serious-engine-3 posts

Serious Sam 3 has been a bit of a mystery in terms of what the upcoming next game in Croteam's first person shooter series will look like. Now the official Serious Sam Facebook page has given everyone a chance to check out the first official screenshot from Serious Sam 3: BFE (we still don't know what "BFE" means).

The screenshot supposedly shows a "Scrapjack" in what looks like is a Middle Eastern village from the signage. Something tells us there might be some parodys of the Call of Duty games in this new installment. We've been told to expect more screenshots tomorrow.

[Via Rock Paper Shotgun]

Serious Sam 3 has had a rather nebulous release date time frame for a while but today the official web site of the first person shooter's developer Croteam had a short but sweet statement from its CEO Roman Ribaric: "Just a quick note to let all Serious Sam fans know that Serious Sam 3: BFE is coming this summer 2011. Official annoncement (sic) will be released soon."

Croteam's been busy over the past year developing and releasing graphical remakes of its first two Serious Sam games with its new in-house Serious Engine 3 tech with partner Devolver Digital. Our question: What does "BFE" mean in the game's title?

[Via Destructoid]

Mod makers who have been waiting to get official mod tools for the revamped versions of the Serious Sam first person shooters can get started now. Today publisher Devolver Digital announced that the beta release of the mod tools for Serious Engine 3 are now available to download for free via Steam for all owners of Serious Sam HD The Second Encounter.

The tools will allow mod makers to create new single, co-op and multiplayer maps for the first person shooter created by Croteam. The development team will be checking out the creations made by third parties and may even offer one multiplayer map creator a chance to have his or her map included in the upcoming Serious Sam 3 which also uses Serious Engine 3.

Big Download has learned that Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter, the upcoming graphical remake of Croteam's second game in the first person shooter series, has been pushed back slightly. Originally scheduled for a first quarter 2010 release, Big Download has been told by the game's publisher Devolver Digital that the game is now due for release in late April.

As with Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter, the remake of The Second Encounter will also be released via Steam for PC users and for the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade (Majesco will still be the co-publisher of the Xbox 360 port). Devolver Digital also plans to release The Second Encounter remake in retail stores for the PC version around the same time.

Devolver Digital also said that the long awaited deathmatch and dedicated servers update for Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter should be released "soon" and that The Second Encounter will have deathmatch support out of the box along with all of the other fixes and additions that have been or will be released for The First Encounter.

Finally Devolver Digital will also publish Croteam's all new next game Serious Sam 3 but they are keeping details on that title a secret for now.

When Croteam released the original Serious Sam game over eight years ago it was considered a bit of a novelty. It was a $20 game that was a throwback to the beginning of the first person shooter genre with only a tiny plot, tons of enemies on screen and co-op play through the single player levels. By 2001, first person shooters had begun to evolve away from these kinds of features to include stuff like real storylines and acting, only a few enemies on screen but with smarter AI and small levels.

Serious Sam The First Encounter didn't have any of that. What it had was fast arcade-like shooter gameplay, massive outdoor areas for levels, and lots and lots of weird but wonderful monsters. For those of you who played the game for the first time, tell us you didn't get scared when the headless kamikaze bombed-filled men started charging at you. You can't tell us that because you would be lying. You were frightened out of your minds. That's the kind of impact the original game had on our young minds back in March 2001.

While developer Croteam is creating their first person shooter remake Serious Sam HD with their new Serious Engine 3 technology, the screenshots that have been released of the remake still have that cartoony art style that made the previous games so memorable.

However, don't get too used to it, at least according to Croteam CEO Roman Ribaric. In a chat with Eurogamer he talks briefly about their plans for their full fledged follow-up game Serious Sam 3. He states, "First, Serious Sam 3 will play like the original Serious Sam. And second, we'll leave the cartoony look behind. " Development of Serious Sam 3 has already begun and will ramp up even more when Serious Sam HD is completed later this summer.

A few weeks ago, Croteam announced that they were working on some new projects including a new game in their Serious Sam shooter series.Today it was announced that Xbox 360 owners will be able to download a remake of Serious Sam: The First Encounter via Xbox Live Arcade later this summer.

But that's not all, apparently. Eurogamer is reporting that the remake will also be released for the PC later this fall. The game will be released, at least in Europe, by CDV (we are betting another publisher handles the PC version in the US) and will be the first game that will use Croteam's Serious Engine 3 graphics technology. As you can see from the above screenshot , Serious Sam: The First Encounter HD will get a major graphical upgrade compared to the original. The Xbox 360 version will also have support for four player co-op but there's no word yet on co-op option for the PC version.

It's been a long, long time since we have heard anything from Croteam, the developers behind the terrific Serious Sam first person shooter titles. In 2007 it was revealed that the team was working on some kind of modern military shooter for publisher Gamecock but since Gamecock's shutdown there's been no news at all on what the team has been doing.

In a new update on Croteam's site this week, its CEO Roman Ribaric stated that the development of the military game for Gamecock "was halted some time ago by investors and publishers." However they have since moved onto their own projects including Serious Engine 3, the next version of their game graphics technology that have been used for all of Croteam's Serious Sam games. As far as future game titles they are at work on two projects "one of which is the next Serious Sam FPS game." A publishing deal for that title is apparently in the works so hopefully we won't have to wait much longer for some serious action.

[Via Blue's News]