Serious Sam: The First Encounter

Serious Sam: The First Encounter, released in 2001, arrived with a simple but tremendously effective recipe — put the player up against hundreds of enemies at once and let them run and shoot their way across sprawling Egyptian deserts and ancient temples. The Croatian studio Croteam deliberately returned to the pure, straightforward action of early-nineties shooters, but went incredibly far for its time in terms of visuals and the scale of its battles. The protagonist, Sam "Serious" Stone, fights his way through a world inspired by Egyptian mythology to stop an alien invasion led by the tyrant Mental.

At the core of the gameplay were massive arenas where dozens to hundreds of enemies of various types would pour toward the player at once, from exploding clowns on unicycles to giant skeletons with cannons for arms. The level design deliberately favored open spaces over narrow corridors, allowing for circular movement, dodging, and tactical use of terrain. On Windows 9x computers, the custom Serious Engine offered surprisingly good scalability, so the game ran even on weaker systems, while also excelling at the number of simultaneously rendered characters, which was a technical rarity at the time.

The game was enthusiastically received, particularly for its humor, self-irony, and uncompromising intensity, which stood in contrast to the dark and realistic shooters fashionable at the time. The accompanying music and sound design further amplified the sense of an approaching apocalypse whenever the screen filled with an endless stream of enemies pouring in from all sides. Serious Sam helped revive interest in the "arena shooter" genre and inspired a number of later titles built around hordes of enemies. Even today, The First Encounter remains a popular choice for quick, uncomplicated fun and a reminder of just how entertaining a shooter can be without unnecessary padding, story detours, or cover-based combat.