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Serious Sam Classic: The First Encounter
Serious Sam is a high-adrenaline single-play and 16-player co-operative arcade-action FPS and Gamespot's Game of the Year 2001!
What players say
Steam review score and the most-helpful voices, which may include critical ones. Score via Steam as of 2026-08-31 · quoted reviews as of 2026-05-12.
What reviewers agree on
24 of the 70 reviews raise this.
“Use the Serious Classics Patch: https://github.com/SamClassicPatch Still the best way to play the original. More coherent and clean visuals than the HD remakes. Extremely stable (zero crashes), with Classics Patch, when…”
“I may have very low hours on this game, but i remember playing the regular versions on cd, which was perfect. This game makes it double better in my opinion. It felt really good to relive my experience playing Serious…”
“Growing up with this being one of my favorite games for the classic xbox i can confidently say this was a solid game and on its 25th anniversary it still very much still kicks butt. And these days for the price of a…”
7 of the 70 reviews raise this.
“Use the Serious Classics Patch: https://github.com/SamClassicPatch Still the best way to play the original. More coherent and clean visuals than the HD remakes. Extremely stable (zero crashes), with Classics Patch, when…”
“Happy 25th Anniversary! I still remember watching my Dad play the Karnak demo for the first time. Been hooked ever since. Love the settings and levels and the enemy designs are all top tier classics. Best game in the…”
“Ah yes, good old Serious Sam. I haven't played this since the early 2000s. Finally got to play it on highest settings and resolution, despite it's age (25 years!) it still looks pretty decent. It's really, really too…”
5 of the 70 reviews raise this.
“This game will repeatedly ass rape you in the best possible way.”
“great game, pretty hard but still super fun. honestly i think its more fun than doom”
“Old Skool fun that doesn't take itself too *seriously* with a great theme (Ancient Egypt) and a set of silly monsters. Can be challanging too at higher difficulty levels.”
5 of the 70 reviews raise this · 3 of them still recommend the game.
“I was actually enjoying the game and it's mechanics, but then they just go ahead and throw 10,000 Kleers in one spot”
“The undefeated classics. Classics is harder on normal dificulty than HD version. Those gravity trics they used in this one make me feel joy. Not a boom shoot, play only if nostalgic”
“In theory, I should've liked this game. I really like both Doom (1993) and Quake (1996), and in many ways, this game plays like a natural progression of those titles. In practice, though, I just get exhausted by the…”
4 of the 70 reviews raise this · 2 of them still recommend the game.
“I was actually enjoying the game and it's mechanics, but then they just go ahead and throw 10,000 Kleers in one spot”
“Worthy of being called Classic. Super influential, still good-looking, full of personality, dripping with the in-jokes of a homebrew project but with the polish that even high profile releases like Half-Life frankly…”
“In theory, I should've liked this game. I really like both Doom (1993) and Quake (1996), and in many ways, this game plays like a natural progression of those titles. In practice, though, I just get exhausted by the…”
Counted across 70 English reviews, sampled to match this game's 95.8% positive rating · as of 2026-05-12
“Happy 25th Anniversary to Serious Sam. Time flies.”
— a player, Steam review · 4 hrs played“Pure, unfiltered old-school chaos. Serious Sam: The First Encounter still delivers relentless action, massive hordes, and that iconic no-nonsense gameplay. Celebrating its 25th anniversary and still an absolute blast. FPS roots done right.”
— a player, Steam review · 10 hrs played“I'm a very serious gamer. I take pride in playing only the most serious and strategic of games such as Call of Duty and Among Us. Serious Sam is like both of those games but with the seriousness turned up to 11. This is no baby game, it's only for the toughest of gamers who only…”
— a player, Steam review · 1 hrs playedPlayer activity
Monthly average concurrent players. Live data self-collected from the Steam API · history through 2026-06 via SteamCharts.
Price tracking
US-region pricing (USD), sampled twice daily by our own tracker since 2026-07-11. Steam prices vary by region — always confirm your local price on Steam.
Regional prices at last sample, in local currency — Steam sets each region's price independently.
Cheapest → most expensive, converted to USD at ECB reference rates (2026-09-04). Relative comparison only.
Latest official news
Developer announcements via the Steam news API — links go to the original posts. More across all games on the news hub.
25 YEARS OF SERIOUS SAM!
Today, our favorite action hero officially turns 25 years old!It’s been an absolutely wild ride for Sam. From blasting through the sands of ancient Egypt in a genre defining first-person shooter, to t
Featured Mod - Serious Sam Ray Traced
Hi everyone! As many of you must have found out by now, one of the craziest members of our community recently released a brand-new Serious Sam: The First Encounter mod which updates our original Serio
Happy Holidays from Croteam!
https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/33025992/e9b890df2bd5aa55977bcfd2e902114cdfa54ad4.jpg All of us at Croteam wish you have a great Winter break. Happy Holidays and hav
Serious Sam Revolution Update 1.02
https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/33025992/a5af9969dd30529657179846636d219d0ea64682.jpg Hi everyone! I can’t believe it’s been a month already, but we’ve been hard at
Serious Sam Classics: Revolution is out of Early Access!
Happy days! Serious Sam Classics: Revolution is out in the wild as a fully released game, and we're celebrating with a huge discount! You saw this coming, let's be honest, as we have recently announce
Games like Serious Sam Classic: The First Encounter
From our knowledge graph — ranked by shared traits, not a black box. Each card says why it's here.
Serious Sam Classic: The Second Encounter
94.4% · 655 reviews
shares Split Screen, Classic, Local Co Op, Gore
Serious Sam Classics: Revolution
87.5% · 1,411 reviews
shares Split Screen, Classic, Gore, Old School
Serious Sam 3: BFE
86.1% · 8,431 reviews
shares Split Screen, Local Co Op, Gore, Old School
Serious Sam Fusion 2017 (beta)
91.9% · 2,113 reviews
shares Classic, Local Co Op, Gore, Great Soundtrack
Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter
91.0% · 3,094 reviews
shares Classic, Gore, Old School, FPS
Serious Sam II
87.7% · 4,066 reviews
shares Classic, Gore, Great Soundtrack, FPS
Serious Sam 4
82.1% · 5,787 reviews
shares Classic, Gore, Great Soundtrack, Violent
Shadow Warrior Classic Redux
88.5% · 2,328 reviews
shares Classic, Gore, Old School, Violent
Screenshots
Official Steam store screenshots — click any shot to enlarge.
Facts & details
From the Steam store record, snapshot 2026-05-12.
| Genres | Action, Indie |
| Player tags | Action · FPS · Classic · Shooter · Gore · Co-op · Indie · Comedy · Multiplayer · Singleplayer · Local Co-Op · First-Person (SteamSpy community voting) |
| Features | Single-player · Multi-player · PvP · Online PvP · LAN PvP · Shared/Split Screen PvP · Co-op · Online Co-op |
| Languages | English * * |
| Official site | http://serioussam.com/ |
Minimum system requirements (PC)
Minimum OS *: Windows 95 OSR2, Windows 98, Windows 98SE, Windows ME, Windows NT 4.0 (with Service Pack 5), Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 operating system Processor: AMD K6-3 400MHz, Pentium II or Celeron-A 300MHz Memory: 64MB Graphics: full OpenGL compliant 3D accelerator Hard Drive: 600MB free hard disk space Sound: 100% Windows compatible sound card