Croteam’s Serious Sam 4 was originally due to be released back in 2014, but the project went dark, with the developer instead moving Sam’s earlier adventures into virtual reality. It wasn’t abandoned, however, and the game’s first teaser trailer seems ridiculous enough to deserve the Serious Sam name. Serious Sam: Planet Badass is very real, and a full reveal is coming at E3 this June.
In the game’s teaser trailer, we see Sam Stone driving down a country road on a motorcycle, the wind in his hair as birds fly by on a sunny afternoon. This idyllic scene lasts for about five seconds, before a headless and grotesquely disfigured man charges at Sam with a bomb in each hand. Sam blasts him into a mist of bloody chunks with his shotgun and continues on his way, only to see hundreds of similar enemies waiting for him as he reaches the top of the hill.
“Featuring the world-renowned signature Serious Sam gameplay on a brutally bigger scale, and not a single desert level, Planet Badass will make its debut at E3 2018,” said the game’s official Steam page.
With Croteam still working on the Serious Sam franchise after all these years, we’re hoping the character’s return will be a little more memorable than Duke Nukem’s, who appeared in Duke Nukem Forever in 2011 — the game went into development hell for well over a decade and released to scathing reviews. This didn’t manage to completely kill the franchise, however, with John Cena likely to star as the title character in an upcoming film.
The Serious Sam franchise has never been ravaged by critics to that extent, though scores for 2011’s Serious Sam 3: BFE were middling.
Whatever form Serious Sam 4: Planet Badass ends up taking, we’re just looking forward to seeing the game at publisher Devolver Digital’s E3 presentation. The company hosted its first E3 conference last year, lampooning the tone of other companies’ shows in a bizarre display of anti-humor, violence, and nihilism that felt like it was pulled from The Eric Andre Show. If even a fraction of that makes it into this year’s presentation, we will be very happy.
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