Serious Sam 3: BFE

About Serious Sam 3: BFE

Serious Sam 3: BFE is a first-person shooter from Croteam, released in 2011. It’s a chaotic, over-the-top prequel where you play as Sam Stone battling Mental’s alien armies in a last-ditch effort to save Earth. Set in a mix of ancient Egypt and sci-fi ruins, the game leans into campy humor and relentless gunplay. Devolver Digital published it across PS3, PC, Xbox 360, and later Linux/Mac. The core loop is straightforward: sprint, shoot, repeat. It’s a love letter to old-school shooters, with co-op splitscreen and a focus on brute force over stealth. If you miss the days of hordes of enemies and cartoonish explosions, this is your jam.

Gameplay

The game is all about aggressive, fast-paced combat. You’ll run into waves of aliens, dinosaurs, and robots, then unleash a arsenal of shotguns, plasma cannons, and rocket launchers. Each mission has you clearing rooms, defending positions, or racing through tombs. The split-screen co-op (up to 4 players) is a standout feature, letting friends join your chaos. Controls are tight but simplistic, move, aim, fire. The campaign has you switching between locations like pyramids and deserts, with occasional puzzle breaks to open doors. Multiplayer modes include deathmatch and team-based battles. The pacing never lets up, but the repetitive enemy AI and basic level design can grow stale after a few hours.

What Players Think

PlayPile users rate it 6.8/10, with 70.4/100 on IGDB from 177 reviews. 19.3% of players complete achievements, with 2.3% unlocking the rarest “Reindeer Hunter” (killing a specific enemy type). Average playtime is 8 hours, and 32% finish the story. Community moods lean mixed: 40% call it a “nostalgic blast,” 25% gripe about dated graphics, and 35% praise the “pure action.” One user wrote, “It’s like 2005 in a good way,” while another called it “a fun but shallow distraction.” The multiplayer sees low engagement, with only 11% of players unlocking co-op achievements.

PlayPile's Take

Serious Sam 3 is best for fans of retro shooters who enjoy mindless carnage. At its 2011 launch price of $20, it felt overpriced given its 8-hour campaign. Today, it’s a $10 curiosity for those who miss split-screen co-op. The 62 achievements offer decent replay value, but the game’s dated visuals and repetitive design limit its longevity. It’s not a modern classic, but if you want to relive the glory days of arcade-style shooting without thinking too hard, this is a solid pick.

Storyline

Prior to AD 2060, humanity had slowly begun uncovering artifacts and ruins left behind in ancient times by the Sirians, the famous and long-thought extinct race from the place of Sirius. Unfortunately, Mental has chosen this time to turn his attention upon Earth. He dispatches his space fleet carrying his endless hordes to attack Earth, leading a three-year conquest that has humanity driven almost to the point of extinction. In a last-ditch effort, the survivors turn to the Time-Lock, a recently excavated device supposedly capable of granting a single person the ability of time travel via an inter-dimensional portal. Through it, that person could reach a pivotal point in time and alter events of the past. But as the device lies dormant, they must first discover a means to turn it on. Sam "Serious" Stone, part of the Earth Defense force, is dispatched with a detachment of soldiers in the Alpha team to modern Egypt, which is occupied by Mental's alien army. Their original mission is to recon, rendezvous, and extract Bravo team who are protecting Dr Stein, a scientist carrying hieroglyphics believed to contain instructions for powering up the Time-Lock. Sam's insertion goes haywire as his chopper is shot down and both teams are quickly wiped out. However, he is able to recover the hieroglyphics from Stein's phone in the museum and transmit them to headquarters. Deciphering indicates there is a hidden Sirian chamber below the Great Pyramid. Sam clears himself a path to a tunnel underneath the Sphinx and descends into the Pyramid. He not only discovers the hidden chamber but recovers crucial information and a bracelet device from the remains of what might have been Earth's last Sirian. In order to power the Time-Lock, two dormant but incredibly powerful plasma-energy generators need to be activated. Hellfire from Charlie team inserts Sam to bring both online. This is slowly accomplished and Team Charlie is staged to enter the Time-Lock. Sam is relieved of duty and in the process of being extracted from Cairo, but is shot down once again and is forced to flee towards the lost ruins of Nubia. Traversing through more tombs, Sam gets back in touch with Hellfire and learns that Mental's forces have overrun the human military and killed them all shortly before dying herself. Now determined to finish what the Sirians has started, Sam vows to use the Time-Lock himself and kill Mental in the past before he can destroy humanity in the present. Sam then makes one last travel to Hatshepsut Temple, where the Time-Lock is located. The struggle to this destination ends with Sam killing Ugh-Zan IV. With Ugh-Zan IV dead, the Time-Lock then activates, displaying an inter-dimensional portal to 3000 B.C., the timeline where the Sirians became extinct. Sam calls Mental on Stein's phone and is answered by Mental's daughter, Judy. She tells him that Mental is planning to "moon" him. Sam notices the Moon plummeting rapidly within Earth's atmosphere and escapes through the Time-Lock to 3000 B.C. as the Moon impacts Earth, destroying the planet.