When the going gets tough, it’s time to get serious, or in the case of Serious Sam 4, it’s time to get silly. A nice little tongue-in-cheek title is a great way to set the tone for Croteam’s revival of an older franchise. This FPS is from the same vein as the Duke Nukem era of gaming where crude Dad jokes and excessive violence thrived. With publisher, Devolver Digital behind the project, we look to see if they manage to re-capture the magic with their console port for Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 from last year’s PC release.

As a fan of the original Serious Sam way back on the original Xbox 19 years ago, I have a certain place in my heart for the high thrills, one-liner-filled chaos. Trying to outlast the endless hordes of aliens, towering arachnoids and headless kamikaze soldiers was joyful mindless entertainment. Other than a flurry of positively cheesy retorts there wasn’t much else to hear from Sam Stone or the greater story behind it. Serious Sam 4 however has taken the Sharknado approach of offering a full-fledge story with zero regards for embarrassing themselves and rather embrace the meme than shy away from it.

The Earth is currently being ravished by Mental, an evil alien overlord, and his army of ugly beasts. The Earth Defence Force, with Sam in tow, are on a mission to find the Holy Grail to hopefully swing the fight in their favour. Teaming up with a few soldiers as crazy as you, and with a hapless rookie trying not to die by your side, your campaign will travel through Russia, Rome, and France and you will be sure to paint the town red wherever you go. I would have hoped to see a bit more set of varied and vibrant landscapes travelling through multiple countries, however, the level design was quite bare-bones. It did offer wide-open playing fields though and there were options to explore and find additional optional missions.

Since the beginning, the open playing fields were a big portion of the success of the overwhelming combat, so even though they are bland to look at, they serve their purpose. People have been running zombie trains well before ‘Call of Duty’ and Serious Sam was a major player on this art form. The AI have always continuously rushed forward with no regard for their safety making them predictable but not a pushover. In Serious Sam 4, The AI has been improved and they can now spawn behind the player making them switch up their plans more often.

A large arsenal of weapons from shotguns, cannons, sniper rifles, and rocket launchers that shoot mini chainsaws will keep you firing for longer as you switch up on the fly to take advantage of certain enemy weaknesses. When things got hairy, and they often would, a series of gadgets could level a large group with the likes of a mini-nuke and blackholes for added style.

A basic yet effective skill tree has been implemented to allow for dual-wielding weapon perks, health gained from melee attacks, and ‘Rodeo’ time so you can ride a wild Werebull into battle. The majority of these perks are life improvement upgrades rather than new abilities. Which was fine, but a few more movement options to help get out of a tight spot would have been appreciated as the tried and true gameplay model would wear thin and eventually offer a numb experience. There were moments where they did manage to break up the monotonous experience by adding in larger-than-life vehicle set pieces where I could control a giant mech or harvester, yet even then, I still had a hard time of shaking a feeling of fatigue.

There were moments where I would question if the overarching storyline was even necessary given the nature of the game. Flooding the playing field with an insurmountable amount of enemies on repeat until you either die or surface on the other side triumphantly was what the original was founded on. I wonder if they had the same feelings as the story would fluctuate between recurring jokes of trying to nail the epic one-liner after a fight to a few pointed bouts of serious discussions about the importance of the situation. The feeling of trying to get the player to laugh with us rather than at us, played on my mind a few times, but the awkward player models, path-finding issues, and texture pop-in during cutscenes often had me in the latter category.

My feelings about the conflicted nature of how much effort they want to put in even extended to the music. Heavy and often brutal metal music would course through my veins as I poured an absurd amount of bullets into the onslaught and the second I finished combat, the music would cut like it had been severed at the source. Leaving me wondering around in dead silence with a handful of conversations to break it up. Sam’s dialogue remains gruff, sarcastic, and blunt as ever and was a clear indicator that he was meant to go against the grain. I won’t lie, I laughed more than once at the many attempts at humour but there were fewer hits than there were misses.

If you can overlook the less-than-polished finish, then there are still 15 chapters to fight your way through either solo or with up to 4 player co-op. This can be a tough outing but with quick reload times and 5 difficulties to play on, there are multiple ways to hit the sweet spot for you to enjoy. I don’t know if this will be the last time we see Serious Sam, it was nice to revisit a favoured franchise of my childhood nonetheless, and would recommend an open mind and a pinch of salt before undertaking this adventure.

Written by: Shane Fletcher