Sam Stone is going back to where it all started. Developer Croteam and publisher Devolver Digital have announced Serious Sam: The Third Encounter, a new entry in the long-running first-person shooter series that picks up directly after 2002’s Serious Sam: The Second Encounter.
The game is in early development and is headed to PC through Steam. There is no release date or price yet, and no console versions have been announced. Croteam released a short teaser alongside the reveal.
A true continuation
The studio is leaning hard on that “encounter” name. “Not a prequel. Not a side story. A true continuation,” the Steam page says, adding that Sam is going to strike Mental’s horde “at its heart.” The pitch promises the series’ trademark mix of huge enemy counts, open arenas and big guns, with classic weapons returning next to new ones, new alien worlds to fight across, and co-op for players who want to bring friends into the chaos.
According to Gematsu, the description also notes that the game is being made by the same team behind Serious Sam: The First Encounter and Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem, and published by Devolver, which has been with the series for years.
The seventh mainline game
The naming may confuse newcomers. As PC Gamer lays out, The Third Encounter is actually the seventh mainline game, following The First Encounter (2001), The Second Encounter (2002), Serious Sam 2 (2005), Serious Sam 3: BFE (2011), Serious Sam 4 (2020) and Siberian Mayhem (2022). PC Gamer also notes the reveal comes shortly after Serious Sam: Shatterverse, a co-op roguelite spinoff from Behaviour Interactive, which makes Croteam’s back-to-basics message easy to read.
For fans of old-school shooters, it lands in a busy season for first-person action, including Valor Mortis, which broke even in seven days. Croteam has not said when it will share more, but you can wishlist The Third Encounter on Steam now. We will share a release window as soon as Croteam and Devolver announce one.
