Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter

I've got a soft spot for games that respect your time by never wasting it on complexity. Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter has exactly one idea and it executes that idea with the confidence of someone who knows they don't need a second one. You run. You strafe. You blast. You do it across 15 levels set against the sprawling backdrop of ancient Egypt, fighting wave after wave of Mental's army until your trigger finger goes numb and your face hurts from grinning. The enemy roster is the real selling point here. Galloping Sirian Werebulls, screeching harpies, lumbering bio-mechs, and the utterly iconic Headless Kamikaze - that sprinting, screaming, bomb-clutching nightmare that will haunt your peripheral vision for the rest of the campaign - all show up in numbers that would make a lesser engine weep. The arsenal matches the chaos: revolvers, tommy guns, miniguns, rocket launchers, and a cannon for when you absolutely need to clear a courtyard in one shot. No loadout menus, no ability trees, no cooldowns. You pick up what you find and you use it until something bigger drops. The co-op is where this game genuinely earns its place on a shortlist. Up to 16 players can run the full campaign online together, and even a smaller group of four or five friends turns the already-frantic encounters into something closer to a joyful disaster drill. The game scales enemy counts with player numbers, so larger lobbies genuinely feel different, not just busier. Fair warning though: public servers are sparse in 2026, so you will want to organise your own group rather than rely on matchmaking. Setting up a server and inviting friends through Steam works, but it is not a one-click affair and newcomers have reported some friction getting online co-op running smoothly. There is no local split-screen on PC, which is a genuine miss for couch sessions. As an HD remaster, it holds up better than you might expect. The Serious Engine 3.0 facelift gives the game real draw distances across open desert arenas, decent water effects, and textures that mostly look clean at 1080p and above. A few building surfaces look rough if you stop to admire them, and rocket-jumping - a beloved exploit from the 2001 original - was removed in the transition, which veterans will notice and newcomers will not miss at all. The audio has not aged quite as well; gunfire can sound a little thin, and the launch version had a notorious sound-crash bug that, while largely patched by now, is worth keeping in mind if you hit instability. The campaign runs roughly six hours on a first playthrough, longer if you dig for secrets (and there are plenty). The early levels ease you in with something almost resembling a normal FPS pace, but the back half opens up into massive open-air arenas where hundreds of enemies charge from every direction simultaneously and the only correct strategy is to keep moving and keep firing. Solo players who are new to the series should be warned: this game is legitimately punishing on higher difficulties, and the Serious difficulty setting with boosted enemy strength is not a joke. That said, difficulty options are generous enough that casual players can find a comfortable entry point without feeling patronised. Steam user reviews sit at 93% positive across nearly five thousand reviews, which tells you the community has voted clearly on whether the fun holds up.

Riley · Scout Team

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