Croteam isn’t the average game development studio, and Serious Sam has never been the average FPS. Debuting a few years after Half-Life appeared and tumbling expectations for the genre, the Serious Sam series made a name for itself with relentless over-the-top action, where dozens of dead gibbed enemies turn to hundreds in the span of minutes. Serious Sam 4 sticks to its reliable guns, so no hiding behind cover to shoot, no sprawling webs of dialogue trees, just blasting enemies with all available firepower – always outnumbered but never outgunned.

After 25 years in the business, it’s clear that Croteam helped put Croatian game development on the map. Founded in the 90s, the studio took off following the original success of the first Serious Sam game near the turn of the century. While there are elements that have changed now for Serious Sam 4 – the first proper numbered entry in the series since 2011’s Serious Sam 3: BFE – much has also stayed the same, including the continued reliance on Croteam’s evolving proprietary engine, an emphasis on massive carnage, and a design approach that acknowledges current-gen tech while also keeping the basic gunplay familiar and gratuitous.

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Oddly enough, the topic that most came up during our recent chat with Croteam composer Damjan Mravunac and comms manager Daniel Lucic was Serious Sam 4's narrative. The team has a great a sense of humor and deep devotion to the fanbase who has supported the studio over decades, and a passion for leveraging their tech to push the blood and guts to the limits of processing power. This time, though, Croteam wants to inject Serious Sam 4 with a cohesive blockbuster-styled action film essence, balancing hundreds of thousands of murderous aliens with an epic story and memorable dialogue.

Serious Sam 4 Interview Zealot

We’re talking about Serious Sam 4. It has been an extremely long road to a new Serious Sam game. It was formally announced a few years ago, but it’s been in development way longer than that, right? What does the real road to the finished game look like?

Damjan Mravunac: I can say that, honestly, most of the work was done in the last two or three years. But yeah, you are right; it was announced way back, I believe sometime in 2013. So, there is actually quite a big gap between the last proper Serious Sam game, which was Serious Sam 3 in 2011.

After all those years of making Serious Sam game – which is an arcade action shooter – we wanted to try something different. So we went off exploring different mechanics, which actually ended up being their own game: The Talos Principle. So, that game was a philosophical puzzler, quite — actually, the total opposite of Serious Sam. There was no shooting, you had to solve puzzles. People compare it mostly to Portal.

And The Talos Principle actually provided us much-needed rest from the series, so we could come back to Serious Sam fresh. But, again, there was another let’s say breakthrough technology: the virtual reality, which was the big hype a few years ago. We were really excited, we’re tech-buffs here and we follow the technology, so we went ahead and designed the Serious Sam VR game, called The Last Hope. Then we decided to create VR versions of all of our previous games. So, now you see where the time actually went! It wasn’t like we were working on Serious Sam 4 all this time and it’s been ages in development! We worked on it and then we moved, did another five games, VR…and then after we finished all this VR stuff we then had to do a little bit of the overhaul of our own engine, because we never use a third-party engine. We have an excellent programming team which creates our own engine, which has been our choice for years.

And, finally, now that we’ve upgraded everything, we’re ready to release the new proper Serious Sam game, which will happen next August.

Daniel Lucic: I know that next August sounds like a year from now, but it’s not, actually. Next August is this August.

Speaking of VR, I'm a PS VR enthusiast, and I feel like Serious Sam has been curiously absent on PlayStation's VR console. Are there any plans or intentions on bringing any kind of Serious Sam experience to PS VR?

Daniel Lucic: There are no outstanding plans for that. We’ve moved on from VR for now, because we’re trying to focus on Serious Sam 4 and wrapping that up and moving forward. VR was a really amazing and fun experience for us but, for now, we’ve moved on. Who knows what the future brings, maybe some other iteration of PS VR but, for now, that’s it.

Damjan Mravunac: You know we’re a very small team, actually?

How many are in the team?

Damjan: What would you say, if you had to take a wild guess?

Hmm…40.

Daniel Lucic: Sounds about right.

Damjan Mravunac: You’re actually right. Dammit!

Daniel Lucic: You ruined the joke!

I was going low because of the way you asked it!

Damjan Mravunac: You’re right, I screwed up. I gave you that, it was a dead giveaway.

40 is still crazy low, I don’t want to discount that. But I thought, “Okay, it’s probably lower than I think it is.” But I know that Croteam has always been a powerful indie in the space, while not being made up of a AAA-styled team of hundreds. 40 is still very low.

Damjan Mravunac: We also release on a lot of platforms. We had The Talos Principle on the Xbox, the Nintendo Switch. We released an Android version on NVIDIA Shield and on iOS. Our tech is capable of exporting builds for all the various platforms, but it still takes time, and now you know the manpower behind Croteam. Sorry PS VR users! Not for now, that’s all we can say.

Serious Sam 4 Interview Mummies

How and when did you guys end up first linking up with Devolver Digital?

Damjan Mravunac: For our first game, The First Encounter, we couldn’t get a publisher. We sent this CD to 30 different addresses, together with a big, nicely printed, colorful GDD [Game Design Document]. And we got just two replies: “no,” and “thank you, but no.” We then released the demo on the internet, and it was the most downloaded demo of the summer, and this lent us a publishing deal with the then-newly formed Gathering of Developers. That was the alliance of developers who decided, “we won’t take it anymore from these greedy publishers.” And they joined and became a developer, I think it was…who was there? Harry Miller was there. Mike Wilson, and Robert Westmoreland. Some of the famous guys. But, the most important thing is that Harry Miller and Mike Wilson created Devolver.

So, we’ve been working with them for 20 years. When they formed Devolver it was a natural approach [to join up with them]. “Guys, there’s a new platform called Steam out there. Do you want to create the First and Second Encounter HD remakes?” And we said, “Hell yeah!” And that’s how we got back into bed with Devolver.

Daniel Lucic: We’ve known them for 15 years!

Damjan Mravunac: Yeah, we are actually friends! Which is an interesting thing between publishers and developers – most of them hate each other!

Devolver’s always been a bit different.

Damjan Mravunac: Yeah! Devolver is different. We’ve been friends with those guys for like 20-something years. It’s natural for us.

I feel like the Serious Sam games, from the very start and compared to whatever else is happening at the time, seem to acknowledge the tech trends of the day, but also sort of ignore them. Like you guys said, you create your own engines, you do your own things. It seems like you have game design priorities that are always just your own. It’s not like, “Everyone’s doing battle royale right now? Okay, we need do a battle royale.”

So then, what are some of these potentially unexpected design twists that are in this upcoming game that you feel like are gonna blow people’s minds? Like, the first-time players saw a field of rampaging exploding beasts in the first Serious Sam. What are you excited for players to see?

Daniel Lucic: There’s a ton to be excited about and, yes, we’ve always done things a bit different. We followed trends but did what we wanted to do, which is the theme at Croteam. It’s not easy to create your own engine; it would be much easier working with something else, but it’s not as interesting for our guys. Back in 2014, when we were first making Serious Sam 4, it would’ve been easy to finish that game, let it go, and release it. But then we released a philosophical puzzler – a difficult thing to sell, but it was something that excited us.

As far as Serious Sam 4 goes, we took a bit of a different route this time. We have a really powerful story – which doesn’t mean that Serious Sam 4 is necessarily a story-driven game, but it’s a game that has a meaty story, something players can get into, with character background stories [you will want to get into]. And the same writer who co-wrote The Talos Principle [Jonas Kyratzes] is working with us for Serious Sam 4, along with his wife Verena. They’ve both written a really cool action blockbuster story, which you can kind of enjoy without having to think about it too much.

In Serious Sam 4, that’s not tradition, but it’s something that we wanted to do.

Damjan Mravunac: It’s FAR from tradition.

Daniel Lucic: The previous games were basically: “Hello, how are you. I’ll shoot you now.” That’s about it. This time around, we do have something that’s really special, and we hope the players will enjoy it, but those who still want enjoy the crazy action, they can do that too.

Damjan Mravunac: From my side, I want to add that Sam is not alone this time. [He’s usually] a lone hero battling the universe, but here he has his team of tough guys and gals. It’s like in Predator, he’s the Dutch. And the team is right behind him, helping him out. There will be banter between them, exchanging one-liners. It very much looks like Pacific Rim, Predator, those blockbuster flicks where the characters are constantly like…it’s like The Expendables. That’s new to the series.

This is a prequel to Serious Sam 3, and in the beginning of Serious Sam 3, the first few levels, you actually meet some characters in cutscenes. Uh, which unfortunately…you know, I won’t spoil it, actually. They are still alive and lived happy ever after. They definitely don’t die.

So, you meet these characters, but this time there will be some more explanation. One of them is a guy called Rodriguez, who is very much like Blain in Predator, the one Jesse Ventura played. There’s also Hellfire, who can drive any type of vehicle – bought, stolen, enemy or allied vehicles. There will also be some new characters, some of them will survive and some won’t. I think players will actually get attached to them.

Daniel Lucic: We also have amazing actors working on the game, like Erica Lindbeck [who recently voiced Cassie Cage in Mortal Kombat 11], who’s done many, many characters in video games, TV series, movies, and such. We’ve get plenty great actors, and the delivery will be there, and fits the tone of the series. People who are doubting the story will likely enjoy it as well; and I was the first to kind of get up and say, “You know, listen, we don’t need a narrative in Serious Sam 4.”

Damjan Mravunac: I was the first!

Daniel Lucic: Yeah, okay. I was the second, Damjan was the first. And it turns out that it’s actually cool. I find myself laughing at the one-liners and I enjoy it all. I really think even those who are kind of afraid that it might be against what Serious Sam stands for will enjoy it.

Serious Sam 4 Enemies

Can you talk about the multiplayer aspects that may appear in Serious Sam 4? There has usually been some multiplayer stuff in the mix in the previous titles.

Daniel Lucic: We’ve always had [a few] different multiplayer modes, but what we saw from the data was that most of our players enjoy the co-op mode. So, we’ll have co-op day-one. As far as other multiplayer modes go, we’ll see what happens. If the community wants it, we usually figure out a way to deliver.

Okay. So then, a 10,000-player battle royale will appear in Serious Sam 4.

Damjan Mravunac: If 10,000 people pre-order, yes!

I have kind of a weird question. It’s something you guys don’t talk a lot about, and people don’t talk a lot about: I really like the Serious Sam indie spinoffs. How do you guys feel about those games, and is there any chance that we might see something like that again alongside the new title?

Damjan Mravunac: It was a part of our incubator initiative. Croteam was one of, if not the first, “major” developers here in Croatia. There were some teams that actually released something, but on a smaller scale. In 2001, when First Encounter was released, Croteam was the first, let’s say, worldwide established development company from Croatia. And so, many of the years we’ve been here, we’ve been alone. And then the other teams started popping up, some of them inspired by what we did in the past. We showed them that it can be done, even if you live in a small country like Croatia.

After all these years of development, we wanted to give something back to the community. So we started an incubator initiative a few years ago, and we actually helped some of the unestablished younger teams who showed perspective and eagerness to develop games, who reminded us how we were once, as kids, wanting to make a game. We decided to help them by providing all the necessary support, coworking, and even use our IP to try and break into the market.

In the end, these games were made – and you played them, you say they’re good – but, to be honest, they didn’t sell as much as anyone would have wanted. But it’s good that these teams are still around and making other games. I don’t know what will happen in the future. We will always try to help the developers here in Croatia. We do some lectures every year, we have a great developer’s conference here. We’re very active and proactive here in Croatia in getting game development to be a recognized business, something that people can actually do for a living here.

We’ve also seen some other initiatives here, like we have the first [high school program] for game developers which opened in the town of Sisak, which is near the Zagreb, last year. So there’s a lot of things happening over here, and I’ll be humbled, but I’ll say that some of these things that are happening were boosted a bit by Croteam’s success.

We try to give back. We’re probably doing an okay job, but it could always be better. I don’t know…I’m sad these games didn’t sell better.

I played two of the them. I played the Mommy’s Best Games one and the Vlambeer one. Oh, and I also played I Hate Running Backwards, I have that and played that as well.

Damjan Mravunac: I Hate Running Backwards! I love that one. It’s not a shoot’em up, it’s a shoot’em down. Total twist! And there is Tormental, which is coming out of Early Access right now, this is a top-down twin-stick shooter. And there is Bogus Detour, which is like a pixel shooter with RPG elements, done by the developers of Hammerwatch. They came to us and they are also Serious Sam fans, they wanted to work on a Serious Sam game and we said “yes!” There are a lot of these side projects, but I think that the amount of games that are being released right now are overwhelming. Danny, how many games are being released every month?

Daniel Lucic: At least a couple. At least a couple of games every month.

So my question is kind of faulty, isn’t it? It sounds like these indies are still rolling out.

Damjan Mravunac: Since Tormental is still in Early Access, it’s still [technically] being worked on. But we must be doing a sh--ty job with the marketing!

Serious Sam 4 Interview Tormental Gameplay

Is there something that I’m not asking you about that people have to know about the new Serious Sam?

Damjan Mravunac: I dunno. Every interview we did in the last couple of days, people asked us to summarize Serious Sam in one word. I mean, I can’t! I can use plenty of words, but…

Maybe a sound effect?

Damjan Mravunac: [joyously mimics the sound of an extended explosion]. Danny, tell them about the music, I’m too shy to talk about it. [note that Damjan is the primary composer for the series]

I have heard that the soundtrack for Serious Sam 4 is a step up, even compared to previous games.

Daniel Lucic: Oh, it’s not a step up, it’s an elevator up. Damjan actually hates it when I talk about his music, because he’s never satisfied and he always wants to—

Damjan Mravunac: I think he’s making fun of me.

Daniel Lucic: Yeah. He always feels like I’m making fun of him but, in all seriousness, I really do sometimes take some of his tracks and listen to them on repeat. I’ve leaked some to the community as well, and the reception was amazing. Um, I really feel like what Damjan is making for Serious Sam 4 is going to lift the game up, by a lot, and it’s some of his best work. And I’m usually busting his balls for everything, so that’s why he feels that I’m messing with him, but I really do feel that this is as good as it gets when it comes to a crazy action soundtrack. It’s gonna be super-amazing.

Damjan Mravunac: I still feel like there’s so many things to fix about the music but, as a composer, you’re never finished. You always go home and listen to the track in a car and think, “Damn, I should add this, I should EQ this part.” At one point you just have to press the release button. It’s challenging, but thank you Danny, it’s always nice to hear that. Danny’s like my wife, he always busts my balls but occasionally he says something nice.

Daniel Lucic: You have to balance it out. When there’s something nice to say, I’ll say it.

Serious Sam 4 image

Recalling the trailer that came out a while ago: are there plans for spaceship combat, vehicular combat, and the like? I know we haven’t really seen anything like that.

Damjan Mravunac: The trailer that you are mentioning is probably the one released two years ago where Sam is riding the chopper. So, yeah, that’s also a giveaway that we will have vehicles. We had vehicles in Serious Sam 2, but they weren’t executed properly. We didn’t use them in the gameplay as much as we should.

This time there are vehicles, and there will be some impressive ones that will play a bigger part in the Serious Sam universe. They’ll actually allow you to travel long distances, because we have this new terrain engine system. This system can render believable and realistic worlds which, I believe is 128km squared, which is bigger than anything in the world of video gaming. And it’s all procedurally generated, but the game area is not that big; let’s say it’s "contained." But, by all means, you can sit in a chopper and drive for three days in one direction, and you’ll probably never reach the end of the map, which is all real, with forests and mountains. If you see the mountains 50 miles away, you can go to those mountains and climb them. I don’t see why you should, but you could. It can be done.

The tech behind it is quite impressive and allows us to do stuff we couldn’t do before.

Just to clarify: you’re not implying that Serious Sam 4 is an open world game, right?

Damjan Mravunac: No, no. It’s a linear experience. But there are some optional side missions which players can take. They are of higher intensity and difficulty, but they offer rewards like weapon upgrades, adding stuff like alternate fire to your primary weapons, homing missiles, stuff like that. So, it’s a linear experience with some [branching paths].

So there are more enemies in this game than ever before. I’ve tried to understand what that realistically means in terms of like, gameplay. Is that right? Did I understand that there are 10,000 or more enemies on the screen?

Daniel Lucic: The video said it’s 100,000 enemies, but the point of that scene is something different. So, that’s a part of something that we call the Legion System, and it allows us to create a believable environment, a believable fight, within the Serious Sam universe. If you watched The Lord of the Rings and you see two huge armies clashing, and then there are two heroes who are going at it, that’s what the Legion System allows us to do. It does render tens of thousands of enemies at the same time, and you can kill them, but that’s not the point of the scene. If you try to kill them, you’ll likely fail; you don’t have enough ammo and you’re just one person, even though you’re a hero.

The point of it is, you are kind of in something that feels believable, in terms of an intergalactic fight, right? But as far as how regular fights go, they’re also much, much bigger than anything we’ve done. So, at any given point, you’ll be faced by hundreds and hundreds of enemies coming at you at the same time, and you’ll deal with them just like you would in any other game, but at a different scale.

Everything’s been scaled up. The size of the levels, the size of the fights, the firepower you have, the music – everything’s been ramped up to 11. It’s gonna be straight up action from the get-go, palms sweating, pure enjoyment. Explosive chaos.

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Serious Sam 4 releases on PC and Google Stadia in August, with additional current-gen console versions forthcoming.