Industry

Serious Sam: The Third Encounter announced, a true sequel to The Second Encounter nearly 25 years later

By PPRGaming · October 21, 2026

Serious Sam: The Third Encounter logo in yellow and red over a dark silhouette of Sam Stone standing in a shadowy corridor
Image: Croteam / Devolver Digital

Sam is back where it started. Croteam and Devolver Digital today announced Serious Sam: The Third Encounter, a direct sequel to 2002’s Serious Sam: The Second Encounter (Gematsu). “Enough foreplay. Let’s get Serious! I’M BACK IN THE THIRD ENCOUNTER, BABY!” the official Serious Sam account posted on X alongside a teaser of a burning cathedral. You can watch the announcement trailer on YouTube.

Not a prequel, not a side story. According to the Steam page, The Third Encounter “picks up exactly where the story left off” in The Second Encounter, with Sam striking at the heart of Mental’s horde. That’s notable because the series has spent years going sideways: Serious Sam 3: BFE and Serious Sam 4 were both prequels, and Siberian Mayhem was a standalone expansion.

What Croteam is promising.

  • Pure arcade run-and-gun action against “thousands of enemies,” with what the studio calls “pure, unfiltered bullet-hell mayhem.”
  • New alien worlds, strongholds and planets, with a new, denser art style.
  • Sam’s classic arsenal back alongside new weapons.
  • Solo or co-op play.

When. Not soon. The game is in early development and only confirmed for PC via Steam so far, with no release date or console versions announced (Gematsu, DSOGaming).

PPR take: The First and Second Encounter are still the high point of the series for a lot of people, so a real continuation with the classic cartoony look, instead of another gritty prequel, is exactly what fans have been asking for. It’s early days, but wishlisting costs nothing.

Sources