Serious Sam: Shatterverse Guides

Serious Sam: Shatterverse is out. Behaviour Interactive shipped the 1–5 player co-op roguelite FPS on August 31, 2026 for Steam (app 2067210), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox Cloud Gaming, with Devolver Digital publishing and Croteam’s blessing on the license. This hub is the index for every walkthrough on the wiki. If you paid the $19.99 premium price and want to spend Catalyst Orbs on the right things, start here and branch into the ten child guides below.

A run lasts about 45 minutes: three biomes, three arenas each, and a lieutenant on the third arena of every biome. You drop in with Retro Sam, a Desert Eagle, a shotgun, and the M1A2 Thompson. Ammo is unlimited but every gun still reloads, and the minigun and laser overheat. Kills feed XP. Each level-up offers three Intel discs, the level cap is 10, and death wipes those boons. Permanent progress lives in Catalyst Orbs. Difficulties unlock in order: Serious, then Mental, then Shattered. There is no battle pass and no microtransactions.

Use the pages below in the order that matches your problem. New players should clear one Serious run before they chase Mental. Squads should read co-op before they mix five kits. Anyone stuck on a lieutenant should open the boss page instead of buying another gun at random.

First hour and the run loop

The getting started guide is the first-hour loop: hub, shop, Codex discoveries, what to buy with your first 100–150 Orbs, and why Serious is the only difficulty you should queue until a full clear exists. It also covers healing (melee execute first, vials and vending machines second) and the dash / double jump / grapple kit that keeps you alive when Gnaars and Kamikazes fill the arena. If you bounced off the first biome, that page is the reset, not another random modifier.

Movement, binds, and backpedal

Shatterverse still plays like a classic arena shooter even though it runs on Unreal Engine 5. You strafe, you backpedal, you reload between packs, and you dash through telegraphs instead of tanking them. The controls guide lists keyboard, mouse, and controller defaults for move, fire, dash, melee execute, ultimate, reload, and weapon swap, plus why a high mouse sensitivity and a short dash bind matter more than a new pistol skin. Read it before you blame the Lava Golem for a missed execute.

Co-op, cross-play, and the five Sams

The game supports one to five players, peer-to-peer, with day-one cross-play across Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox. Solo and offline are fully supported; co-op is optional, not a gate. The co-op guide covers lobbies, revives, host duty, and how to spread the five kits so you are not running five Retro Sams into Kleer God. For kit details, jump from there to the Sam roster or the Sam tier list.

Lieutenants, guns, and Intel discs

Mental’s five lieutenants — Lava Golem, Reptiloid Highlander, Kleer God, Rogue NETRICSA, and Inverse Sam — sit on the third arena of each biome. They are not equal. The boss guide is a per-fight plan and an honest note that launch players called several of these encounters uneven. Bring the right gun from the weapons guide (starter trio, ranks, ~50 affixes, Orb gates on the classics) and a disc package from the builds and boons guide instead of stacking raw healing three times in a row. The weapon tier list is the short version of which drops to keep.

Biomes, hordes, and the difficulty ladder

The nine-arena loop is not a single map. The biomes and anomalies page covers jungles, temples, castles, snow, lava, challenge rooms, eyeball secrets, and the Act II modifiers that ban backpedal or flip you into third person. The enemies guide is the horde desk: Gnaars, Kleers, Beheaded packs, fire-immune Lava Golems, and why elite reskins eat magazines. The difficulty guide is why Serious is the only queue until a full clear exists, and how Mental and Shattered actually unlock. Achievement hunters should then open the achievements list.

Launch-week verdict and extras

Steam sat Mixed at launch, about 47% positive from roughly 301 reviews. The common complaints are repetition, gated classic guns, and those uneven bosses. The common praise is five-player chaos, run modifiers, and Mental / Shattered once the roster is unlocked. The launch review is the buyer’s page, not a patch dump. For what shipped on day one, open launch notes. For PC specs, open system requirements. The wiki index lists every hub if you arrived from search and need a different door.

If you only click one child page from this hub, make it Getting Started and play one Serious clear before you spend Orbs on a Sam you have not tested.