Improved Leviathan AI + Patrol Routes

The Issue
Once you know where a leviathan is they become a lot less scary, you know how to avoid it and just go around it especially cause they swim about the same tiny spot rather than the whole biome. If they used up more of their area they could give much larger jumpscares.

One Solution
Patrol routes would help the game feel more alive, these would be routes the leviathans goes at a certain time or just whenever it feels, they go out to hunt, intimidate or protect its home, they may cycle through different landmarks or go to noise.

This would help create fear as you may never know whats lurks around the corner, it keeps exploration fresh as you can’t just remember 1 location for the leviathan. Knowing a leviathan could show up in more biomes than it’s resting grounds keeps the stakes high and game more engaging.

Some people may struggle with the difficulty or horror aspect of this so even putting it in a seperate hard or realism mode so that players get the choice of immersive oceans vs sandbox oceans.

Second Issue
Today I had an encounter with a leviathan which was scary until I simply went out it’s line of sight behind some rocks. It was a big enough gap for the leviathan to chase me through but instead the leviathan just backs off and forgets you were ever there. Aswell if you leave the biome of the leviathan or a certain distance from it’s original spot it just backs off.

Potential Solution
Leviathans should be more relentless once they see you to, if you slip through cracks of rocks they could roar and try to smash the rocks or reach you with their tentacles.

In more open areas a simple biome swap or distance check should’nt be enough to make the leviathan leave, you should need to outmanuever it and go places it can’t. This encourages engaging more with the terrain and using items such as torpedoes and flares.

Loving the game still and can’t wait to see it grow!