Serious Sam: The Random Encounter
Serious Sam: The Random Encounter
Game
Game2022
Serious Sam: Tormental
Developer Gungrounds (Macanga Games j.d.o.o.), Croteam
Serious Sam: Tormental is a 2022 twin-stick shooter and rogue-lite game developed by Gungrounds and published by Devolver Digital. One or two players traverse procedurally generated levels across several stages set in the mind of Mental, the antagonist of the Serious Sam series. They use two weapons each, of which the primary weapon can be enhanced through "mods" found throughout the game. The unlockable player… From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
267 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon, Lemmy) · newest Nov 5, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
75
LovedLoved
95 positive · 31 negative
95% range 67–82%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 95 | 31 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 29 | 13 | 80 |
| Mastodon * | 2 | 0 | 14 |
| Lemmy * | 1 | 0 | 2 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Mostly Positive
107 of 141 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
75% recommend · 97 yes, 32 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 129 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Mostly Positive (202 of 267 positive).
Players praise the game as addictive, fun, and well worth the price. [1][2][3] Some reviewers find it frustrating, repetitive, and lacking variety. [4][5][6] Many compare it favorably to other roguelites like Nuclear Throne and Enter the Gungeon. [7][8][9]
Liked
Representative posts
- [4]
Frustrating, irritating and not fun. Badly balanced (smaller enemies do the same damage as bigger enemies), the areas are tightly cramped with hardly any room to dodge attacks and I can't think of anything more "fun" than getting hit and killed by a stray projectile while trying to perform a "Brutal Kill". There's nothing rewarding about finishing a dungeon except for the same old weapon upgrades you'll pick up …
- [1]
I'm a 52 year old guy and been playing games since Atari 2600 back in 1977 and this game is awesome. It's very addictive, i just can't stop playing it. This was well worth the $6.42 on sell price that i paid for it. I can't wait to see what updates they do for it. I love most games but its very rare that i get addictive to one like this one. It's funny, entertaining, brutal, just everything in one, i wish it had …
- [7]
This is actually a super solid twin-stick shooter. Shooting feels fantastic, the music is amazing and the writing made me laugh several times. The simple aesthetic makes it easy to follow the action and it's adorable. I would put this game above Enter The Gungeon and at the level of Nuclear Throne.
- [2]
I can’t really imagine trying to balance a roguelike. More than any other genre, roguelikes live and die on the razor’s edge of difficulty. Too easy, and people blow through it in a few runs. Too hard, and frustration claims most of your would-be player base. It took me awhile to come around to the balance struck in Serious Sam: Tormental. There are some choices here that I wouldn’t have made, and some mechanics …
- [3]
Top down view shooter game. Some elements of an RPG. Fun and challenging (especially as you beat loops or make use of the many Mental moods which increMENTALly increase difficulty and score multiplier). Don't expect anything fancy, this is a plain old shoot em up and have fun game that won't break your budget with a huge 3 digit price tag. Lego type graphics, sound and music are all nice. Simple point and shoot. …
Summarised from 34 of the 228 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 13, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
75% of the 129 Steam reviewers we collected recommend Serious Sam: Tormental. The complaint that keeps coming up: frustrating difficulty spikes and poor balance. Deal-breaker or nitpick?
Critics, per Wikipedia
Serious Sam: Tormental received "mixed or average reviews", according to the review aggregator website Metacritic, which calculated a weighted average rating of 66/100 based on five critic reviews. Daniele Cucchiarelli of The Games Machine enjoyed the game's humour and found it to fit with the rest of the series. He commended the expansive arsenal and challenge the game poses, as well as the "nice" and distinguishing art style. KC Nwosu, in his review for The Escapist, similarly enjoyed the art style, which he believed fit the series better than those found in other entries. He regarded the movement and shooting mechanics as "adequate" but lamented that obtained weapons and upgrades "never…
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 267 · most liked firstI'm a 52 year old guy and been playing games since Atari 2600 back in 1977 and this game is awesome. It's very addictive, i just can't stop playing it. This was well worth the $6.42 on sell price that i paid for it. I can't wait to see what updates they do for it. I love most games but its very rare that i get addictive to one like this one. It's funny, entertaining, brutal, just everything in one, i wish it had more gore but thats me, maybe they can make an adult patch for it and add some…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →>game is called "Serious Sam" >every single level is completely unserious bullshit are they stupid?
positive · AI labelView post →Serious Potential Serious Sam: Tormental is a rogue-lite spin-off of the Serious Sam series, this particular game is developed by Gungrounds as well as Croteam. I’m not exactly a fan of the Serious Sam franchise, I just picked this game up due to my interest in rogue-lites. So far, I’ve been pleasantly surprised. It doesn’t really do anything unique, but it does the whole top-down shooter rogue-lite thing quite well, even just as it’s released in Early Access. Note: Obviously, this is more…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Ooh, (very WIP) trailer dropped for Zortch 2. The first game was short but tons of fun, like a long-lost N64 shooter given a PC remaster. The sequel kinda makes me think of Serious Sam meets Duke Nukem 64 so far.
neutral · AI labelView post →Game Pass titles leaving in 2 weeks: -Anuchard -Darkest Dungeon -Broforce -Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem -Maquette -Death's Door
neutral · AI labelView post →Every Serious Sam game looks like it's a fake game that a TV show character is playing and I love it
positive · AI labelView post →It's funny that people were freaking out and declaring Serious Sam dead because a third-party spinoff game... existed. Forgetting all the other weird third-party spinoffs we've had over the years.
positive · AI labelView post →I've thought about how I'd handle a Serious Sam video, but the games are all so similar and repetitive that I think I'd just do one giant video covering every major Sam game. What do you think?
neutral · AI labelView post →A super early version of the Colosseum from Serious Sam Next Encounter, running on the PC's Serious Editor. This is from January 25, 2002, while the game wouldn't release on GameCube until April 2004.
neutral · AI labelView post →Showed the gang an Easter Egg in Serious Sam Double D XXL where there’s a monument to the Xzibit “X in your X” meme that gets you an achievement. Was a little hard finding the footage as Youtube search sucks now and few recall this game.
neutral · AI labelView post →The easiest way to dabble in #GameDev? Modding. Pick your favorite game and it probably has some sort of modding support. My first #IndieDev experience was adding a tiny feature to Serious Sam, back in 2001. It was ~5 lines of code and seeing it in-game felt amazing.
neutral · AI labelView post →Mobile Sam. Sorry, but I feel like this one looses that "Serious" charm. Controls are better with mouse + keyboard than on my controller because they feel kinda jumpy. Not entirely bad game but it plays like a different one not related to the series.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →People talk about video games that look fake sometimes but I think Serious Sam TSE might somehow have the fakest looking video game cover art ever.
neutral · AI labelView post →The writing, sound, and simplistic are style are great, but there's just not enough variation in levels and game play.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Please everyone buy this game It's so great and i have been enjoying it lots too! It has catgirls. It plays similar to DOOM Quake & Serious Sam, but it's own unique experience to the FPS genre. Also a meow button And made by trans devs too 💙🏳️⚧️
neutral · AI labelView post →It's like an arcade game. The developers are open-minded, sociable and generous.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is actually a super solid twin-stick shooter. Shooting feels fantastic, the music is amazing and the writing made me laugh several times. The simple aesthetic makes it easy to follow the action and it's adorable. I would put this game above Enter The Gungeon and at the level of Nuclear Throne.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Frustrating, irritating and not fun. Badly balanced (smaller enemies do the same damage as bigger enemies), the areas are tightly cramped with hardly any room to dodge attacks and I can't think of anything more "fun" than getting hit and killed by a stray projectile while trying to perform a "Brutal Kill". There's nothing rewarding about finishing a dungeon except for the same old weapon upgrades you'll pick up regardless and I just feel like I'm not making any kind of progress. It is also…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Every action game fan needs to play Serious Sam because of much it tests player patience and crowd control skills.
positive · AI labelView post →They use popular games saying its what inspired the game, thats what got me to try it. This just felt like a mobile game. After playing it a few runs i was not interested in playing the game anymore.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →AAAA games are nothing special, Serious Sam was the world's first AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA game.
positive · AI labelView post →The classic Serious Sam 2 gets a big upgrade and now Steam Deck Verified https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/10/the-classic-serious-sam-2-gets-a-big-upgrade-and-now-steam-deck-verified/ #SeriousSam2 #SteamDeck #SeriousSam #PCGaming #FPS
neutral · AI labelView post →Tormental misses the mark on being a Rouge-like and a Serious Sam game. As a Serious Sam game, it features a small cast of unremarkable enemies, only a few being from the main games. The rest can be summed up as cube or blob. As a Rogue-like, the aforementioned small enemy roster, the same one boss on every floor, bullet vomit, constant bomb spam, and very little progression/permanent upgrades makes this very repetitive and a chore to play. The only reason why I have so much time in it is just…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →In the current state I can not recommend the game. On the surface it Looks like an amazing game that has potential with a artstyle that looks rather cute, vivid colors and that arcadish feel. You can see a lot of care went into the presentation. However deep down it seems that "Mental, the demigod who's mind we are invading" has a rather shallow imagination and likes to bug us with the concept of insanity. Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting things to change. change they do. But…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Serious Sam: Tormental Tormental is the latest top-down spin-off in the infamous FPS series of Serious Sam, and it comes with the same procedural roguelike packaging that you'd expect from an indie action title of the times. A 3D view with a classic vantage point give this roguelite a particularly stylish feel, but the mechanics remain familiar. There isn't too much to say about Tormental as a roguelike, everything follows the formula of procedural level design and progressively crazy…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Games leaving Game Pass on February 1st. - Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem - Darkest Dungeon - Deaths Door - Broforce - Maquette - Anuchard
neutral · AI labelView post →Very generic, boring without any inspiration attempt to replicate the succes of Nuclear Throne. Those matrix effects try to hide the poor optimization. You can't fool me.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Serious Sam can be in any video game, at any time.
neutral · AI labelView post →My patch to add #SeriousSam to #Guix got merged!!! It's a really fun and silly FPS, and it wasn't a trifle to get it working on Guix :) #programming #gaming #retro
positive · AI labelView post →This game was fun once, I really like it, but with every update it got more irritating and less fun. No real content update besides new weapons and perks which break the game balance even more. While the devs try to balance some aspects of the game, the core game got changed. At first the game had lots of enemies with little health and you could choose the rooms/challenges you wanted and the rewards coming with it, but you had to fight through a horde of enemies. Now the the devs changed the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I did say I'd like to do something for you all when I get my channel access back. Thinking of perhaps a live stream, but what game should it be? I know people often request a repeat playthrough of the janky Serious Sam 3 port for PS3, lol.
neutral · AI labelView post →Serious Sam: Shatterverse announced as a new co-op roguelite FPS https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/03/serious-sam-shatterverse-announced-as-a-new-co-op-roguelite-fps/ #SeriousSam #Shatterverse #FPS #PCGaming
neutral · AI labelView post →Author: 200. Francis — unknown. 1/ An African mercenary named Francis, originally recruited as a foot soldier, was repurposed into a headless “kamikaze” role reminiscent of a Serious Sam video game character. Continue… ⬇️
neutral · AI labelView post →THREAD of Remix 80s now that I have more than one, will be updated with each one I level! number one: Samward "Serious" Stonefuse. my "main" for remix this time, he's a cosplay character of Serious Sam from classic FPS game ... Serious Sam.
neutral · AI labelView post →Serious Sam does a better job being a "bullet hell" than alot of gentrified modern/indie games putting bullet hell elements in their game cause it actually gives a shit about you actually dodging shit and not having a million different ways to ignore damage
positive · AI labelView post →So i gave it a try, and it's meh: Incentive to dash through ennemies, but no invincible frame, sometimes ennemies are on a trap or spawn some others mob on top of you; dash is useless otherwise and jump barely works, and only for sam (!). Loot disappears way too fast, super annoying. No icon in hub to know which NPC is a quest giver or got a reward. No meta progression, just a few powers to unlock. No xp level up, just uninspired upgrade for the base gun. keys are some alternative money, some…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Onirism will likely always have some rough edges, because it is by a small indie team, and the game is simultaneously Serious Sam, Blood, Call of Duty Zombies, Bioshock, Timesplitters, Halo, Star Wars Battlefront and every PS2-era mascot platformer ever made.
neutral · AI labelView post →We’re now in the paper session - we had a great range of papers, first exploring the representation of Egypt in Talos Principle from @jennycromwell.bsky.social - a great deep dive into what this game is made of (part of which is: Serious Sam!)
neutral · AI labelView post →I made the mistake of playing through both Mouse PI and Serious Sam lately. Too many jumpy shooters that get me all worked up and tense. Need to play something more laid-back next time like an RPG or Kirby game.
negative · AI labelView post →On this windy #RandomGameSaturday, I have Serious Sam: Next Encounter, a game not to be confused with Serious Sam: The Second Encounter or Serious Sam II no matter how much it sounds like a direct sequel. I've not played much of any game in this series, but I feel like I'd really enjoy it once I do
positive · AI labelView post →number 1 rule of a Serious Sam game: anyone with a homing projectile must die first (Aludran Reptiloids, Technopolyps) number 2: keep fucking running number 3: the sooner you ride the Werebull, the better
neutral · AI labelView post →Doom 2016: A great action shooter with a compelling narrative throughline. Half Life on coke Doom Eternal: Fast paced arcade arena shooter. Mobility is everything. Nobody's knows wtf is going on Dark Ages: Serious Sam with lore??? They're trying to add story this late in the game???
neutral · AI labelView post →it's a bullet hell game, which is a genre Amy got me into back in the day with Serious Sam
neutral · AI labelView post →🎊🎈Pre-Birthday Twitch stream 🎈🎊 Tune in at 2pm CST, about two and a half hours from this post going up BUT I will QRT again with the link when I go live! Playing the Alpha build of Serious Sam! It will be jank! But should prove... interesting!
neutral · AI labelView post →Serious Sam: The Third Encounter gets teased by Croteam and Devolver Digital https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/10/serious-sam-the-third-encounter-gets-teased-by-croteam-and-devolver-digital/ #SeriousSam #FPS #Action #Steam #Proton #PCGaming
neutral · AI labelView post →I woke up hearing new Serious Sam… Good.. very nice.. wait… Hunter the Reckoning?? New game? In this modern day???! I was literally talking to friends about it maaany maaany times begging for a new game since the original xbox days! The game was one of the inspirations for this commission!
neutral · AI labelView post →lol my kids still pull up the 2000s interview I gave to EP for Serious Sam to laugh at how much I have aged and how excited I was about dual wield uzis as a game mechanic
neutral · AI labelView post →frustrating, unfair, badly balanced and not fun! small enemies do as much harm as big enemies you go dead with 3 hits not fun and one can not save even if it should be a rogue shooter in any case because Serious Sam's Bogus Detour had done better even if you try it 5-6 times you do not come to the next world, start all over again not a fun game i had expected more beautiful and i'm disappointed, sorry croteam
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →In some videogames with no player character options, you get to actually have a character (Serious Sam). In some, you get a blank slate with pronouns (FEAR). To an extent, I can accept it if the game is old. . . . This post is about Mechwarrior 5.
neutral · AI labelView post →Serious Sam on the original Xbox. Never played Halo on it, lmao, But Serious Sam I loved so much, I'd regularly try to convince my parents to play it with me No clue who I'd be if I hadn't played that silly little game back when I was a wee little batty
positive · AI labelView post →I found out about new Serious Sam game. Not really sure if I want to play it or not. I love Serious Sam but this game looks like the most generic "Fortnite wanna be" slop. Feels like they wanted to make Serious Sam popular among gen Z or something. I hate that trend and direction.
negative · AI labelView post →🔴 Another new Serious Sam video! This one covers the leaked game design document, sketchbook and various community projects.
neutral · AI labelView post →wait what the fuck I own Serious Sam 3 somehow. it's just in my Steam library. that's funny as shit. won't be my first game but I'll probably try it at some point
neutral · AI labelView post →A GIRL SERIOUS SAM? ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS? Yeah man Sammy was in the game long before the new girl Sam like who gives a fuck you can be aliens and shit in these games lmao
neutral · AI labelView post →87. Serious Sam 3 Jewel of the Nile: Solid little expansion. The secret weapons from the main game became normal pick-ups and the hammer is now a sick axe. The first couple levels are oddly stingy on health though which got annoying. I liked it, but I'm taking break before I play Serious Sam 4!
neutral · AI labelView post →I can’t really imagine trying to balance a roguelike. More than any other genre, roguelikes live and die on the razor’s edge of difficulty. Too easy, and people blow through it in a few runs. Too hard, and frustration claims most of your would-be player base. It took me awhile to come around to the balance struck in Serious Sam: Tormental. There are some choices here that I wouldn’t have made, and some mechanics that weren’t immediately apparent despite how important they were. Still, it’s…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Plan to postpone artwork with I-NO again, start artwork with Barry Stickfries, who will refer to the cover of the game Serious Sam 3: BFE and at the same time finalize the summer SparkTEJ illustration
neutral · AI labelView post →So, back to Game Club, the very first game project I ever worked on was the first Game Club project - a mod for Serious Sam, called "Propain", with transforming mechs I made. I made the Mechs. 15/?
neutral · AI labelView post →Really awesome game, surprised with all the fun cool mechanics this game offers that make it very fun/ fast and arcady! Destructable environment, timed chests, Sacrifice Chests, "Brutal" killing weak enemies. Modding your weapons to create different weapons and upgrading your character is all really really fun. Also enjoying all the new Secondary weapons i have been finding! Cant wait to see what else is added ! twitch.tv/esty8nine
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I think what's great about Serious Sam The First Encounter is that despite 99% of the game taking place in the desert, the environments still feel varied, and the game is quite vibrant.
positive · AI labelView post →
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