Serious Sam's Bogus Detour

Development and release

Crackshell, a Swedish indie studio made up of former Overkill Software employees, created Serious Sam's Bogus Detour. The idea started when designer Jochum Skoglund hid a Beheaded Kamikaze from the Serious Sam series as an easter egg in a 2014 Hammerwatch expansion. He then reached out to Croteam CEO Roman Ribarić through shared contacts. Ribarić, who had played Hammerwatch, gave Crackshell permission to use Serious Sam assets. After discussing a full game, Skoglund and an artist built a tech demo called "2D, Seriously?" (also considered "Serious Top-Down" and "Serious Sam 2D"). Ribarić liked it and offered a contract. Crackshell originally planned to self-publish but later teamed up with Devolver Digital. The game was announced in April 2017 and launched for Linux and Windows that June.

Reception

Serious Sam's Bogus Detour received generally favorable reviews, with a Metacritic weighted average of 76/100 based on twelve critic reviews. Critics praised the translation of the Serious Sam series to the twin-stick shooter genre, with James Cunningham of Hardcore Gamer calling it a "perfect" translation. Clotaire Jacquier of Jeuxvideo.com felt the top-down view complemented core series elements, and Enrique Garcia of Vandal stated the game respected all common elements of a Serious Sam game.

In a 2020 retrospective, Jonathan Kaharl of Hardcore Gaming 101 called it "easily the best of the Serious Sam spin-offs". The pixel art was lauded as "gorgeous" by Cunningham and a "work of art" by Jose A. Rodríguez of IGN Spain. Garcia liked the retro-style visuals, and Jacquier found the graphical and musical presentation solid. The difficulty, exploration rewards, and multiplayer were noted positively, though Jacquier was disappointed by the scarcity of online players.

The progression system received mixed responses: Rodríguez considered it the best part, while Jacquier criticized it as unclear and laborious. Some irritation was noted with long distances across empty areas and the small player character causing disorientation with many on-screen elements. The game sold poorly and had not recouped its development costs by December 2017. In March 2018, the Bulgarian cracker Voksi, who had tested the beta version, created a sanctioned build for piracy distributed through his forum Revolt, with a note asking players to buy the game to support the developers.