Maneater was my game of 2020, a fresh, funny and bloody shark-infested adventure which didn’t overstay its welcome and kept me entertained for two full playthroughs on PlayStation 4 and 5. Thanks for the two Platinum trophies!
Naturally, I was hugely excited to play the expansion when it released in the summer, but as I checked the PlayStation store and it hadn’t appeared yet despite it being the release day (my birthday) I thought the launch must have been pushed for an unannounced reason and went back to playing Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut. It eventually turned out that it wasn’t released until the EST time, but such was my level of immersion in Ghost of Tsushima, I completely forgot Truth Quest existed until months later! That’s getting old for you, memory is one of the first things to go..
Anyway, now that I’ve spent a couple of hours with the Maneater expansion, for that’s all it needs, I have to say this would have worked exceptionally well as a piece of free DLC due to the length and how little is introduced for it. Unfortunately, as it is not free (I know developers have to eat too, but there’s only so much consumers can stomach), the bottom line for this review must be that Truth Quest is way overpriced. With a frankly ludicrous price tag of £12, though I picked it up on offer for £8, I believe this bare bones expansion for my favourite game of 2020 to be lacklustre. There are some really cool boss fights towards the middle and end of the experience (all of 25 minutes in), and the new environment of Plover Island is simultaneously imposing and interesting. However, the game falls for the trap of its map being fixed at an incredibly zoomed in rate when you load up the map screen, as if that somehow makes the location feel bigger. Forza Horizon 4’s Lego expansion pulled this façade too, and it was just as skin deep then..
The gameplay has had some new additions for Truth Quest, but annoyingly they only flick between filler and outright frustrating. In case you don’t recall, one ability your shark has is that you can press L1 / LB to tail whip your prey into the distance. This was a fairly under-utilised mechanic in the base game, but as it seems to have felt left out until now, it has been crowbarred into the central path with enemy targets on beaches being fixed upon high masts where your shark has no way to jump enough to destroy with its mighty jaws. In brief, these sections can absolutely fuck right off, as the constantly pouring in enemies and prematurely exploding grenades they throw make it an absolute chore.
Truth Quest doesn’t leave the base game alone either, as it deposits a ‘Truther’, just a guy in a tinfoil hat, into each region of the game and sends you off to find them. Frustratingly, they can’t be detected with your shark’s radar, meaning that if you’re interested in the bronze trophy for finding them all, you’ll need to sink a lot of time into swimming around hoping you run into them. They are made more frustrating by the fact some are on-land and some are underwater. This wouldn’t have been such an issue when starting a fresh run of the game, but there was no chance in hell I was going to spend my day combing Port Clovis on my 100% complete save to try and find them. Yeah, I Googled their locations, I wanted an easy trophy.
Sorry Tripwire Interactive, but it’s a swing and a miss on this one, though the adoration I have for the base game means I’ll still play a sequel to Maneater regardless of the form it comes in, except board game. It hurts me too, and while the new comedic quips go a short way to saving Truth Quest, I score it
3 / 10
Have you played Maneater: Truth Quest? Let me know your thoughts of it in the comments or on Twitter @MaliceVER and I’ll be back again with another review soon. Thanks for reading!
