Serious Sam: Shatterverse Hands the Franchise to the Dead by Daylight Team — and Goes Full Multiverse

The first Serious Sam turned 25 this year. To celebrate, Croteam handed the keys to Behaviour Interactive — the studio behind Dead by Daylight — and what came out the other side is nothing like what you'd expect. Serious Sam: Shatterverse, revealed at the Xbox Partner Preview, is a co-op roguelite FPS for up to five players, each controlling a different version of Sam "Serious" Stone pulled from across fractured dimensions.

Not Your Dad's Headless Kamikaze Rush

Shatterverse keeps the series' core DNA — massive hordes, absurd weapons, relentless forward momentum — but wraps it in a roguelite structure that changes the pacing entirely. Runs are procedurally shifted across hand-crafted arenas set in previously unexplored universes, with unstable anomalies and hidden portals that can either supercharge your loadout or end a run cold. Between attempts, players return to a hub to upgrade gear, select missions, and strategize with their team.

The boon system sits at the center of the loop. Each run layers temporary power-ups and modifiers that fundamentally change how combat plays out — from healing auras to airborne damage beams. The game's own tagline puts it bluntly: "Fall fast. Come back louder."

Five Sams, Five Art Styles, One Very Confused Mental

The multiverse angle isn't just narrative dressing. Each of the five playable Sams comes from a different dimension with a distinct visual identity and unique abilities. One is a woman. Another is half-alien. A third can apparently launch themselves from a cannon. The Spider-Verse comparison is obvious, but it works — every Sam reads differently on screen, and the co-op is designed around complementary playstyles rather than five clones shooting in the same direction.

On the other side, Uber Mental's forces include five boss lieutenants, each anchoring a universe. The classic enemy roster returns alongside new monsters designed for the multiverse setting, and the arsenal mixes legacy weapons with what Behaviour describes as "big, loud, stupid, and frankly irresponsible" new toys.

The Elephant in the Room

Here's the tension: Behaviour Interactive is a studio defined by slow, asymmetric horror. Dead by Daylight is methodical, tense, and strategic. Serious Sam is the exact opposite — speed, volume, chaos. That's either a fascinating creative challenge or a recipe for an identity crisis.

Croteam seems genuinely on board. Davor Hunski, from the original development team, said he was excited to see "another talented team step in and create something bold, fresh, and different." Producer Nic Duchesne, on Behaviour's side, framed it as respecting the legacy while pushing into "a fresh, contemporary way unlike anything seen before in the series."

But not everyone's convinced. Early reactions to the leaked trailer drew comparisons to 2025's Painkiller reboot — another classic shooter reimagined by a new studio that didn't quite land. Whether Shatterverse avoids that fate depends on whether the roguelite loop can sustain the chaos that made Sam iconic, rather than diluting it into another run-based grind.

Twenty-Five Years of Screaming Into the Void

Serious Sam has always been the anti-serious shooter — loud, dumb, and proud of it. Shatterverse is the biggest swing the franchise has taken since the original. A new studio, a new genre layer, a multiverse of Sams. It launches later this year on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Either the reinvention the series needed or a dimension too far — but no one can accuse it of playing safe.