How to deal with the Maneater in Lethal Company

Abandoned from a young age, the Maneater looks for warmth in the cold, dark Mineshaft of Lethal Company. If you don’t have a loving touch and leave the Maneater starved of affection, you might just become its dinner.

Added to Lethal Company v60, the Maneater brings a unique mechanic that company workers had never experienced. Unlike other creatures that immediately attack you on sight, this little entity can be coddled for the safety of the team. There is, however, a fine line between keeping it satisfied and gaining a terrifying enemy.

Here is how to deal with the Maneater in Lethal Company.

Where to find the Maneater in Lethal Company

The Maneater spawns in all Mineshaft maps and a few Factory interiors. You can find the Maneater on (base stats credit to Lethal Company Wiki):

• Vow: 14.21 percent spawn chance
• Adamance: 10.59 percent spawn chance
• Assurance: 9.47 percent spawn chance
• Offense: 7.46 percent spawn chance
• Artifice: 3.48 percent spawn chance
• March: 2.86 percent spawn chance
• Dine: 2.33 percent spawn chance

This creature can appear from the beginning of your shift and remain until the bitter end. As this is their domain, you’ll likely run into a Maneater within the Mineshaft. They love to hide inside the cave system but can wander out and into the mines in search of a parental figure to rock them to sleep. Maneaters can swim inside the cave pools. They will withdraw if approached or run if afraid (a normal reaction to receiving a Shovel whack by an employee who takes discipline too seriously).

How to deal with the Maneater in Lethal Company

The Maneater doesn’t have particularly good eyesight. While their inability to see or hear is nothing like the Bunker Spider or Thumper, you can still easily outmaneuver a Maneater to make it lose track of you. This is only relevant, however, to the Maneater’s adult form. The Maneater will always start in its baby form. Here, it will seek you out for cupboard love. You need to pay attention to its cries and act accordingly.

At the time of writing this article, only one Maneater can spawn at once. This is because of the incredibly important audio cues these entities have to differentiate between their baby or adult form. The Maneater will cry for you to come to its side. In child form, it can be picked up and rocked to silence its cries. This is crucial to do to prevent it from becoming the aggressive, one-shot monster it’s capable of growing into. While you can pick it up as you do with items and scrap, taking it outside or ignoring the baby’s cries for approximately eight to 16 seconds will result in its transformation.

The Maneater will always run into the shadows to transform. It cannot transform in front of you. If you neglect to comfort baby Maneater, you must listen to its new cry. The grown Maneater will try to trick you with its cries. Pay attention to whether the new cry is layered with a low growl. This will tell you that the Maneater is fully grown and ready to attack. What’s great about this entity is that you can always note its location based on its cries. So, even if it transforms, you can avoid it by moving in the opposite direction to where the cries are coming from.

It’s best to avoid the cave system if the Maneater transforms (unless you have mastered its layout before the creature hits adulthood). It is far easier to outrun the Maneater in the mines.

Can you kill the Maneater?

Yes. The Maneater can be killed. It’s not recommended to do so in its baby form, as you cannot kill it with a single Shovel hit. Attempting to do so will only result in a transformed Maneater, who will become hellbent on ruining your scrap run. You can either kill the grown Maneater with four Shovel hits or a single Shotgun bullet.

The Maneater has a single attack in which it readies itself to lunge at the player, like a spider defending itself. Use this small window to run in either direction, away from the Maneater. If caught, the adult Maneater will kill you in an instant, so listen out before it or you get too close.