Croteam is finally finishing the story it started in 2001. Devolver Digital and the Croatian studio have announced Serious Sam: The Third Encounter, a new mainline entry that picks up directly where 2002's The Second Encounter left off. It is coming to PC via Steam, it is in early development, and it has no release date yet. You can already wishlist it, and its store page carries a first look at the game.
A sequel 24 years in the making
The name alone will mean something to anyone who played PC shooters in the early 2000s. The First Encounter and The Second Encounter set the series template: huge open arenas, hundreds of enemies charging at once, and one man with a minigun walking backwards. Croteam's announcement says that in the 24 years since, the story never moved forward. Calling this game "The Third Encounter" says what kind of game it is.
That is literally true. Every major Serious Sam release since then has filled in the past instead of the future. Serious Sam 3: BFE was a prequel to the original, set on Earth before Sam's trip through time. Serious Sam 4 went further back again. The standalone Siberian Mayhem expansion took a side road. Croteam is careful to say The Third Encounter is none of those: not a prequel and not a side story, but a true continuation that sends Sam to strike at the heart of Mental's horde.
What Croteam is promising
The pitch is deliberately old-school. Croteam describes the game as pure arcade FPS action, a bullet-hell shooter in which thousands of enemies stand between you and the next arena. The studio's own feature list boils down to "bigger hordes, bigger enemies, bigger guns." Sam's classic arsenal is returning alongside new weapons. Co-op is confirmed, so you can bring friends into the fight with Mental's forces rather than going it alone.
The setting moves to what Croteam calls bold new alien worlds: strange planets, twisted strongholds and hostile landscapes. The studio promises dense, vivid environments and a refreshed art style. The early screenshots back that up. They look noticeably brighter and more stylised than the grittier, more realistic look of Serious Sam 4, with saturated skies, chunky sandstone and cartoonish monster designs.
Same studio, same publisher
This is not a hand-off to an outside team. Croteam is developing the game itself, describing the team as the same people behind The First Encounter and Siberian Mayhem. Devolver Digital, the series' publisher for well over a decade, is back to publish.
Croteam has also published an official teaser alongside the announcement. Every screenshot is stamped "work in progress", and the store page repeats that the game is in early development. Croteam is pointing fans to Steam and its social channels for development updates, which suggests this will be a long reveal campaign rather than a quick launch.
PC requirements (early)
Croteam has listed minimum PC specs. They are modest, but this early in development they should be treated as a placeholder:
- OS: Windows 10 64-bit
- Processor: 4-core CPU at 2.5 GHz
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 / 970 / 1050 or AMD Radeon HD 7950 / R9 280 / RX 470 (3 GB VRAM)
- DirectX: Version 11
So far only Windows PC on Steam is confirmed. No console versions have been announced. Given how widely Devolver has released recent Serious Sam games, it would be no surprise to see more platforms later, but for now that is speculation.
What happens next
There is no date, no price and no beta yet. For a series that has spent two decades going backwards, though, the headline is enough: Serious Sam is moving its story forward again, with the original studio at the helm and a pure arcade-shooter design. The Steam page is live now for anyone who wants to follow development.
