Featured Mod - Green Planet
Heya folks, it's been a while since the last Featured Mod article, but recently there have been some nice creations in the Workshop, so let's put the spotlight on them. Today we are checking out Green Planet! If you're itching for more classic, run and gun action, it is time to l
Heya folks, it's been a while since the last Featured Mod article, but recently there have been some nice creations in the Workshop, so let's put the spotlight on them. Today we are checking out Green Planet!
If you're itching for more classic, run and gun action, it is time to load up your minigun and head to the exotic jungles of the Green Planet! Positioned as a continuation of The Second Encounter, this custom campaign throws Sam headfirst into an unexplored, mysterious world. Fate hasn't been kind, but the scenery sure is! The map looks absolutely gorgeous, boasting lush, vibrant jungle environments that provide a beautiful contrast to the absolute chaos you'll be causing.
This isn't just a quick skirmish, it’s a meaty, full-length adventure packed with exploration, secrets, and massive arenas that perfectly capture that beloved Serious Sam pacing. To elevate the experience even further, the entire campaign is backed by an incredible custom soundtrack composed specifically for the map, making the atmosphere as immersive as it is deadly.
As you balance taking in the gorgeous scenery and rocking out to the new tracks while surviving overwhelming odds, you'll quickly notice you aren't just fighting the classic horde. The creator has ported in enemy cameos straight from Serious Sam 4 and Siberian Mayhem to keep the combat loop fresh and unpredictable. Just make sure you save your cannonballs and heavy ammo for the finale, because the campaign caps off with a totally unique, custom boss fight that will truly put your dodging skills to the test. Make sure to subscribe to Green Planet and give it a ride! [dynamiclink href="https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3752150519"][/dynamiclink]
And now, we are heading back down into the basement chat to welcome the creator behind this lush jungle bloodbath to share a few behind the scenes comments!
BASEMENT CHATS WITH YASEN
⚪Hey Alfeos, glad to have you in the basement chat! Let's start with your beginnings. When did you first start using the Serious Editor and creating content for Serious Sam, and how did that journey ultimately lead you to creating Green Planet?
Hey Yasen! Glad to be here in the basement! I’ve been a massive Serious Sam fan for over 25 years. Back in the early 2000s, my dad brought home the very first computer for our family, along with a bunch of game discs. One specific cover immediately caught my eye it had that iconic grinning bomb logo and a fearless hero fighting off a massive horde of aliens. As a 7-year-old kid, it completely blew my mind. The explosive mix of massive ancient temples, high-tech weaponry, sci-fi magic, and that incredible soundtrack was both terrifying and absolutely mesmerizing. I fell in love with the game instantly. I loved drawing back then, so I dedicated tons of my childhood sketches to Serious Sam. I actually still have that archive of drawings hidden somewhere!
My modding journey started right after that, when I randomly discovered the map and model editor right in the game's installation folder. At the time, there were no video tutorials or online guides just a basic Help file, and I didn't even have a stable internet connection. Everything was learned through pure trial and error, just clicking around and seeing what happens. Later, when I finally got a stable internet connection, I started storming forums like Sam3dgamer.ru and Seriously to find mods and new information. Sam3dgamer was a real haven for many beginner Russian modders, and later most of us moved to SeriousSite.ru. Back then, I made a lot of projects for the classic Serious Sam, but nobody ever saw them except my close friends. I was just creating them for myself, purely for the fun of it.
Much later, I got more seriously and deeply involved in modding and studied some different game editors, mostly for old-school shooters. I published several projects in the Steam Workshop for Serious Sam and Half-Life 2, and I still have a project for ID Tech in development. Some of the projects I’ve released have become quite popular.
Fun fact: Green Planet is my first publicly released Serious Sam map ever!
SeriousSite.ru is well-known for its annual mapping contests. They always have unique themes, attract incredibly talented creators, and give birth to amazing community projects. By that time, I already had solid experience with the Serious Sam Fusion editor, had released a few smaller projects, and was working on porting enemies from Serious Sam 4. I really wanted to showcase them on a beautiful map. When one of the contests started, I already had a rough terrain prototype, early versions of those SS4 enemy ports, assets from Serious Sam: The Last Hope, and a ton of ideas. The contest theme allowed me to fully unleash my creativity, so, filled with optimism, I signed up for the very first mapping competition of my life.
⚪Wait, this is your first publicly released Serious Sam map?! That is incredibly impressive given the quality and scale. You mentioned the contest theme let you unleash your creativity and you incorporated assets from The Last Hope. The resulting visuals are stunning, that lush, vibrant jungle is such a great contrast to the usual deserts and courtyards. What was the specific inspiration for this green aesthetic, and what was the hardest part about getting that dense jungle vibe just right in the editor?
Thanks! I wanted to create a map in a unique setting inspired by the planet Shaanti and Khmer Empire. Since this was my first publicly released map ever, I designed it as a love letter to the entire Serious Sam franchise. It reflects my personal vision of what makes this series so special: massive ancient temples built amidst picturesque landscapes, the thrill of adventure, exploring ancient secrets, signature humor, intense arena battles with waves of enemies, and giant bosses. I’m probably one of the few players who actually reads every single Netricsa entry! So, it was crucial for me that Green Planet tells an engaging story that naturally fits into the game's official lore. Knowing the development history of Serious Sam, I decided to continue Sam’s journey to Mental right after the events of The Second Encounter. I based the story on Croteam's early design concepts, where Sam was supposed to visit several planets on his way to Mental, with the Green Planet being his very first stop.
The development process was incredibly intense. I spent several months completely buried in work, especially as the contest deadline approached. I’m a perfectionist, so I refused to cut corners or drop features just because they were hard to implement.
Fortunately, I had a Secret Weapon. A force so powerful it kept me going through the toughest times. I’m talking, of course, about my wife. She didn’t just tolerate my endless nights at the PC she basically became my Executive Producer and Co-developer. She helped with brainstorming ideas, picking the right music tracks, and spent hours playtesting the map for bugs. She kept me fed, supervised my sanity, and made sure the project crossed the finish line. Every indie studio needs a partner like her!
In terms of visuals, my main source of inspiration for the ancient architecture came from studying traditional Indian and Khmer Empire designs. The first challenge I encountered during development was the assets. Many models from The Last Hope were optimized specifically for the VR version. They lacked geometry on the back sides, had low-res textures. I had to manually fix dozens of assets in Blender, add the missing geometry, upscale textures, and even model some things completely from scratch. Fun fact: the TLH asset pack didn't even include basic doors! Fixing all of this ate up a ton of precious time, but looking at the final visuals, I don't regret a single second spent on it. Even these assets weren't enough to create everything I had in mind. I made the rest myself or used assets from Scans Factory and the Minneapolis Institute of Art.
The second major headache was Lua scripting. I wanted to create something completely unique for Serious Sam Fusion and surprise players with new mechanics and fully functional SS4 enemies. That drained so much of my energy and required a deep dive into complex Lua scripting and endless playtesting that at one point I almost burned out and wanted to give up. But my Executive Producer wouldn't let me quit. Let’s not dwell on the dark times, the main thing is that it works flawlessly now!
⚪Huge shout out to your Executive Producer! Having that kind of support is incredible.. The SS4 enemies fit so seamlessly into the classic gameplay loop that it feels like they were always meant to be there. Since you mentioned creating new mechanics and your love for the series giant bosses, we have to talk about the finale. Designing a brand new custom boss encounter is a massive undertaking. What was your approach to creating a unique final battle that really puts a veteran player's dodging skills to the test?
When designing the final boss encounter, my main goal was to capture that epic, old-school Serious Sam scale while bringing something fresh to the table mechanic-wise. I wanted a fight that forces players to stay constantly on the move, reading the arena and managing enemy waves, rather than just mindlessly holding down the fire button. But the real challenge wasn't just making the boss tough for a single player it was making the whole thing work flawlessly in co-op mode. Preparing the project for the co-op mode and releasing to the Steam Workshop required a massive round of heavy polishing and serious optimization. Given the technical complexity of the map and the unique mechanics, balancing and scripting the co-op support was incredibly tough. It took an extra few months of hard work and endless testing just to make sure the netcode and Lua scripts wouldn't break when multiple players start dodging projectiles simultaneously! I won't bore you with any more technical headaches.
⚪Now that Green Planet is out in the wild and you've survived the technical trenches, what does the future hold? Can we expect more Serious Sam creations down the line, or is your Executive Producer making you take a well-deserved vacation first? Haha, you nailed it! Yes, my Executive Producer is demanding some well-deserved attention now, so I have to step away from the editor and focus on real-life tasks and family for a bit. My vacation was just the first phase of my "producer-mandated" recovery plan! But looking further into the future, the modding ideas are definitely still there. I am planning to release an update for my Serious Sam 4 Enemies pack down the line to fix a few remaining issues. More importantly, I’m actually working on a sequel to Green Planet! Spoiler alert: Sam didn't quite manage to escape the planet just yet, so his journey there is definitely not over. However, due to some current life circumstances, I have to put my active modding projects on a temporary pause for a while.
⚪To wrap things up, the floor is yours. I know a project of this massive scale takes a village to get over the finish line, so who would you like to shout out, and do you have any final words for the community before they drop onto the Green Planet?
this project wouldn't be possible without the community. I just want to say a massive thank you to some wonderful people whose knowledge, help, and feedback were absolutely essential in getting this polished and released. Massive thanks to: Riba4ok13, Cyborg, YANexus, Kolzar, HoBu4oK, other1 and EFFECT OF PARASHA. You guys rock! And a special thanks to composer Senmuth (Valery Androsov) for providing the incredible atmospheric music! ⚪Thank you so much for taking the time to share all this behind the scenes insight, Alfeos! It's been an absolute blast having you in the basement chat.
Hey everyone! It's been a while since our last featured mod article, so today I’m excited to share an incredible mod that faithfully recreates Serious Sam 2’s versus deathmatch in Serious Sam Fusion.
This mod brings all four of the original Serious Sam 2 maps into the Fusion engine, along with nine additional maps from the latest 2.090 update. And best of all, you get to enjoy it without problematic netcode!
The included maps are:
Hello everyone! It's been a while since the last “Featured Mod”, but I’m sure you’ve been handling the wait well thanks to the juicy Talos 2 reveal that you’ve got! Now it's time to get serious as in this episode we are featuring another great community campaign: “Crystal Impact!”
Crystal Impact is a collaboration project of 17 different mappers from the Slavic Serious Sam 
It's time to play some Tennis, Serious Sam style!
The 7Smoke Tennis project was the first collaboration project of this kind in the Serious Sam community where several mappers come together to create a unique Serious Sam experience. Each map has been made by a different mapper, picking up where the last map left off (passing it to each other just like a tennis ball!), thus creating great variety in map style and level pacing.
There are a total of 6 Tennis Projects, all of them organized by none other than Noam 2000!
The first 3 tennis projects were on a smaller scale, with Tennis 1 and 2 had six participants and Tennis 3 having four, with all rounds released in a span of 2 months between each other.
Tennis 4 in 2016 is where things started expanding, with 14 mappers working on the project. The campaign now had a whole thoughtfully fleshed-out story, and more quality control was being done on the levels. The story takes place in an alternate timeline where Earth is destroyed by one of Mental's elite commanders: "Solgar", as Serious Sam chases him across the galaxy to exact his revenge. It was the first tennis project to feature a cast of voice actors, with one of them being John J Dick himself, playing the role of Serious Sam!
After one year break from Tennis, in the Summer of 2017, Noam opened the registrations for the 7Smoke Tennis Project 2018! Due to 20 participants applying for it, Noam took the decision to split the project into 2 separate campaigns: the 7Smoke Tennis Project Blue and Project Red, with each one of them having 10 modders.
The Tennis Blue campaign is more heavily focused on the battles and the custom range of heavy artillery with which the player can blast through the forty different enemy types including bosses!
Traverse through desolated fortresses, frozen caverns, and advanced technological strongholds - to name a few. As you travel through these domains, searching for its hidden secrets, its inhabitants will come into play - a fully voice-acted cast of characters serve to weave a story about a forsaken realm burnt by a devious tyrant and his warriors, and the player character's journey to carry the legacy of those who have met with an unfortunate fate. And to make things even spicier, in this mod, your choices matter and lead to different endings.
While not a prequel or sequel to its Blue sibling, Tennis Red has a larger focus on the story and an overarching narrative. The year is 2165, and thanks to ancient intervention, the reach, power, and influence of the human race across the galaxy have become much greater than anyone could have imagined.
Red edition’s story takes place in three distinct locations in three different chapters:
Hello and welcome to the first Featured Mod episode for 2023!
In today’s episode, we won't highlight a single map, but a whole package of them that we recommend you guys to check out. Today we are highlighting a contest organized by 
Welcome to the Christmas episode of "Featured Mod" series!
Today we will spotlight Spy's Cr3ed's Christmas themed campaign: "Winter Wonderland"!
Winter Wonderland takes place in an alternate timeline where Serious Sam did not manage to find the Holy Grail so he had to continue his adventures through the snowy world of Winter Wonderland.
The campaign has just been updated this Winter, getting many quality of life improvements such as visual updates, enhanced boss fights, and some of the most known bugs and requested changes
We highly recommend this Christmas campaign and we advise you to enjoy it with some milk and cookies. You can also call your friends for some co-op mayhem!
As always, don’t forget to read the interview with Spy's Cr3ed in which he shares his experience with the creation of the campaign and his struggles from being a beginner modder to a well established veteran now.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! See you in 2023 with more "Featured Mod" articles!
Link to the campaign: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2811668527
Hello in another Featured Mod episode! Today we are featuring Thanadrax's survival map "Blood Sugar". Make no mistake, as this is no ordinary survival map. It works as a rogue lite, exploration project. The players are free to explore, do quests and fight bosses in a pace of their desire.
The progression goes through 11 tiers consisting of 4 quests each until the player conquers the whole island! There are 100 quests and 31 bosses you get to enjoy. It is possible to beat this survival map. The reason for it being a survival map and not a campaign one is, as mentioned before, to have a rogue lite feeling to it and the players to value their lifes.
Make sure to check the level and the rest of Thana's survival map collections. Also do not forget to read the Basement Chat with Yasen, its a pretty good one!
Link to mod: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2342502363
Hello everyone! It’s been a while since the last featured mod article, but I’m sure Serious Sam Siberian Mayhem has been keeping you occupied with some serious action.
Let's escape the heatwaves and take ourselves to the cold mountains in ArtemPredator’s Serious Sam Fusion campaign- “Operation Frostbite"
The campaign's storyline is easy to follow- you are in Siberia looking for commander Borok, one of Mental's most dangerous commanders. All you have to do is find him and kill him, as simple as that. The gameplay however spices things up a little bit more as the map pack includes a handful of exclusive new custom weapons such as the "Blaster" rifle and some new toys for you to play with, like a battle mech! Have I mentioned that this campaign is for Serious Sam Fusion?
This mod is definitely worth checking out, give it a shot by subscribing here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2590872471
Hi Everyone,
I have explosive Serious Sam news to share with you. Serious Sam: Kamikaze Attack! has launched on Steam! The game was first released 10 years ago on mobile as a part of the Serious Sam indie series, but over time the game slowly disappeared from the stores. As the game’s developer it was painful to see it fade away. Fans have been sending in requests to keep the game alive and it was haunting me that I couldn’t revive the game until now. I’ll finally be able to rest peacefully knowing the hordes of headless kamikazes are back at their jobs of chasing down Serious Sam.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1623420/Serious_Sam_Kamikaze_Attack/
It’s an honor to bring Serious Sam: Kamikaze Attack! to Steam for you to play. If you have any questions or want to chat about the game please feel free to post in the game’s community group or join Croteam’s Discord server.
Thanks for playing!
Brad Johnson
Be-Rad Entertainment
[previewyoutube=rOvbHwicQdU;full][/previewyoutube]
Hi everyone! It’s been a while since we last featured a mod on these here pages, but times are tough. The pandemic, a new game release (check out Serious Sam 4 if you haven’t already, my guy), and a bunch of earthquakes all had an impact on what's happening in and around Croteam. However, we haven’t forgotten about our great modding community or the players who enjoy them. It just so happens that another cool mod has landed on the Serious Sam Fusion Workshop today, and what makes that one special is that I’m a playable character.
All jokes aside, Seriously Retro: Karnak 1996 is an absolutely amazing total conversion mod which takes you back in time. Sam is super low-poly again, and he’s revisiting his old friends in the Karnak Temple. As the authors say, the mod brings a bunch of changes to the original, which include reworked battles, secrets, and traps, as well as environments. The mod is even ready for VR!
Check out this cool Seriously Retro - Karnak 1996 trailer below, then grab your mice or put on your VR headsets, and get shootin’.
[previewyoutube=wL0gzOupRZ8;full][/previewyoutube]
For more info on the mod, please visit Seriously Retro - Karnak 1996 on Steam Workshop.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2429128518
With that being said, we’d like to take this chance to introduce to you a brand new section we like to call 
Hey everyone!
I'm pretty sure many of you have already seen what's up by today, but here's a breakdown.
Serious Sam 4 is launching this August, and pre-orders are open now. You can get your hands on a Standard and Digital Deluxe editions with cool bonuses. The store page has a ton of new info and some new screenshots, so check it out!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/257420/Serious_Sam_4
We have released a cinematic trailer, as well as a few behind the scenes videos that show some actual gameplay. Both are listed below.
[previewyoutube=qhBUvRhaA4U;full][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube=6C8kJ78H_Qs;full][/previewyoutube]
Love you all! Byeeee.
All of us at Croteam wish you have a great Winter break.
Happy Holidays and have a great New Year. 2020 is about to get Serious!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yvz1-pWeq7I
Hey everyone! By now, we really hope you played through Red Day: Episode One, an amazing mod that was the star of our first Mod Feature back in May. We also believe it’s about time for another one. We’ve played some of them recently and decided that summertime is perfect to play through Plastic Patrol 2: Replastered. This custom campaign mode tells the story about the Green Army and a fight to save their home.
Some of the highlights of this really cool mod include six unique maps that you can play through solo or with friends, along with appropriate weapon mods, enemies and everything you’d expect from such a mod. There’s even a decent plane mission, something we’d never expect from a Serious Sam mod.
The mod was made by the powerful Pan, with help by Mauritsio, UrbanDeHuman, and Soulmyr, so we’re sending massive props their way.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1497358886
NOTE: To play the mod you'll need to own SSHD: The First Encounter, SSHD: The Second Encounter and SS3: BFE.
Are you making Serious Sam or The Talos Principle mods yourself? Let us know, we'd love to check them out.
For all things Serious Sam hit Mr. Stone up on 
Hey everyone! Check out this epic Serious Sam Fusion mod – Red Day: Episode One. It's a custom campaign mod telling a story about Sam's war against the Mental forces in Russia.
The highlight of this Serious Sam Fusion mod is a three-part, 50-minute long campaign set in a typical Russian provincial city Muhogradsk. The Red Day campaing is full of chaos and crazy arena-style action spaning over three custom levels, with cutscenes and everything you'd expect from a full-blown campaign. Oh, and there's a brand new soundtrack, as well so make sure you check it out on Steam and let us know what you think.
Massive thanks to the powerful Dead_Kadath for making this mod happen.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1511106169
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ6DMrbd5wk
NOTE: To play the mod you'll need to own SSHD: The First Encounter, SSHD: The Second Encounter, Legend of the Beast, SS3: BFE and SS3: BFE Jewel of the Nile.
Our community has always been big on modifying Serious Sam and The Talos Principle to their liking, so we thought it's long overdue giving them mad props for all the creative work they do. This is why we have decided to periodically feature some of those mods on our channels and get more people in on the action.
Are you making Serious Sam or The Talos Principle mods yourself? Let us know, we'd love to check them out.
For all things Serious Sam hit Mr. Stone up on 
Hey everyone! It's that time of the year again, the time of Fusion updates. This time, we're bringing to you a relatively small update focusing mostly on bug fixes and tweaks, rather than new features, engines and other huge changes that were introduced several months ago.
Guided by our community we have made huge progress in providing you with a stable, up-to-date Serious Sam experience, and Fusion is at its peak right now. It's THE way to play all supported Serious Sam games.
The changelog is below:
Serious Sam is 18 years old today. It was on March 21st, 2001 that Serious Sam: The First Encounter hit the shelves. Quite literally, as digital distribution was still a distant future back then.
We were young, super passionate and, after a successful tech test launched in the summer of 2000, confident that Serious Sam would resonate well with the gaming community. Turns out, we were right. Serious Sam: The First Encounter caused quite a stir in the gaming community, won dozens of awards (including Gamespot's Game of the Year) and laid the foundation of everything Croteam is today.
Fast forward 18 years later and Serious Sam got numerous sequels, spin-offs and remasters on most platforms. Hell, we even sent Sam to virtual reality and as with everything else - had tons of fun doing so.
Even though he's 18 years old (and legally allowed to buy a beer here in Croatia, finally), Sam's still going strong and we can't wait to take you on another journey of chaos and mayhem with Serious Sam 4.
Until then, we'll raise a glass (of aforementioned beer) in Sam's name and celebrate all of you for being Seriously awesome. Whether you've been demolishing hordes of aliens since day one or just joined our community – we thank you for supporting us from the bottom of our hearts!
BOOM GOES THE ALIEN!