Croteam’s long-running shooter franchise is heading in a bold new direction. Serious Sam: Shatterverse was officially announced during the Xbox Partner Preview on March 26, 2026, revealing a brand-new 5-player co-op roguelite FPS heading to PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S sometime in 2026. Published by Devolver Digital and developed by Behaviour Interactive, Shatterverse brings together alternate universe versions of Sam “Serious” Stone for what looks like the franchise’s most chaotic outing yet.
What Is Serious Sam: Shatterverse?
The premise leans hard into the multiverse concept. Five alternate universe versions of Sam join forces to take down Mental — the villainous alien overlord who has served as the series’ big bad since the very first game in 2001. In each alternate dimension, that universe’s version of Sam failed to stop Mental’s armies, and the results are the shattered worlds players will be running through across the game’s procedurally shifted levels.
The announcement trailer was brief but packed — roughly 40 seconds of gameplay footage teasing towering boss fights, fluid movement and shooting mechanics, and the game’s roguelite upgrade system. At certain points during a run, players appear to be presented with three distinct upgrade choices, shaping how each session plays out. It’s a familiar roguelite structure applied to Serious Sam’s brand of relentless, arena-scale combat, and the combination looks like a natural fit.
How the Levels and Runs Work
According to the official press release, Shatterverse’s levels will feature procedurally shifted runs across hand-crafted arenas. That means the core arenas are designed by the development team, but the way runs play out will shift between sessions — keeping the experience fresh across multiple playthroughs, which is essential for a roguelite built around replayability.
Those arenas will pull from two sources: returning locations from the Serious Sam series’ history and brand-new environments from across the alternate dimensions where Mental’s conquest went unchecked. The enemy roster follows the same logic, mixing familiar alien faces from the franchise’s past with entirely new threats built for Shatterverse.
As for weapons, the press release describes the arsenal as “frankly irresponsible” — which, for a Serious Sam game, is exactly the right promise. Players can expect classic weaponry from across the series alongside new additions designed specifically for this entry.
Behaviour Interactive at the Helm
Serious Sam: Shatterverse isn’t being built by Croteam, the Croatian studio that created the franchise and has led development on all of its mainline entries. That’s not unusual for the series — since Devolver Digital took over publishing duties in 2011, a rotating cast of developers has handled the franchise’s numerous spinoffs, with Croteam focused primarily on the numbered mainline installments.
This time, the development duties fall to Behaviour Interactive, a Montreal-based studio with a deep and varied portfolio stretching back decades. Behaviour is best known today for Dead by Daylight, the asymmetrical horror multiplayer game it has maintained and expanded since 2016. Their most recent first-person shooter was Meet Your Maker in 2023, a game built around raiding and building user-created outposts — so they’re not strangers to the genre, even if Serious Sam’s scale and pace is a different beast entirely.
Behaviour Interactive Producer Nic Duchesne spoke about the studio’s approach to taking on the franchise: “Our main goal was to respect Serious Sam’s rich legacy while presenting it in a fresh, contemporary way unlike anything seen before in the series.”
It’s a tall order for a franchise with 25 years of history behind it, but the roguelite structure gives Behaviour a genuine framework to do something new while keeping the DNA of Serious Sam intact.
A Franchise With Deep Roots
For those less familiar with the series, Serious Sam has been a fixture of the FPS genre since its March 2001 debut. The franchise spans six mainline entries and ten spinoffs, covering everything from numbered sequels to a Game Boy Advance port, mobile titles, and a VR co-op shooter. The most recent releases came in 2022 with Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem — a standalone expansion to Serious Sam 4 — and Serious Sam: Tormental, a roguelite twin-stick shooter. Shatterverse marks the franchise’s return to the spotlight after a four-year gap, and it’s arriving with arguably the most ambitious concept the series has tackled.
Xbox Is Stacking Up Nicely in 2026
Shatterverse is one of several notable titles announced during the Xbox Partner Preview that are worth keeping on your radar this year. Wuthering Waves is also confirmed for Xbox in July 2026, bringing Game Pass exclusive rewards when it launches on the platform. And Dispatch, AdHoc Studio’s superhero workplace comedy, is arriving on Xbox this summer as a Play Anywhere title — another strong addition to a platform that is clearly building momentum heading into the second half of the year.
A specific release window beyond “2026” hasn’t been confirmed for Serious Sam: Shatterverse yet. More details on the game’s content, release timing, and pricing are expected to surface as the year progresses.
