up to a certain point and another maneater becomes available to start until you have unlocked all the maneaters and then you can hop between each one as you will finding them in different locations or situations as you assume control, all maneaters will start as pups or juveniles. There would be an overarching A plot that concerns all the maneaters, but there would be B plots that are unique to each maneater and would act as character development, and fun C plots you would find just by exploring and doing side quests. As each maneater would have certain unique attributes and abilities there will be some areas inaccessible to certain maneaters and certain locations only discoverable by other maneaters that may or may not be opened by a specific maneater. While most of the map is explorable by all maneaters only certain locations will have apex predators unique to the B plot of each maneater. To complete each maneater’s story you must become a “Local Legend” for you home island by killing all apex predators in your maneaters story and maxing out your infamy so you can battle the current island’s “Local Legend” and replace them.
- Events
- There could be certain events that play out outside the B plot that is triggered by level, or incident. Such events could be getting caught and being tested and worked on by the military or researcher or be taken to the aquarium on the resort island and need to cause chaos and escape.
- End game
- So this kind of spoils my thoughts on the twist of the game, but after beating all the maneaters story lines there is a endgame objective to become the “Island Deity/ Sea Monster”(whichever one sounds cooler) in which the maneater of your choice becomes the most powerful last surviving maneater by killing and eating your other max level maneaters and whatever evolution set, abilities, and skills they had equipped when you beat their story. This is meant to purely add powerful endgame bosses outside dlc content.
- Possible story sub plots
- Actively being hunted by a renowned fisherman throughout your life and you must get big enough to hunt them
- Battling a sibling or same species rival to become the biggest and strongest of your kind in the archipelago
- Saved by a marine biologist as a pup that gives great head rubs and you become bigger and stronger so they will be impressed and you can scare any other animal away so you get all the head rubs.
- Wounded by the local “Island Legend” you aim to take their undersea territory for your own by growing bigger and more powerful.
I thoroughly enjoyed Chris Parnell’s narration of the game, but I thought for this crazy big sequel idea I had what if there was two or three different narrators each telling the story of a few of the individual maneaters, but each narrator is from a different type of tv program where one is more reality tv show focused, another is more nature documentary and so on. Each narrator would have their own personal brand of narration and humor and could probably have a not so amicable relationship as rivals in the tv show narration job opportunities.
I just needed to get all that out of my head and express it, if you made it this far sorry for the long read but I’d like to hear other peoples thoughts and ideas on the aspects I had not given too much thought to.