Serious Sam: Shatterverse

“Only ~6 playable areas (two of which are totally not-the-same-looking blue snow generic base and purple space generic base), that already gives a good idea of how through-the-roof the dev's imagination is going to be here. If from all the majority of possible environments of the multiverse we've got two generic bases just with different color schemes, the rest of the levels are the same dull visuals with zero personality, like the devs just asked ChatGPT what Serious Sam was all about?”

“Graphically the game is not all that impressive and because it is using Unreal Engine it wants to drain your system resources. While it can be run at max settings if you are determined, there is very little point as the game looks about the same on high as it does on epic.”

“The gameplay is janky, the difficulty is inconsistent, the balance is broken, the progression is arduous, the writing and VO are abysmal, the music is aggravating, the visuals are generic and 'Fortnite slop'.”

“Not that the plot was ever important in Serious Sam—it was always secondary and practically irrelevant—but the result is a collection of irritating characters spouting meaningless nonsense.”

“The characters also just do not shut up; there are lengthy multi-minute dialogue chains throughout entire missions, constantly interrupted by themselves to repeat the conversation, resulting in utterly useless information, low quality exposition, and painful attempts at humour.”

“- Game forces you to play entire story once having only 3 weapons at your disposal; the rest of the equipment is behind beating one difficulty mode this way, and besides experience being downright boring, having a short range tommy gun and shotgun against long range attacking arachnoids, a massive lava monster or a robot that switches locations every attack is not an enjoyable fight.”

“The poor optimization and the amount of bugs that can literally break your runs make the game almost unplayable.”

“Endless bugs, poor optimization that sets my PC on fire even on lowest settings (not even Serious Sam 4 did that), iffy servers that can lag quite a bit.”

“Performance-wise, based on how the game looks, I really shouldn't be getting around 40 fps at 75% 3D resolution.”

“It's some of the most unfunny writing I've ever heard, and it feels like the game is trying way too hard to be funny.”

“A Serious Sam looter shooter with roguelike elements sounds like a good thing in theory, but in practice it’s plagued by terrible execution, unfunny labored writing that tries way too hard to be funny (werebull piss anyone?), and terribly boring and one-note level design and combat.”

“There’s also constant banter between other Sams and a Netricsa super AI and predictably, it’s unfunny and very distracting.”

“Sound-wise, the music is similarly vacant and doesn’t scream “serious sam” to me: encounters are punctuated with shallow butt rock that barely even feel processed, the guitars in particular sound very tinny.”

“Some levels feature generic pseudo-metal tracks with never ending guitar solos that make no real musical, chromatic or tuneful sense, becoming irritatingly discordant and aggravating to listen to.”

“The gameplay is janky, the difficulty is inconsistent, the balance is broken, the progression is arduous, the writing and VO are abysmal, the music is aggravating, the visuals are generic and 'Fortnite slop'.”

“Only after unlocking at least 90% of the arsenal (after spending hours of tedious grinding) you may finally taste that you're actually playing a roguelike.”

“The core meta progression currency takes way too long to unlock making this game far too grindy to enjoy.”

“Between upgrading the trinkets, unlocking weapons and upgrading intel, there is definitely a grindy aspect to the game.”

“The game is also way too buggy at the moment, to the point where I can't currently recommend it even if you're not a serious Sam fan.”

“The release was glitchy, buggy, and laggy; the playtest was exponentially better and giving feedback during playtesting did nothing at all.”

“Serious Sam: Shatterverse is disappointingly not a good Serious Sam or a roguelike due to being an unpolished, buggy mess with bad enemy AI, boring level design, and uninspiring shallow roguelike elements.”

“I'm not sure what the replayability will be like once you complete all the difficulties, but given each playthrough feels different from the next, I imagine there will be quite some time spent here.”

“It feels like having a few more playable characters wouldn't have been too difficult.”

“In this game you still mainly shoot and run while being chased by an incredible amount of enemies; the weapons are straight out of the main games, so this is not a looter shooter where you keep killing until you get a very unique weapon. Being a roguelike, the replayability is about the maps, enemy combinations, and possible builds in every match.”