Serious Sam 4

It’s been nine long years, but Serious Sam Stone is finally back with a brand new first-person shooter for all your gun-slinging needs. Serious Sam 4 is a fresh new take on the Serious Sam franchise and acts as a prequel to the original three games. Don’t worry, Serious Sam fans, everything you love about the franchise is still here, including all the epic battles and frantic action. However, the developers have put in a substantial amount of work in every other aspect of the game to make it feel like the most complete Serious Sam experience to date. In truth, while I’ve played all the previou...

Serious Sam 4 is a delightfully old-school first-person shooter that doesn't bring a ton of new stuff to the table but still hits all the right notes.

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Serious Sam 4 is a natural evolution for the series. There is nothing groundbreaking here but it is just such silly and extravagant fun to play. The endless series of arena battles should begin to feel repetitive but the gunplay and challenge is perfectly pitched so each one provides a satisfying adrenaline rush. While not a true contemporary update like those of Doom and Wolfenstein, this first-person legend comes out guns blazing and, let’s be serious for a moment, that’s what we all wanted him to do.

Serious Sam 4 succeeds where it needs to, and fails where it's not really all that important. An unchanging series that is a must for fans.

The alien hordes are back, but you can dual wield chainguns, so everything's going to be fine.

Stick Serious Sam 4 in performance mode, then, and while your experience won’t be perfect on PS5, you’ll still have a bloody good time. It’s perhaps the humour and simple premise of the game that will be more divisive; some will love it for its daft one-liners and balls-to-the-wall action, others may find it too repetitive and macho. If you like the idea of butchering an entire army of monsters ranging from vampires to reptilian demons that throw green balls of energy at you, however, then be sure to give it a go. And what other game lets you loose in a combine harvester to up your body count?

It has been ten long years since Serious Sam 3: BFE first released on PCs. That game was a prequel to the now 20-year-old original Serious Sam, and developer Croteam is back with another prequel. Yup, Serious Sam 4 is a prequel to the prequel. But is it any good? Find out in our Serious Sam 4 PS5 review.

When combat is firing on all cylinders, and the Legion System isn't crashing your PC, Serious Sam 4 is a decent slice of old-school shooter goodness. Yet, in sticking to its guns, Serious Sam 4 ends up being an aggressively mediocre experience.

Just like all the previous Serious Sam games, the main idea in Serious Sam 4 is “But what if there were even more enemies?” There’s not much more to it than that. This style of run-and-gun action is definitely challenging, it’s just getting played out, and the returns on the investment of simply upping the enemy count and adding dual-wielding have diminished. The variety of bad guys thrown at you is impressive but there just aren’t enough interesting weapons to keep the battles from getting dull, and the lack of drop-in co-op is inexcusable in this day and age.

There is some joy in the cheesy story, almost like watching a B-movie that's so bad it's still entertaining. The experience could have worked as a parody to other shooters, but the poor level design and inconsistent quality smack of missed potential overall. At the very least, four-player co-op is available, and playing with a small group of friends might be just what Serious Sam 4 needs to ascend from 'lackluster' to 'janky-but-lovable.' Unfortunately, with a $40 price tag, most players would be better off buying Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter and The Second Encounter if they want to re-...

It is a shame that Serious Sam 4 is not able to live up to the series’ legacy. While the franchise has never been associated with particularly groundbreaking or polished titles it has previously been able to offer enjoyable experiences with its own identity and fun gameplay. Serious Sam 4 is too bogged down by questionable design and poor presentation to manage that, and instead feels like a title quickly thrown together with an overnight script than a cohesive product.