Serious Sam 4 sends you back into the arena of the Great War, and it knows exactly what you want from a shooter built around wave after wave of enemies. The 2020 game for Stadia, Series X|S, Linux and PC runs on a simple engine but delivers a steady stream of foes, and the result earns a 7.2 out of 10.
Trailer, via IGN.
The Numbers Behind the Game
| Feature | Serious Sam 4 |
|---|---|
| Platforms | Stadia, Series X |
| Engine | Built on older technology |
| Core design | Wave-based arena shooting |
| Critical score | 7.2/10 |
Waving the Hordes
The core loop is pure. You step into a room, a wave of enemies pours in, and you mow them down. The game never stops sending more. That consistency is the whole appeal.
Combat is simple: aim, fire, move forward. There is no cover system to complicate things, and there never needed to be. The pace stays fast from start to finish.
What the Engine Cannot Hide
The engine shows its age in several ways. Frame rates dip during busy moments, and some textures look rough against the game’s ambition. None of that ruins the experience, but none of it adds to it either.
Load times can be long, especially on slower systems, which breaks the momentum the game otherwise builds so well. When the waves stop and you wait for the next map to load, the magic fades.
The Campaign’s Length
The campaign itself is short, and it ends before you get used to the rhythm. That brevity is a small complaint against a game that otherwise respects your time.
The arenas are varied enough to keep each level distinct, even if the enemy waves follow familiar patterns. Players who finish the main story will find plenty of extra content to chase, but the base campaign feels thin compared to what the game could have offered.
Where It Lands
Serious Sam 4 does not try to remake the genre. It takes what made the series work in the past and puts it on newer hardware, with a few extra tools added along the way. The result is a solid, if unambitious, addition to the library.
The game succeeds because it commits fully to its own rules. It never apologizes for being a shooter about waves of enemies, and that confidence carries over into how players respond to it. Anyone who enjoyed the earlier entries will find plenty to like here.
Anyone new to the series may find the rough edges harder to ignore, especially once the campaign ends and the extra content starts repeating the same ideas again. The engine’s limitations become more obvious outside the core loop.
Serious Sam 4 is a competent shooter that knows its audience and sticks to it. It does not reinvent the wheel, but it does not need to. The waves keep coming, the guns feel satisfying, and the game never loses its focus. It is a solid entry in a long-running series, even if it does not push the genre forward.
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