Serious Sam: Shatterverse

The grind is one of the most repeated gameplay complaints, much of it from players in the 2 to 10 hour range. Every new player starts with only the pistol, pump shotgun and Tommy gun. Everything else (weapons, Sams, perk ranks) costs the same scarce Catalyst Orb currency, and even unlocked guns only appear if the RNG drops them. Some weapons also sit behind tiered unlocks, such as Flamethrower before Grenade Launcher before Rocket Launcher. "5 hours in I have unlocked 1 sam and 1 new gun," one player writes. Positive reviewers raise it too: one says "the power fantasy should start a bit sooner," and another that for roguelite players the fun is "hidden behind progression." A mid-September review notes that a patch gave out more catalyst orbs and made guns cheaper, which made unlocks easier.

The writing is disliked on both sides of the vote. Players complain of constant banter between the Sams and the NETRICSA AI that talks over combat, repeats the same conversations run after run, and restarts after being interrupted. Specific targets include Cartoon Sam's "unalive" jokes, Retro Sam speaking only in recycled classic one-liners, and a script that seems to mock the original Sam. A couple of reviewers, one of them positive, suggest turning off the subtitles and voices. A minority enjoy the cast, especially Broken Sam and Alien Sam, and find some of the character arcs charming.

Bugs are reported across every playtime group, and they cost more in a roguelite where a run takes 45 to 60 minutes. Players report crashes (including at the final boss), falling through floors and into endless voids, doors and objectives that fail to trigger, bosses going invulnerable or clipping through the floor, loot stuck in walls, clients unable to see or pick up armor, keybinds not working, and screen filters that stick for a whole level. A disconnect or crash cannot be rejoined, so all progress from that run is lost. A few players, including one on Linux, report no problems at all.

Even roguelite fans call the build side thin. Level-up picks are mostly small percentage bonuses ("the typical, barely-noticeable '3% more whatever' stuff," one player writes) or oddly conditional ones, such as better aim while standing still or airborne. Chest weapons are small stat shuffles players often skip, and there are few real synergies. Enemy placements in each arena are fixed rather than randomized, so runs soon feel scripted. Comparisons to Gunfire Reborn, Roboquest, Deadzone Rogue and Risk of Rain rarely favor Shatterverse. The trinket set bonuses and weapon affixes get some credit from players who reached later acts.

Players report low frame rates and Unreal Engine stutter for how simple the game looks (40 to 70 fps on RTX 4090- and 5080-class hardware, shader compiles before levels), no DLSS or FSR, and defaults of 50% 3D resolution and mouse smoothing. Some say it ran smoothly at high frame rates, even on older PCs and handhelds.

Multiplayer is peer-to-peer, and players outside good connections to the host describe rubber-banding, bad hit registration and desyncs. One player in Asia says online play there is effectively unusable. Others could not find matches at all, were locked out of matchmaking after a few tries, or were thrown back to the lobby while loading. Forced open mic with no push-to-talk and no text chat come up several times. One player's tip: switching who hosts can fix the lag.

Players count five Sams, six biomes, a handful of arenas per biome, a small enemy roster drawn mostly from The First Encounter, and a few bosses, with some levels reused in reverse. A couple say they had seen everything within a few hours ("4 hours in and everything is bleeding together"). Requests for more Sams, biomes, enemies, an endless mode and a survival mode are common, even in positive reviews.

Some players find Act 1 a slow, easy tutorial and Act 3 a wall of Kleer and Kamikaze spam with a mandatory run modifier that can wreck a build. Several describe solo play as underpowered: you get one auto-revive per level, and some Sams lack any healing. Meanwhile co-op boss health scales up sharply. Players with 10 or more hours raise difficulty more often than others. A few veterans disagree and call the hardest mode a skill check, while a couple ask for the modifiers to be optional and for better solo tuning.

Several players who took part in the closed and open playtests say bugs and requests they reported were never fixed, and some feel the release tuning (slower progression, required modifiers, harsher co-op scaling) made it worse than the playtest. A few testers disagree and say the release improved on the betas.

Health comes mainly from melee finishers, which players find awkward in crowds (you must hold your aim on the target) and useless against bosses that spawn no adds. Infinite ammo with reloads and overheating is seen by purists as removing the series' weapon-switching strategy.

With runs lasting 45 to 60 minutes, players want to be able to quit and resume a run, and to rejoin after a crash or disconnect. A few complain about losing all run progress when the host leaves.

A large weapon grid covers much of the screen on every weapon swap. Players also ask for HUD scaling, a toggle for NETRICSA's voice, toggle aim, ADS sensitivity, and fixes for non-English keyboard bindings showing blank.