The 9 deadliest sharks in videogames

Listen, never mind that sharks are not the mindlessly violent animals we’ve been trained to fear, and simply additional victims of mankind’s global vertebrate binge. Dismiss, please, the ongoing cultural rehabilitation of this toothy swimmer, who is statistically quite poor at killing humans. Ignore also their adorable habit of falling asleep when you hold them upside-down. Forget it, forget it all. No more lovey-dovey thoughts for these wondrous aquatic beings, more maligned than malignant. This is a list about videogame sharks. And videogame sharks are the baddies. Here are the 9 deadliest sharks in PC games.

Megalodon - Ark: Survival Evolved

Greater than the great white, more bullish than the bullhead, the megalodon of reality had a set of jaws big enough to have a sit down in. It is therefore natural that prehistoric survival game Ark would liberally sprinkle its oceans with these gigantic brutes. They easily outpace the player in the water, and will zone in on you from ages away with the supernatural alertness of a dad three rooms from the thermostat. Like the dinos and beasts of the land, the player can tame this big lad by getting it hooked on drugs and then putting a saddle on its back to finalise the majestic animal’s humiliation. It is noted by eminent paleontologists that Megalodon numbers sharply declined roughly 4 million years ago, before it finally went extinct from embarrassment.

Zombie shark - Resident Evil HD Remaster

Or Neptune FI-03 as they are called by the idiot scientists who now reside in these sharks’ bellies. You meet these vicious fin-havers in the flooded underground laboratory that every self-respecting bioweaponry conglomerate is compelled to install below the staff room. The first few sharks are sluggish and easily avoided, making playful nips at your ankles between watery gurgles of affection. They’re not that hungry, they just ate. But soon you meet the big fella. A huge specimen beached on a bed of steel and lab equipment thanks to your de-flooding puzzle-solving. He looks dead. But, ha ha, oh Resident Evil, you rascal, you got me again. He’s not dead. And now, I too am being eaten to bits. Ha ha, very good.

Bitey shark - Raft

The shark in Raft is a deadline with teeth. He circles your slowly expanding survival vessel, periodically having a chew on the wooden extremities and generally keeping you on your toes. He is there to keep the pressure up in a survival game that would otherwise be languid, even tranquil. This is marine tenacity at its finest. He is a sandpapery alarm clock. He is the Duolingo mascot’s unhinged cousin. He is the ever-present threat, always watching, waiting for the moment to make himself known in the most terrible, inconvenient way. This is Chekhov’s shark.

Shark team - Depth

Who would have thought being masticated by God’s perfect killing machine would be so gruesome?

Lava lizard - Subnautica

It can swim through lava, which is something no living shark can match. Also, this scaly dirtbag can spit glowing chunks of magma, pelting you with hot rocks like a cavalier teenager gesticulating with a badly rolled joint, burning holes in your expensive mechanised diving skeleton. The steamy rock projectile will also simultaneously kill and cook any fish it hits, making this creature the equivalent of a shark too busy to eat anything other than microwave dinners. These critters live in the most inhospitable zones of this, the best survival game, and I’ll be honest, we’ve never been friends.

This thing - Rain World

Does the house-sized beast wriggling swiftly beneath the waves in this tough natural-select ‘em up qualify as a shark? Do its innumerable string-like appendages detect prey through electrical impulses, as does the mako or the hammerhead? Does it roam the depths, out of sight in the brackish gloom of that grand trench, with an uncontrollable lust for bone and blood? All of these questions are beyond the scope of this article. I ask that you disregard this entry as apocrypha, and never think about this creature again.

Goblin shark - Stranded Deep

An aggressive little shit who will not take a hint, even when the hint is three spears to the head.

The Hungering One - Sea Of Thieves

Another megalodon, but even mega-ier. You can summon this salty sea dweller with some chums after going on a quest in Rare’s multiplayer swashbuckler. But if you do, be ready for a fight. The ship-sized shark will circle your vessels and take opportunistic chomps even as you blast it with cannon shot and squeal with fear. It can also hit the ship so hard that you tumble overboard, into the drink, where it definitely does not feel safe.

The Maneater - Maneater

He's a maaaaneater
Likes to bite hard
He's a big shark
Think he wants to
Chomp. You. Up.

One Off The List from…

Last week we pulled levers and twisted mysterious dials to reveal the 12 most useful inventions in PC games. But according to you lot, one of these machines did not live up to its potential. It’s… the transmutation engine from Opus Magnum.

"I don’t know, man," says list interrogator "Darth Gangrel" when presented with a machine that can turn base metals into precious loot, "killing the economy doesn’t seem like such a good idea."

Spoilsport. Okay, see you next week listocrats.