Since its release last week, the violent shark gameManeaterhas quickly become a fan favorite title. The game lets players become the ultimate ocean predator and terrorizing not only the other various sea life but the local beach goers as well. While much of the shark relatedviolence has already been showcased in various trailers, what fans may not realize is thatManeateralso has a lot of RPG style features and mechanics embedded into the gameplay.

Part of these RPG mechanics can be seen throughManeater’sleveling system. Players start the game as a level 1 pup and in order to survive they’ll need to grow and get stronger. Thankfully, earning experience is quite easy to do as nearly everything in the game gives XP of some sort. Finishing main quests, side missions, and uncovering the various collectibles all reward experience to help the player’s progression.

Shark in Maneater

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While each levelunlocks new abilities and upgrades, the game also evolves the player’s shark at specific points ranging from teen all the way to the apex predator mega shark. Once these levels are achieved, players will need to disengage from combat and head to the grotto which acts as the player’s base of operations in the game. Here are each of the shark life stages in the base game and the level requirement that player’s need to hit before they’re earned.

Earning experience, leveling up, and unlocking new abilities are thankfully not where the RPG elements end however. Players can also find evolutions that grant their shark new abilities while also changing its appearance. Eight parts of the shark can be customized from the Grotto and players are already finding someunique evolutions like the Shadow setwhich enables poison attacks or the Bone set which reduces the amount of damage the player receives.

Maneateris available now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.