Serious Sam: Shatterverse

Serious Sam: Shatterverse has a genuinely promising roguelite foundation, with satisfying gunplay, chaotic action, varied builds, and co-op that suits the series extremely well once everything starts opening up. Unfortunately, it takes far too long to get there, with sluggish early progression, repetitive environments, limited initial variety, and technical issues making the opening hours much weaker than the game eventually becomes.

Serious Sam: Shatterverse is an interesting attempt to bring the action-focused series into the multiplayer roguelite genre, but it falls short due to insignificant upgrades, poor solo balance, a frustrating weapon system, and broken matchmaking. Without Croteam’s involvement, it feels like a low-quality cash grab aimed at a passionate niche.

Shatterverse is fun when it manages to enrich its roguelite recipe and the builds finally take direction, but before getting to that point it takes a lot of patience and the willingness to overlook several uninspired elements.

Personally, when I look at Serious Sam: Shatterverse as a piece of pure entertainment, the only thing that really let me down is that it just doesn’t have the frequency of true bedlam moments that I like in my Serious Sam titles.

Serious Sam is one of those games you can just load up, hit a few rounds of killing aliens, and feel satisfied with what you have achieved. Shoot, punch, heal, kill it’s simple and fun, a great way to end or start your day. The sheer fact that we are still making this type of game in 2026 is just a testament to what a solid community can do when you make something fun. If you’re a fan of the series, this entry will satisfy your inner Sam.

It’s hard to believe Devolver Digital decided to invest in a project as mediocre, predictable, and hollow as Serious Sam: Shatterverse, which forces a classic series into something it simply isn’t: a co-op roguelike with sluggish progression, uneven difficulty, and uninspired gameplay that gives us very little reason to return to this half-baked multiverse.

Serious Sam: Shatterverse had potential but falls short. It is a playable title—and fun when played with others—but it falls far below the standards set by the series.

Serious Sam: Shatterverse is an incredible pitch which should be a genuine joy to play. However, it's not. The progression is awful, the moment-to-moment gameplay is okay at best, and it's got more than it's fair share of bugs as well. It's just not what it could have been. This is a game that could be saved by patches, and I hope it is, but on release, it's just not fun.

There is nothing inherently wrong with Serious Sam: Shatterverse. It ticks all the boxes. It’s a perfectly serviceable first-person shooter / roguelite hybrid that uses its source material well enough to conjure up a half-decent excuse for a plot, and a varied arsenal of weapons for you to use against hordes of familiar enemies. I guess my main issues with it are how grindy it is, requiring you to play multiple runs before being able to unlock anything worth giving a crap about, and the simple fact that it is yet another roguelite in a sea full of painfully similar competitors.

This new Serious Sam offers a side of the franchise we haven't seen before. I seriously doubt whether that is the right direction. You’ve seen the environments at some point, the enemies become very recognizable after a while, and the gameplay is too much of the same to become truly addictive. After quite a few loops, you’ve seen it all pretty quickly. The progression you make slowly but surely is the most attractive aspect of the game, but it is too slow. Co-op is where the game is most fun, and it is practically mandatory to play it. In that regard, however, I would rather see the good old campaign return instead of this roguelite approach that has now been chosen.