How intelligent do you guys think the anomalies are?
This is what I was thinking for each entity:
Shamblers are essentially mindless as they are corpses reanimated via archites, they likely have no basic instincts or any form of intelligence. Instead I believe their archites are driven by subtle influence from the void/Horax but at the same time the archites can also be influenced by humans (as deadlife dust released from player made shells and packs reanimates shamblers that are friendly to the player and all of their allies yet still retain their mindlessness when it comes to fighting.
I believe fleshbeasts are either some sort of hive mind or are otherwise pre occupied with trying to occupy more territory, both above and below ground, with the fleshmass and that’s the reason for things like fleshmass hearts essentially an organ the fleshmass uses to spread its influence. Beyond this fleshbeasts display only mindless aggression and don’t seam intelligent at all, if they are all part of a hive mind then said hive mind could or could not be sapient and capable of actual thoughts.
Oddly enough, sightstealers seem to be social creatures as they intentionally congregate into packs and the game describes them going on “terrible hunts” and this can be seen because if you find a lone sightstealer, once it is killed or downed, there is a chance for the game to notify you that a bigger wave is on the way. Beyond that the screaming sightstealers do when revealing themselves or gathering for their hunts could either be taken as something they do naturally without a reason or a way to intentionally cause panic in their victims. In combat, sightstealers still don’t display much in the way of intelligence as they have no sense of self preservation or battle tactics beyond waiting until they are close to actually reveal themselves. Also side note they are smart enough to respond to the screech from creepjoiners.
Ghouls while they were previously an intelligent creature they seem to have lost all of said intelligence as they will happily gorge themselves or former friends, lovers and family members. On top of that Ghouls are also incapable of basic speech and seem to have lost all survival instincts beyond violence (IK they are technically capable of firefighting if drafted but I assume that’s either unintended or for gameplay purposes). They also are not intelligent enough for to utilise even the most basic of Neolithic weapons like clubs.
Revenants are actually quite interesting because I believe they are the only entity capable of some level of sapience as they are intelligent enough to open any door (even security doors), they know when things are going their way as they flee when directly confronted while knowing when to strike and the reason I believe they hypnotise colonists is that when hypnotised the mind of a human is under Revenant hypnosis their mind is in a constant state of torment and the Revenant revels in the suffering of said humans and that would being that sadistic requires a minimum level of sentience.
Noctols at least know that their survival is dependent on the noctoliths as they will attack the player’s colonists if the said noctoliths are attacked.
Gorehulks sometimes congregate into hordes so they may also be social creatures similarly to sightstealers.
Would love to hear other people’s opinions.