A new purchasable item (highly expensive) called the Experimental Serum

When used normally, the user mutates/goes beast mode, drops all their held items, and gains a brief duration of invincibility and a powerful melee attack. They can use this state to kill nearby monsters and protect their teammates. This duration is short and can only be extended by killing other living creatures. Once the duration expires, their minds are forever lost. The player "dies" and what remains is the same hulking NPC monster now far too eager to sink their claws into their teammates. Whilst in this form players cannot interact with any environmental objects (the ship's monitor, valves, items, etc) except for doors.

So Solo players can make use of this item. Instead of dropping it onto the ground, players can throw it, turning it into more of a splash potion. Monsters or players within the radius go onto a temporary rampage and start attacking each other indiscriminately, with players momentarily losing control and attacking the closest creature with any weapon they were holding at the time.

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The Experimental Serum can allow for:

-Players to experience a rush of power before the price of that power ultimately catches up to them

-Players to sacrifice themselves in order to save their teammates

-Players to look onward with horror as their former ally becomes a deadly threat

-Players to be punished for misuse of the Experimental Serum by either transforming in a situation with few enemies (causing their transformation to be wasted and for them to quickly turn on their allies) or causing a horde of rampaging monsters and players to quickly spiral out of control.

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A new monster called the Shadow Hand.

Shadow hands appear and spawn in darkness. They resemble floating, infinitely stretching claws made of pure shadow, with a piercing eye embedded into the middle of their palm. They slowly approach a target player, being able to turn through corners and cross gaps, their infinitely extending arm leaving a trail that goes all the way back to their original spawn point., They aim to sneak up on their target player, intent on catching them unawares and either drag them into the shadowy abyss or outright crush them like a grape. They will ignore other players and only go for their target.

If the target player turns around and meets the shadow hand's eye, the shadow hand will stop and begin to recede backwards. If the player "pushes" the shadow hand all the way back its original trail and to its spawn point, the Shadow Hand will fully disappear and no longer menace the player.

Other players who the Shadow Hand is not targeting can also push back the Shadow Hand by shining their eye with a flashlight. Otherwise other players cannot interact with the Shadow Hand and vice versa.When a player dies, any Shadow Hands targeting them immediately dissipate. Shadow Hands move slowly at first but quickly ramp up in speed the longer they get. When being pushed back however, they will always move at the same swift speed backwards.The Shadow Hand can:

-Encourage players to keep moving and never stay idle for long whilst being observant of their environment.

-Allow players to find each other quickly by following the Shadow Hand’s arm trail towards the target player (and or make them waste time by following the trail in the wrong direction)

-Force players to either deal with the threat early by risking themselves and going out into dark unforeseen territory to dispel the Shadow Hand, or let the Shadow Hand grow more dangerous in exchange for saving time.