Serious Sam 4 Review Summary

Entertaining classic Serious Sam shooting with satisfying dual-wield combat, but terrible optimization and a weak, poorly written story drag it down.

Fun and entertaining gameplay: Many reviewers describe the gameplay as fun, entertaining, and satisfying. The core loop is often called brisk, challenging, and enjoyable for both casual and serious players.

Classic Serious Sam identity: The game retains the classic Serious Sam feel, with many calling it the best in the series. It delivers the familiar personality and varied enemies fans expect.

Dual-wield weapon system: The ability to dual-wield weapons, including different ones via skills, is a major positive. It changes combat tactics and eliminates the need to switch weapons mid-fight.

Satisfying shooting mechanics: The shooting feel is frequently praised as satisfying, with good recoil and impactful weapon feedback. Players find it a blast and highly enjoyable.

Massive weapon arsenal: The game offers a huge variety of weapons and gadgets to suit different playstyles. The arsenal is impressive and provides plenty of choices.

Terrible optimization and performance: Players report severe optimization issues, including low FPS, lag, freezes, and stuttering even on high-end hardware. Performance is consistently poor across various systems.

Weak and poorly written story: The story is frequently criticized as weak, cliche, boring, and lacking depth, with some saying it is pointless and poorly written. Dialogue and characters are also described as laughably bad or cringeworthy.

Poor graphical quality: Many reviewers describe the graphics as bad, terrible, or lacking, with some comparing them to last-generation quality. The overall visual presentation fails to impress.

Texture pop-in issues: Reviewers note noticeable texture pop-in where textures load visibly or remain blurry before suddenly appearing. This issue is especially distracting during cutscenes and affects immersion.

Bad cutscenes and animations: Cutscenes are described as lame, stiff, wooden, and janky, with clumsy animations and poor direction. The animation quality detracts from the experience.

Co-op Multiplayer Support: Players highlight cooperative multiplayer, often for up to four friends, as a key feature. It allows playing through the game with friends online.

Fast-Paced FPS Action: Reviewers describe it as an old-school, arcade-style first-person shooter with constant movement and extreme shoot'em-up action. The gameplay is chaotic and action-packed.

Massive Enemy Hordes: The game is praised for throwing hundreds or thousands of enemies at the player simultaneously. This creates chaotic and intense battles.

Dual-Wielding Weapon Mechanic: A skill or perk system allows players to dual-wield weapons, including larger guns like miniguns. This is a popular feature for increasing firepower.

Diverse Weapon Arsenal: The game offers a wide variety of weapons, from pistols and shotguns to rocket launchers and miniguns. Players can carry multiple weapons simultaneously.

Severe Optimization Problems: The game suffers from poor optimization across various hardware configurations, leading to low FPS and unstable performance. Many users report that the game does not run well even on recommended specs.

Persistent Texture Loading Issues: Textures load slowly and pop in during gameplay and cutscenes, with blurry visuals that take seconds to resolve. This issue is widespread and affects visual quality.

Frequent FPS Drops: Framerate drops significantly in intense moments, with reports of drops from 190 to 39 FPS and stutters during action. This makes the game feel unresponsive.

Long Loading Times: Loading times are excessively long, even on SSDs, which disrupts gameplay flow. Users report slow loading speeds and long waits between levels.

Stuttering and Freezing: Even on powerful hardware, the game stutters and freezes, with micro stutters despite high FPS. This affects overall smoothness.

Recommended for Serious Sam fans: Most reviewers say the game is best suited for existing fans of the Serious Sam series. It is repeatedly recommended for those who enjoy classic Sam gameplay.

Buy only on sale: A large share of feedback stresses waiting for a discount before buying. Many recommend purchasing only at a reduced price rather than full price.

Fans should play other entries: Several reviewers suggest playing other Serious Sam games instead, such as the earlier encounters or Siberian Mayhem. The original campaign and Serious Sam 2 are often named as better options.

Fun for mindless shooting: Reviewers recommend it for uncomplicated, fast-paced shooters with hundreds of enemies. It is a good pick for players who just want to blast hordes.

Not recommended even discounted: Some reviewers explicitly do not recommend the game even at a low price. Others say it will not win over players who are not already fans.

Community fair range: $10.00 - $20.00.

Game completion: 14.0h.

Story completion: 12.0h.

Serious Sam 4 is often fun at first, especially for series fans or in co-op, but many players report it becoming repetitive or boring over time. One explicit report places boredom after about 10 hours, and others describe fatigue after finishing the campaign or on later playthroughs.

Friction: Repetitive combat and level structure; Long campaign with weak story and characters; Solo play feeling monotonous; Unfair levels that seem balanced for co-op; Skill tree and open-world progression feeling unoriginal; Weapon changes reducing satisfying play.

Unlock drivers: Playing in co-op with friends; Using a higher enemy multiplier in co-op; Side quests that break levels into smaller sections; Post-launch patch preserving co-op equipment.

Old-School Serious Sam Veteran: Run-and-gun horde clearing, using many weapons and classic secrets while tolerating jank. Motivation: Continuation of the classic Serious Sam formula with humor, huge hordes, and old-school shooter action. Stance: buy.

Co-op Horde Socializer: Four-player co-op sessions, often on higher difficulty with enemy multipliers, coordinated shooting and reviving. Motivation: Shared chaotic horde combat and social co-op progression with friends. Stance: buy.

Arcade Run-and-Gun Fan: Run-and-gun shooting with fast weapon switching and combos, often solo and casually. Motivation: Fast, simple arcade shooter action that can be enjoyed as relaxing, turn-brain-off entertainment. Stance: buy.

Across the provided Windows cohorts, performance is inconsistent: lower-VRAM systems are mostly playable after tuning but still show stutter and FPS drops, while higher-VRAM systems include both strong frame rates and reports of crashes, unstable FPS, and poor optimization.

Windows <8GB VRAM: positive. Mostly playable at 1080p with adjusted settings, though some users report stuttering, long loads, and sharp FPS drops when using scopes or in heavy scenes.

Windows 12-15GB VRAM: mixed. High-end systems report excellent 150-400 FPS in some cases, but other users cite crashes, black screens, stutters, unstable FPS, and poor optimization.

Windows 8-11GB VRAM: positive. Generally smooth with 100-250 FPS and drops to around 60-75 FPS in busy fights, though a few reviews mention crashes or optimization issues.

Steam Deck: The audit finds a tinkering-heavy Steam Deck experience. The dominant complaints are severe frame-rate drops, stutter, and reports of unplayability unless settings are lowered. Some users can reach 55-60 fps after tuning, but heavy scenes remain unstable. There is no dominant evidence of frequent crashes, anti-cheat failures, unreadable UI, or launch failure, so the score remains in the Tinkering Required band. No mandatory Proton Experimental toggle or external launcher navigation requirement was found, but the required settings tuning still places the experience at the high end of Tinkering Required.

Linux and Proton: The game is generally playable on Linux via Proton. One user completed the entire game on Arch with no issues, and another enjoyed it on Ubuntu. However, the Vulkan renderer is reported to cause performance problems and crashes, leading users to recommend DX11 instead. Some users also report Linux-specific compatibility problems, bugged textures, slow loading, and X11-related bugs in the late game. No anti-cheat or launcher blockers were mentioned. Overall, the experience requires minor tweaks such as switching to DX11 rather than Vulkan.

Comparison to Serious Sam 3 mixed: Opinions on how this game compares to Serious Sam 3 are divided. Some see it as a big improvement, while others feel it learned nothing and is worse, with a few noting better pacing and variety.

Compared unfavorably to older Serious Sam games: Many reviewers find this entry inferior to classic Serious Sam titles, especially The First Encounter and The Second Encounter. They cite lack of creative level design, weaker visual identity, and a less engaging vibe.

Prequel in Serious Sam series: Reviewers frequently note that this game is a prequel, specifically a prequel to a prequel, and part of the larger Serious Sam series.

Graphics considered outdated: Multiple reviews criticize the graphics as outdated, a generation behind, and poor compared to contemporary shooters. Some specifically compare unfavorably to DOOM and DOOM Eternal in visual quality.

Compared favorably to Serious Sam 2: Some reviewers note that Serious Sam 2 is better, while others say this game brings back wackiness and is a return to golden age with less silly tone than SS2. One says SS2 is still the best but this is second best.