Serious Sam: Shatterverse: New FPS Roguelike Announced

When Devolver Digital sought a developer to create a new entry in the Serious Sam franchise, Behaviour Interactive embraced the opportunity. Many team members had fond memories of playing Serious Sam: The First Encounter in the early 2000s, recalling the franchise's wacky fun and its era of unapologetic, technology-pushing game design. As fans of Croteam's work, the studio saw the project as a chance to honor the legacy while standing on its own.

The development team focused on creating a game that longtime fans would immediately recognize while remaining accessible to younger audiences with no history with the series. Their initial task was to recreate the feel of the original games in Unreal Engine, including the backpedaling, gunplay, and classic enemies, before modernizing and redesigning those elements. With the franchise's 25th anniversary approaching, the goal was to make the new game feel like a celebration of where it all began, preserving high-octane action, huge enemy waves, and massive boss showdowns.

Despite the strong foundation, the team felt the game was missing its own identity. After analyzing what players missed about the original titles, the developers identified two key design goals: the urge to replay missions to hunt for secrets and higher scores, and the feeling that anything could happen, even when the odds were stacked against the player. These insights led to the adoption of the FPS roguelike genre as the perfect fit for the project.

Recognizing that roguelike FPS games can be niche and difficult to enter, Behaviour Interactive prioritized accessibility. Every system was designed to be easy to grasp while offering enough depth to reward mastery. This approach also shaped the multiplayer design, with the team aiming for a game that people could play together for years. To ensure long-term viability, the studio chose peer-to-peer multiplayer instead of dedicated servers and included an offline solo mode, ensuring the game could remain playable for decades without the risk of being shut down.

The game is set to launch as a complete, standalone title that does not rely on live-service releases to be fun. However, the team built the infrastructure to support expansions, DLC, and new content, allowing the base experience to grow if fans want more without cannibalizing the initial purchase. The studio has been excited by the reception during beta playtests and has listened closely to community feedback to tweak and polish the experience.

In Serious Sam: Shatterverse, Serious Sam Stone is not alone. Uber Mental's machinations have fractured the walls between universes, forcing Sams from multiple dimensions to work together to repair the Shatterverse. As part of the Serious Program, players travel across shifting universes to finish battles other Sams couldn't. The core gameplay involves bringing down Mental's five lieutenants, each a formidable boss, while wielding a destructive arsenal of weapons and unlocking powerful boons. The game features procedurally shifting runs across hand-crafted arenas, combining classic enemies with fresh monsters in a high-adrenaline, run-and-gun arena chaos.